Harvard: Study of “Iran’s online public”

Berkman Center for Internet and Society presents its study on Iranian blogosphere. The study is about 70 pages. Read more here.

Khatami denies italian handshakes. What else could he do?

Udine, Italy

Mr. Khatami decided yesterday to deny the now famous handshakes with italian women and the real existence of the videos depicting the banned gestures.

As the man who inadvertendly started all this fuss by capturing the handshakes with a little camera and putting the result on the internet, I wish to say two things and thank “Sounds Iranian” for this opportunity.

First, the handshakes. I must say again that our site “La casbah di Udine” put on the web a complete video coverage of the Khatami’s visit here in Udine, Italy (may 11-12). More than 90 minutes of footage that we published on “YouTube” servers with no editing, and I reply, no editing beyond the normal 10 minutes cuts required by “You Tube” system and some amateurish scene selection. The intent to emphasize any part of the event, or body of the president, should and cannot be attributed to us.

Here comes my second point. Mr. Khatami has chosen a strange but understandable course of action. Since the video is absolutely not a fake, and the fifty thousand and counting people who saw it have no doubt about it, we imply that mr. Khatami had no choice. That iranian politics leaves no choice.

I strongly condemn and disapprove the misuse of our work, especially for political purposes. Mr. Khatami came here in Italy in the context of a cultural event which wanted to foster an atmosphere of dialogue between worlds and cultures. By filming Mr. Khatami we hoped to offer to friends of our website some more information about a country, Iran, which had (as the men called to represent it) the center stage of the kermesse and is perceived here as a little problematic. I should by now conclude that, thanks to the cooperation of people we never met, my site could not do a worst service: to mr. Khatami, the iranian people, and maybe to someone or something else.

But this dramatic conclusion, thanks God, is not the only one we can draw. We remembered last time how the scandal machine that was in some way put in motion is not producing only smog. I can only say that I hope iranian leaders like Mr Khatami will be able and willing to intercept the interesting signals emerging from the bottom also, or maybe especially, in this regrettable occasion.

But, of course, this is none of my business.

P.S. FROM “YOUTUBE” – COMMENTS TO “KHATAMI EXIT-2″

alifreedom1 (2 weeks ago)
Khatami was the head of war propagenda during Sadam-Khomeini’s war those years that media was responsible for sending children on mines.He was the head of misinstry of censorship when many novlists in Iran and Europe were terrored
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arf31 (1 week ago)
I think you are wrong. Khatami was minister in Hashemi’s cabinet which was after the war and he resigned as hardliners did not let him to work. I guess he was a member of parliment during the war.
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alifreedom1 (1 week ago)
No it seems you arf31 do not know anything about background of criminals of Iran. After Moadikhah the first guidance and censorship(Ersah) minister were sent off(because of being caught with his secretary in his room)during Mosavai’s cabinet Khatami was sent from Islamic parliament to the minister of censorship (Ersha) whilst was the head of Kehayn newspaper and head of war advertisement(rais Tabigat jang) his later assistance Abtahi was also the head of radio during war.
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alifreedom1 (1 week ago)
Khatami because of close relationship he and his brother had with Khomeini’s family and assistance of Beheshti was trussed by Khomeini,Khameni and Rafsanjani, hence Rafsanjani again kept him for another 6 years for that ministry(totally around 14 years he was the mistier).Although Hoveda sent him and Behesthi to Hamoboug islmic Kanon. Khatami could secure Hoveyda but instead praised Khalkhali who killed Hoveyda (Like praising the Lajevardi).Do not be a fool by his fox smile
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persianmilad (1 week ago)
in kheili khoobe ke to hadde aghal be fekre taghyiri, vali be nazaram dari rahe eshtebah ro miri refigh. Farghe to ba amsale behnoud o nabavi ine ke oona vaghe’iyate jeme’e ro fahmidan vali to na. oona be donbale oon chizi hastan ke mitoonim behesh beresim
na oon chizi ke mikhaymesh hame vali omran behesh nemiresim. dar zemn aghalan goftmane democracy ro re’ayat konim bad nist.
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alifreedom1 (1 week ago)
Na janam, behound va Nabavi fagat dounbale poul hastand, shoma agar neveshtahye behound ra az chand sale pish bekhanid mifahmid ke ch gadr zedo nagiz ast.Anha narahatand ke mabada in regime zede bashari az beyn beravd va sahmiye garadadhaye egtesadi rafsanajni az anha gerefeh shavad
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persianmilad (1 week ago)
man az in mitarsam ke mabada agar regime i ke to mikhay roo kar biyad amsale behnoud o nabavi ro be jorme mozdoor boodan bendaze zendan! hamoon kari ke amsale shariat madari mikonan! man taghriban tamaame karaye behnoud va nabavi ro az aval khoondam. taghyire jahat tooye siyasat agar baese bolooghe siyasi beshe hich eshkali nadare. ina ro ham faghat be onvane mesal avordam.
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alifreedom1 (1 week ago)
na doust aziz,kasi anha ra be zendan nemiandazd fagat million ha dolari ke comapny haye nafti be anha dadand ra say mikoinm tagazaye esterdad konim,choun ingard fagr ba komak godfathereshan,khatami va Rafsanajni poul bala keshidand va be hamas va hezbolah dadand,chenan keshvar ra be naboudi bourdand ke bayad keshvar ra besazim.Anha ham ba poule dozdi mardoun dar sharhaye zibaye Europe ta akhar omr mimanand va be iran nemiayand.Non be nerkh rooz khori nabavi va behound neshane tagir nist
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persianmilad (1 week ago)
Man fekr mikonam tanha rahe ma ba tavajoh be zarfiyate jame’e hamoon eslahate (hatta agar doostesh nadashte bashim). in jodast az khatami o amsale khatami. eslahat ye process e. za’fhaye khaatami ham ghabool. vali ma mardom ham 8 saal too khoone neshastim… man fek mikonam khatami marde bozorgi bood vali na ye president e bozorg.
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alifreedom1 (1 week ago)
Khahesh mikonam sabegh Khatami dar dahe aval khomeinism ra khoub bekhan badan khahi did ke ishan be onvane rais tabligat zaman jang va rais shora engelab farhangi(tatili daneshgah va ekhraj astid va daneshjouha) va be onvan vazir ershad cheha ke nakardeh,farib labkhand in roubah ra nakhorid lotfan
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SirIanFleming (2 weeks ago)
Khatami was one of the greatest world leaders of the last several decades.
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check9264 (1 week ago)
He was much better that Antarinejad.
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ghazal48 (1 week ago)
i’m realy agree with you. I think hi is a great man.
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saman6284 (2 weeks ago)
He was nothing but a coward liar. His false hopes to the nation caused all the political activists in Iran get arrested and he never supported them.
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roozbeh1383 (1 week ago)
you are big fucker stupid man
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Shantoos (2 weeks ago)
WOW he shook hands with a woman, he surely is a cultural personality
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meCyber (1 week ago)
He has a great personality, I think people miss-understood his promises. We Iranians always like someone who makes a miracle, as we live in dreams and not reality.
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Global Voices goes Farsi: ‘South-to-South’ bridge building (?)

