This paper studies all published content of different genres related to the wholly month of Ramadan as presented in four national dailies in August and September of 1978. The selection of Ramazan
is due to its importance in promoting, educating and remembering religious terms and concepts in a period of highly politically motivated. An occasion in which some major changes were occurred in Iran since then. It was the month that lead to the largest show of opposition protesters who came to the street following a call from religious leaders for day of Eid al-Fiter on 5th of September. In response to that demonstration the government issued a martial law posing on Tehran which followed in several other cities soon. Many believed that this was an important, critical and politicized month of Ramadan. For such reasons the main research question for the study was “how and in what extent did these newspapers presented issues surrounding the month of Ramadan in 1978?”
The study was conducted by content analysis method. The data were collected based on a designed coding sheet and they were analyzed by using SPSS software. All data arranged in eight different tables including frequencies, cross tabs and correlations among major variables. These national newspapers were Ayandegan (1970-78), Rastakhiz (1975-78), Ettelaat (1925- ) and Kayhan (1941- ) as the total papers that being published during the period in Tehran. These papers were politically different. Rastakhiz was the only party newspaper at the time and was ceased later in November. The other three had independent stand. Two papers published in the morning and two others in the evening.
The findings show that out of 97 copies of four newspapers, there were a total of 4201 piece of religious matters. It means in an average, each paper published about ten items per day with the highest of 70 to lowest of 2 items. There are significant differences among them. Ettela’t published 50.1 percent of the total materials, followed by Kayhan with 43.5, Ayandegan
5 and Rastakhiz 1.3 percent. It means the only political party newspaper published nearly 40 times less than the oldest newspaper. Published articles in such period had three main functions of educational, informative and religious publicity. Findings of this research suggest further study to be down on the role of newspapers in reporting of religious issues during the 1970s prior to the above case study and on a comparative bases with aftermath of the revolutionary events to the present situation in Iran.
Key Concepts: Religion, Ramadan, Iran, Newspapers, 1978