A newly released Harvard University study dispels the conventional wisdom that says the Iranian blogosphere consists mainly of young writers critical of the ruling Islamic Republic regime. Instead, Harvard 's Internet and Democracy project found that the Iranian blogosphere consists of a variety of groups with both pro- and anti-government beliefs.
The study did find that blogs may be more resistant to government control than other media. In face, the report concluded that blogs may represent the "best hope" for homegrown Democratic change in a country where the press is tightly controlled by religious leaders.
Harvard researchers used computational social network mapping and human and automated content analysis to analyze 60,000 regularly updated Iranian blogs.
The study found that the Iranian blogosphere ranges from sites providing religious conservative messages to bloggers pushing more secular or reform-focused agendas. The blogs studied in Iran span a wide array of topics, including politics, human rights, poetry religion and pop culture, the report said.
The study, called "Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere," found that the government blocks far fewer blogs than the authors had suspected in a country where the press is controlled by religious conservatives who often are part of the government.
No comments:
Post a Comment