4 research outputs found
Internet Monitor 2014: Reflections on the Digital World: Platforms, Policy, Privacy, and Public Discourse
This publication is the second annual report of the Internet Monitor project at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. As with the inaugural report, this year's edition is a collaborative effort of the extended Berkman community. Internet Monitor 2014: Reflections on the Digital World includes nearly three dozen contributions from friends and colleagues around the world that highlight and discuss some of the most compelling events and trends in the digitally networked environment over the past year.The result, intended for a general interest audience, brings together reflection and analysis on a broad range of issues and regions—from an examination of Europe's "right to be forgotten" to a review of the current state of mobile security to an exploration of a new wave of movements attempting to counter hate speech online—and offers it up for debate and discussion. Our goal remains not to provide a definitive assessment of the "state of the Internet" but rather to provide a rich compendium of commentary on the year's developments with respect to the online space.Last year's report examined the dynamics of Internet controls and online activity through the actions of government, corporations, and civil society. We focus this year on the interplay between technological platforms and policy; growing tensions between protecting personal privacy and using big data for social good; the implications of digital communications tools for public discourse and collective action; and current debates around the future of Internet governance.The report reflects the diversity of ideas and input the Internet Monitor project seeks to invite. Some of the contributions are descriptive; others prescriptive. Some contain purely factual observations; others offer personal opinion. In addition to those in traditional essay format, contributions this year include a speculative fiction story exploring what our increasingly data-driven world might bring, a selection of "visual thinking" illustrations that accompany a number of essays, a "Year in Review" timeline that highlights many of the year's most fascinating Internet-related news stories (and an interactive version of which is available at thenetmonitor.org), and a slightly tongue-in-cheek "By the Numbers" section that offers a look at the year's important digital statistics. We believe that each contribution offers insights, and hope they provoke further reflection, conversation, and debate in both offline and online settings around the globe
#Iranvotes: Political Discourse on Iranian Twitter During the 2016 Parliamentary Elections
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#IranVotes: Political Discourse on Iranian Twitter during the 2016 Parliamentary Elections
In this study, we map and analyze the content and structural features of the Iranian Twittersphere as exhibited over the course of the 2016 legislative elections in order to identify the communities that developed around various political, social, and cultural issues and to assess the influence of online political campaigning that emerged on the platform over the course of the election campaign. Given Iran’s ongoing efforts to control and restrict freedom of expression around numerous political, social, and cultural issues in public spaces, we are interested to assess how users make use of the uncensored space provided by Twitter to speak out about various contentious issues. We achieve this by engaging in network analysis and content analysis of tweets and media content posted over the course of the election period.
Although Twitter remains blocked by the Iranian authorities, the widespread use of circumvention tools by Iranian citizens has allowed them to make use of it as a free and open space for public engagement around contentious and divisive political and social issues. Using a mixed-methods approach combining social network analysis with qualitative content analysis of election-related content of the Iranian Twittersphere during the elections, we identify and analyze 46 clusters of users ranging from human rights activists through to reformist and conservative political commentators, technology advocates, and literature enthusiasts. In addition to these interest-bound clusters, we also observe that the network is home to extensive networks of everyday users, who share jokes, idle chatter, and flirtatious messages. Although the Twittersphere hosts a significant volume of political content, it is by no means a purely political space.
The intense online activity of the Iranian diaspora and the extent of its engagement with digital networks of activists and journalists inside the Islamic Republic is another major feature of the Iranian Twittersphere that we explore in this study—we observe that the level of interconnectedness between diasporic and domestic networks is remarkably high, indicating that the Iranian Twittersphere offers more than just an uncensored space for activists inside Iran, but provides Iranians in exile with the opportunity to engage with the development of political and social discourses inside the country.
We find that the scale of Twitter activity amongst diaspora Iranians and more liberal segments of Iranian society has had two major impacts upon the political makeup of the Twittersphere: firstly, a general politicization of the Twittersphere; and secondly, the squeezing out of politically divergent voices—especially from conservative factions, who appear to have found their home on alternative (unblocked) social networking sites. Although it does not necessarily hold a hugely politically diverse or representative chunk of Iranian netizens, the Iranian Twittersphere does function as an important bridge to connect the country’s vast diaspora networks to politically engaged, reformist-leaning citizens living inside Iran