Iran: A Nation of Bloggers
February 4th, 2009 — Bruce Etling[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/_TW7BzkuUKg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
A group of students at the Vancouver Film School (Aaron Chiesa, Toru Kageyama, Hendy Sukarya, and Lisa Temes) created this wonderful video on bloggers in Iran. It’s very well done and worth checking out. Some of their data is a little old, but Fariborz Shamshiri sets them straight with stats from our paper. The Iranian blogosphere is definitely a large and vibrant discussion space, but it is not exclusively focused on criticism of the regime (although there is plenty of that, especially in the Secular/Reformist pole). And as Hamid Tehrani blogged here a couple weeks ago, the regime’s recent call for 10,000 Basij bloggers is an example of its increasing engagement in the blogosphere. I expect that the online debate will only continue to heat up as the Iranian presidential election approaches.
Click Here
February 4th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Bruce, thank you for the link and your great paper.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:04 am
This is a really great video, and I find it fascinating how blogging can be used for social change. I also had no idea that blogging was so prevalent in Iran. I’m actually writing a paper on Iran and democracy, so this was very interesting and relevant for me. Thank you!
February 10th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Fariborz, happy to provide the link, glad I came across your blog.
Akhila, thanks for your comment, and good luck with your paper!
–Bruce