English abstract
This study aims to detect the image of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a country, a political system and citizens as perceived by Gulf States journalists through conducting a survery study on a sample of officially registered journalists as being members of the Journalists Associations in Oman and Kuwait. The study is considered one of the descriptive studies that has used the media survey method, relying on the questionnaire tool applied on a sample of 57 jouralists in Oman and 83 in Kuwait respectively. The study concludes a set of results including; Tran 's image is largely positive among respondents, and that Iran is an influential country in the world, and more than half of the sample believe that Iran 's political system is good, and does not pose a threat to the Gulf States. More than half of the respondents believe that the Supreme leader is an important figure among Gulf governments but his decisions do not resolve pending regional issues. The results of the study also indicate that the surveyed journalists believe that the current Tranian President Hassan Rohani performs his political duties better than the previous President Ahmadi Najad and he is mainly behind approval of Iran's nuclear program recently. The majority of the respondents seem sympathetic with the Iranian citizens and respect the Iranian culture and civilization, elaborating on to improve Iran's image in the region. The results indicate that the sample agree that the decade of economic and political agreements with Iran is essential to the Gulf States.
Funthermore the study reveals that more than 90% of the respondents believe that the news from various media followed by newspapers, magazines, talk shows and analytical television programs as well as websites and social networking are responsible for Iran's image formation. Most of the respondents think that there are common elements between Iranian and Arab history. Respondents believe that Western media are destroying Iran 's history and culture in order to achieve gains at the expense of Iran.
The results of the study highlight the adjectives and descriptions frequently used in the labeling of Iran in the Gulf States. The study finally concludes that there is no big difference between Iran 's image among journalists in Oman and Kuwait, The image of Iran among the sample is mostly positive.
