Strategic Analysis of the Challenges and Imperatives of Iran’s Media Diplomacy toward Azerbaijan: Expert Perspectives

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the major challenges facing Iran’s media diplomacy toward the Republic of Azerbaijan and to identify the strategic imperatives required to enhance its effectiveness from the perspectives of Iranian experts. The study employed a qualitative, exploratory design. Fifteen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted in Tehran with senior diplomats, Caucasus desk experts, media professionals, political communication scholars, and geopolitical analysts possessing substantial experience in Iran–Azerbaijan relations, South Caucasus affairs, media diplomacy, or strategic communication. Participants were selected through purposive and expert-referral sampling. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis through iterative processes of familiarization, coding, categorization, theme development, review, and interpretation. The findings revealed six overarching themes: fragmentation of media-diplomatic governance, reactive and event-driven communication, weak audience-oriented and localized communication, intensified geopolitical and narrative competition, deficiencies in credibility and digital media capacity, and the need for a strategic, integrated, and sustainable model of media diplomacy. Participants emphasized that Iran’s media diplomacy toward Azerbaijan is constrained by weak interinstitutional coordination, insufficient long-term planning, inadequate audience segmentation, limited high-quality Azerbaijani-language content, delayed responses to emerging narratives, and insufficient professional engagement across digital platforms. The experts also identified the increasing influence of regional and extra-regional actors, geopolitical competition, identity-related narratives, and rapidly changing communication technologies as significant external pressures. Strategic imperatives included establishing an integrated media-diplomacy framework, developing permanent audience-research mechanisms, strengthening Azerbaijani-language and platform-specific communication, improving narrative credibility, institutionalizing crisis communication and media monitoring, engaging credible non-governmental actors, and expanding cultural, academic, economic, and societal communication. The study concludes that strengthening Iran’s media diplomacy toward Azerbaijan requires a transition from fragmented and predominantly reactive communication toward an audience-centered, evidence-based, proactive, digitally capable, and institutionally coordinated model capable of supporting long-term diplomatic engagement and protecting Iran’s strategic interests in the evolving South Caucasus information environment.