The other day, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Global Voices has launched a Farsi-language version of their blog.

So far, the content is humble, but poignant – Farsi translations of some prominent Egyptian bloggers’ posts on imprisonment, torture, religious discrimination and strikes in their country.

Reading over these first few translations got me thinking once again about blogging as bridge building. Even this very basic instance of Arabic-Farsi crossover is an example of how it can work between developing nations, crossing linguistic and sectarian barriers, just as much as it can serve to link the disconnect between north and south.

Thoughts?

Petrossian on Article XIX

Another quick update: fellow blog researcher Celine Petrossian has been interviewed by Article XIX about her qualitative research on Iranian blogging in the diaspora. Check out what she has to say here.

Iranian bloggers as pollsters (?)

Last Friday, I met with the people at Angus Reid Global Monitor to discuss the possibility of conducting an online poll of Iranians, using the blogosphere as our point of access.

The original idea was to create an online poll for bloggers and blog-readers, a la the Iranian Weblog Research Project.

Dr. Reid himself, however, offered up a different idea: to ask Iranian bloggers to serve as individual pollsters, whereby the Global Monitor would supply, say, 100 bloggers with a short series of about 5 yes/no questions, and the bloggers would then go out into the street and ask, say, 10 different people (each from a different age group), about their opinions vis-a-vis the questions. The bloggers would then submit their findings to the Global Monitor via an online data-entry site, and the Monitor would publish the results.

The sorts of questions to be asked would be on typical western-interest stuff… i.e. respondents’ views on the nuclear issue, the holocaust, a possible US military strike, etc.

What do you think about this idea? Do you think bloggers in Iran would be willing to go out onto the street to ask people these sorts of questions?

I think the idea behind this sort of ‘on-the-street’ methodology is to use the blogosphere to provide a more accurate sampling of the (urban) Iranian population as a whole, rather than to procure a sample derived only from a very narrow blog-reading demographic.

Do you think this would be a safe and/or feasible approach? Can you think of a way to achieve a similarly ‘representative’ sample, without requiring bloggers to do any off-line legwork that could potentially reveal their identities?

Any input would be appreciated!

Google Map ‘mashups’ as political tools

Hi all… just before the new year, Hamid forwarded me this link. It’s an innovative protest blog run Tunisian dissident Sami Ben Gharbia, who has used a Google-map ‘mashup‘ to identify and describe all the major prisons in his country. He includes a number of interesting links to flash- and video-productions on Tunisian political prisoners. One of the most interesting things about the site is the form itself – it’s an almost wholly graphic interface, and therefore much more intuitive and engaging than the standard print blog. Worth a peek.

