A mirror for the crowds: the mediated terrain of political leadership in post-revolutionary Iran

This article examines crowds, leaders, and media after the 1979 Revolution of Iran. It focuses on media that contests hegemonic power by acting as a "guide" for an otherwise "leaderless movement," especially in contexts where conventional "guides" are illegitimate or absent. It argues that such media reveals the partisan reality of political order obscured by the myth of leadership, the idea that the presence of a leader implies a political order. I focus on International Women's Day 1979 when crowds protesting the Ayatollah Khomeini's decision to enforce the mandatory veil were caught in a paradox: as subjects of history and objects of representation. With focus on the non-partisan newspaper Ayandegan, the article shows how the crowds, objects of representation, became political subjects, as potential guides. Despite its efforts to remain neutral, Ayandegan became partisan when it unwittingly challenged the "charismatic leader" by giving presence to the partisan crowds. The mediated relation between leader and led on 8 March 1979 and after is instructive for our understanding of the role media can play in leaderless movements.