adambohannon

Great article brought to my attention by @zephoria.  Ethan Zuckerman over at the Berkman Center talks about the over emphasis of the impact of social media on the protests in Iran.  Much of the recent hype has suggested social tools like Twitter and Facebook have more or less caused the protests rather than merely serving to intensify them (or, as Zuckerman points out below, just being used as tools for sharing the events).  When I hear the hype I can’t help but think of Edward Said’s ideas on Orientalism and the understanding of “The East” by those in “The West”…that those in “The East” are frozen in time and technologically backward so, you know, “The West” must impart their advanced technologically upon them in order for them to fight for democracy /sarcasm.

- Social media is probably more important as a tool to share the protests with the rest of the world than it is as an organizing tool on the ground.

- Iranians have been accessing social networking sites and blogging platforms despite years of filtering – there’s a cadre of folks who understand how to get around these blocks and are probably teaching others.

- Because so many Iranians use social media tools – often to talk about topics other than politics – they’re a “latent community” that can come to life and have political influence when events on the ground dictate.

Zuckerman also makes another good point about the biases of the media in question and the dominant languages representing either candidate’s main base of supporters.

Ahmedinejad’s supporters tend to be poorer, more rural, less educated and more likely to speak Farsi than Mousavi’s supporters – a picture of the protests via social media runs the danger of overstating Mousavi support or minimizing Ahmedinejad support. We’ve been trying to counterbalance this a bit at Global Voices – Hamid Tehrani, our Iran editor, did a brief roundup last night of bloggers supporting Ahmedinejad. It’s worth noting that the posts he quotes are all in Farsi: language may well be a barrier that is influencing coverage as well, if voices for reform are easily quoted in English and voices for the status quo are in Farsi.

via …My heart’s in Accra » Iran, citizen media and media attention.

Tagged: iran, iran election, media, politics, social media, technology