Objective: Elections, as a fundamental component of democratic systems, facilitate the circulation and participation of political elites in governance. The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has consistently affirmed its commitment to republicanism alongside its Islamic identity. Consequently, elections have emerged as a strategic arena for adversarial engagement by foreign media actors seeking to influence political outcomes. This study investigates the discourse and ideological orientation of the *Iran International* network concerning Iran’s 2024 elections for the Assembly of Experts and the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
Methods: This research is grounded in critical discourse analysis and employs a hybrid analytical framework integrating Van Dijk’s three-dimensional model with the Laclau and Mouffe theory of discourse. A corpus of 229 news items published on the *Iran International* website between January 21 and March 1, 2024, was analyzed. The analysis accounted for the principle of ideological polarization and the broader socio-political context of the texts. Discourse signifiers were identified through qualitative analysis of the dataset using MAXQDA software.
Results: As in recent electoral cycles, two opposing discursive formations—namely, “maximum participation” and “election boycott”—dominated the discursive landscape. Iran International emerged as a proponent of the boycott discourse, seeking to suppress voter turnout through a range of strategies: foregrounding the country’s deteriorating economic conditions; amplifying internal rifts among political factions; fostering voter apathy by delegitimizing the efficacy of electoral participation; exposing financial corruption among state officials; representing the IRI as a securitized and repressive regime; and marginalizing moderate and reformist political currents. Through these mechanisms, the network constructed a narrative in which electoral participation was reframed as complicity in perpetuating the status quo and reproducing systemic corruption and violence. Furthermore, by adopting an interactive communication model and flattening hierarchical media flows, “Iran International” positioned itself as a proxy for public grievances, thereby enhancing its symbolic and social capital.
Conclusion: The study’s findings indicate that Iran International’s promotion of the election boycott and its orchestration of discursive polarization are part of a broader strategy aimed at the gradual delegitimization of the IRI and the normalization of regime-change discourse. In doing so, the network not only marginalized moderate and intermediary political forces but also emphasized ethnic and sectarian cleavages, while simultaneously constructing counter-hegemonic narratives in direct opposition to the ideological foundations of the IRI.