Networking Theory

Does anyone have any good sources on networking theory, or know of research applying networking theory to the blogosphere? I’m sure there is tons. I read some a while ago but I can’t seem to remember where. I think that the Iranian blogosphere would be an especially interesting subject for this research, not least because of the implicitly politicized nature of blogging in Iran and because of the huge expat Iranian blogging community. Thanks.

The Feed

Folks, Kamangir is speaking, the fancy icon has the feed address.

Connecting Persian Blogs To The World

Kamangir is speaking. I have been recently thinking how to facilitate the connection between Persian blogs and the English-speaking audience. Besides the fantastic job Farid is doing in GVO, I thought I will try to translate outstanding Persian posts that I find. Until now, that would be two posts about the recent elections; “Iranian Elections, Or ‘King Akbar returns’” and “What’s Next for Ahmadinejad? More Populism, Or More Fundamentalism“. Any idea or suggestion?

The Significance of Perspective and the Criticality of Common Experience

A few thoughts and responses to both the GV questions and to Jordan’s comments:

How can we use the Internet to build a more democratic, participatory global discourse?

First of all, I think that Jordan brings up an excellent point about the role of “democratic” rhetoric in discussions about the internet. I share his sentiment that Western-oriented thinkers must be wary of falling into a Euro-centric worldview. I too shall leave alone the question of whether democracy is the ideal form of governance and instead assume that at this time democracy is the most beneficial outcome for our current geopolitical situation. While democracy itself is a worthy goal, its global success depends on expanding its meaning to include a more malleable model. Successful democracies share commonalities, but this does not mean (as we have seen) that we can merely make cookie-cutter versions of Western democracies for the rest of the world. Indeed, even within the “Western” experience- forgive me for using this term so repeatedly- there are numerous different types of “successful” democracies, each with their own unique twist.

I believe that in order to utilize the internet in a populist sense we are going to have to cut through the common Western rhetoric and instead appeal to a more fundamental sense of community. We need to avoid falling into the frames of reference created by governments with investments in certain geo-political climates. I go into this later, but in short this means focusing on what brings us together, instead of starting at what differentiates various blogospheres from each other. This strategy takes creativity, and it takes a willingness to reach out to those who may have significant differences of opinion on many fronts. Talking to, and not just beyond other blogging communities must start with those of us who wish to use the internet as a tool for dialogue and, ultimately, understanding.

How can we create a more inclusive conversation about what is happening on our planet, and how human beings in different parts of the world are impacting each other in countless ways we don’t realize every day?

Again, responding to Jordan’s post, I think his suggestion regarding the idea of “mapping interconnectivity”is an interesting one. I personally don’t believe that the blogosphere as it is now will ever be able to compete with more professionalized news coverage. The incentives simply aren’t strong enough for either blogger or reader to replace their traditional news with blogger news. Having said this, I do think that blogs have the potential to- indeed already do- play an incredibly influential role in the filtering, framing, and publicizing professional news. The openness of the internet often forces the traditional news media to address issues that they would not normally have the incentive to cover. Blogs can be used effectively to evaluate and criticize the bias of media coverage. I find this one of the most important strengths especially of bridgeblogs, since the perspective of a country’s or region’s news coverage (nationalized or not) can often be dramatically different from a different news outlet’s take on the same event/process/situation. We need to work to increase this potential of the blogosphere.

How do we bring more unheard, ignored, or disadvantaged voices into the global online conversation? How do we help people speak and be heard – even when powerful people try to stop them from doing so?

I like that fact that Jordan once again brings up the question of perspective. What specific voices are we actually looking to enfranchise? However, while acknowledging the politicized nature of our questions is important, I do think that inherent in projects such as Global Voices Online is a basic vision that is universally agreeable. I think that while we can argue about the benefits of this or that political ideology, we can agree to such fundamental ideals, such as peace and justice, which we should work to further. I see a problem with incorporating more and more voices into a (cyber)community if, as we have mentioned in this blog previously, these voices merely talk past each other and not to each other. I find however, that there are things, many things actually, that a great many of us can agree upon. I think that the key to utilizing the internet effectively is by strengthening global connections through things that bring us together, rather than by focusing on what separates us. This is a critical step towards real dialogue, and one that I think is important to cultivate.

Beyond this I think that keeping the internet “neutral” and increasing the access to it are the two most important factors to increasing its reach. Current attempts to “corporatize” the internet in the US could ultimately have much the same affect that current efforts by authoritarian regimes to control internet usage. The control of internet access is a real threat to the ideal of “democratizing” internet. Access will increase as a result of economic incentive, both as a means of doing business and as a means of consuming. As long as we can control the manipulation of the internet as an economic tool, we can experience the benefits of increased internet access with the negative manipulation that this will obviously invite.

Thanks to Jordan for his very insightful comments, I enjoyed reading them very much. As always, feel free to add input or criticize.