Media representations of Iran and the Iranian ‘we’: the case of the national football team of Iran during the 2022 FIFA World Cup

This study examines how Persian-language media portrayed Iran’s national football team during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, drawing on selected newspapers and digital media. The textual data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis informed by a media-framing approach.Through this analysis, we generated two main themes: ‘Media Framing of the National Team During Political Unrest’, and ‘National Symbols and the Boundaries of Belonging’. Domestic media often highlight traditional expressions of nationalism, such as singing the national anthem and waving the national flag, as markers of national belonging. At the same time, domestic media also referred to Western-based Persian-language outlets, portraying them as emphasizing ignorance of the national symbols as an alternative expression of belonging to Iran. These portrayals reveal how Iranian domestic media represented competing narratives surrounding the national team.The findings show that media framing can actively construct the boundaries between legitimate and contested forms of national belonging in the context of major sporting competitions. The study therefore contributes to broader debates on sport, nationalism, and media framing by showing how national symbols can simultaneously function as resources for unity and as markers of exclusion during periods of political conflict.