Who’s Controlling the Soleimani and Muhandis Narrative?
Tags: Propaganda, United States, Iran

On January 2nd, 2020, American forces launched an attack that killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. The Popular Mobilization Forces were the first to confirm the deaths on social media, posting on their Twitter account that “PMF has announced the confirmation of the martyrdom of deputy minister of PMF The Hajj Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis and the leader of the Quds Force Qasem Soleimani by an American attack along the road to Baghdad International Airport”. The tweet received over a thousand retweets and nearly six thousand likes within twelve hours.

The First Official Statement on Social Media on Muhandis and Soleimani’s Death

Al Iraqiya, the state broadcaster of the Republic of Iraq, announced the deaths on live TV shortly thereafter, but made no posts on social media until January 3rd. Approximately an hour later Sepah News, the official media outlet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, confirmed the death of Soleimani on Soroush, an Iranian messaging service. This was the first confirmation provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran, although Iranian news services FarsNews, Irna, SaharTV, and HispanTV reported on the event citing the Iraqiya broadcast.

The following 12 hours saw an uncharacteristically strong performance by Iran in controlling the narrative, posting 561 times on the subject, more than any other actor besides the Russian Federation, which published 577 posts (Russia publishes 25X as often as Iran on average). Iran’s posts garnered nearly 300k engagements, more than any actor besides the State of Qatar, with 322k. Iran generated the most posts out of any actor in Farsi, and the second most in English (170), French (26), and Spanish (39). Iran’s posts focused on the contributions of Soleimani and Muhandis, particularly their role in expelling ISIL from Iraq, as well as on promises from Iranian leadership to respond in kind.

Russia published the most on the subject not only overall but also in English (380), French (96), and Spanish (52). Posts targeting a domestic audience were comparatively sparse (7 in Russian, none in minority languages). Russian posts focused on the contributions of Soleimani and Muhandis, while offering the strikes as an example of American aggression. The posts fit into Russia’s most prolific IO campaign of the past two months, which argues that Russia is an ideal world leader and counterweight to a lawless West. The campaign has seen nearly 12,000 posts in the past sixty days.

Hezbollah led in Arabic with 181 posts, beating Qatar (138) and the United States of America (108), and amplifying the messaging from Iran.

The United States’ published 328 posts, the third most from any actor. American accounts found no native language advantage, trailing Russia (388) and Iran (170) in English with 62. Unlike its Russian or Iranian equivalents, media owned by the American state maintains editorially independence, so most posts neither supported nor opposed the attacks.

While the story continues to develop, in the initial half day following the attack, the state media of Iran and its allies has far surpassed that of the United States and allies, in total number, in engagements, and across languages and platforms.