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An Analysis of Online Public Discourse on Iran's Involvement in the Syrian Persica 26, 63-101. doi: 10.2143/PERS.26.0.3286868 © 2018 by Peeters. All rights reserved. #DEFENDERS_OF_ISIS: AN ANALYSIS OF ONLINE PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON IRAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE SYRIAN CONFLICT LiekeSchut ABSTRACT ThisstudyanalyzesPersianTweetsandInstagrampostsaboutIran’sinvolvement inSyriainordertounderstandhowIraniandiscursivelyarguefororagainsttheir country’spartakinginthisconflict.Bycarefullycircumventingrestrictionsonfree speechposedbytheIraniangovernmentthroughsocialmedia,thisstudyreveals apolarizedpublicdebatethatentailsvariousonlinesocietalgroups,suchasthe “Barandazan”andagroupofconservativeactivists.Theanalysisexposesargu- mentativestrategiesanddelegitimizationsbasedonpresentationsoftheotheras evilandchangingdiscursivepowerrelations.Assuch,itcontributestotheunder- standingofonlinecommunitiesandpracticesaspartoftheIranianwebingeneral andtheonlinepublicdebateonIran’sinvolvementinSyriainparticular. INTRODUCTION The Iranian involvement in the conflict in Syria has caused a lively public debate in Iran.1 Media reports exposed that since the start of the conflict in 2011, the Iranian government has been supporting Bashar al-Assad with financial, logistic, and technical aid, in addition to sending military personnel and advising the Syrian army.2 The attitude of the Iranian population towards the involvement is crucial since even the Iranian regime is not omnipotent and is influenced by public mood and temperament. Research of public opinion reveals some Iranians support their country’s partaking in the conflict, while others are skeptical. A poll conducted in 2016 suggests that 80% of Iranians “approve of the role 1 See for example the following news articles: Jay Newton-Small, “The Surprising debate in Iran about Syria’s chemical Attacks,” Time, September 9, 2013. Or: Middle East Eye, “As Iranian Deaths Rise, Debate Opens at Home,” October 27, 2015. Or Farnaz Fassihi, “Syria Looms as Second Thought Over Iranian Unrest,” The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2018. 2 Edward Wastnidge, “Iran and Syria: An Enduring Axis,” MiddleEastPolicy, vol. 14, no 2, 2017, pp. 148-159. 64 L. SCHUT their country is playing in Syria”.3 Nevertheless, how or why Iranians legitimize — or dele- gitimize — their approval seems to be unexplored. An analysis of the discourse expressed in this public debate will expose the arguments and legitimization strategies used in Iranian public opinion on this foreign policy matter. Public discourse in Iran is, however, difficult to access and research.4 Discourse in ‘normal’ media such as newspapers tends to express only opinions tolerated by the govern- ment, causing a biased analysis. Furthermore, it is very difficult for researchers of politi- cal discourse to conduct research on the streets, because of social control by the state.5 Luckily, an unrestricted and lively public debate openly takes place on social media plat- forms.6 Social media is a relatively new phenomenon, yet it is used by more than half of the Iranian adult population.7 The online nature of these platforms allows people to hide their identity and avoid restrictions posed by a repressive state. Besides, the searchability and quantity of social media posts provide a tool for the analysis of discourse on specific topics such as Iran’s involvement in Syria.8 Social media platforms are thus a very apt and innovative tool for research into public discourse in a country where the expression of opinions is often repressed. In this study I aim to expose the Iranian public debate on Iran’s involvement in Syria that takes place on two online platforms: Twitter and Instagram. The objective is to under- stand how Iranians argue for and legitimize their opinion on Iran’s involvement in Syria on social media by analyzing their posts and illuminating ideology and power dynamics within them. To achieve this, I carry out a critical discourse analysis of Tweets and Insta- a hashtag used for categorizing posts on ,جنگ_سوریه# gram posts containing the hashtag topic of the War in Syria. I use posts posted during the period of April 8-14, 2018, a time- frame chosen based on a Google Trends search.9 Also responses to one particular tweet that 3 Ebrahim Mohseni, Nancy Gallagher, and Clay Ramsay, IranianAttitudesinAdvanceoftheParlia- mentaryElections:Economics,Politics,andForeignAffairs, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, January 2016, p. 25. http://www.cissm.umd.edu/sites/default/files/Iranian%20Attitudes%20in%20 Advance%20of%20the%20Parliamentary%20Elections%20-%20020116%20-%20FINAL%20-%20sm.pdf (accessed on 11.12.18). A similar poll frames Iranian support of the conflict as either “support of groups fighting” The Islamic State (ISIS) (89% in favor), or as helping Bashar al-Assad by sending military personnel (65% in favor): Ebrahim Mohseni, Nancy Gallagher & Clay Ramsay, “The Ramifications of Rouhani’s Re-election: a public opinion study,” Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, 2017. http://www.cissm.umd.edu/ sites/default/files/CISSM%20full%20Iran%20PO%20report%20-%20072717-Final2.pdf (accessed 11.12.18). 4 Karim Sadjatpour, “How relevant is the Iranian street?” TheWashingtonQuarterly, vol. 30, no 1, 2006-07, pp. 151-162. 5 Paola Rivetti, “Methodology Matters in Iran: Researching Social Movements in Authoritarian Contexts,” AnthropologyoftheMiddleEast,vol. 12, no. 1, 2017, pp. 71-82. Orkideh Behrouzan, “Remaking the Craft: Reflections on Pedagogy, Ethnography, and Anthropology in Iran,” AmericanAnthropologist, vol. 120, no. 1, 2018, pp. 144-147. 6 Majid Khosravinik and Mahrou Zia, “Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Media Communication,” JournalofLanguageandPolitics, vol. 13, no 4, 2014, pp. 755-780. 7 See for example: We Are Social and Hootsuite, 2018.AnnualReport2018. https://wearesocial.com/ blog/2018/01/global-digital-report-2018 (accessed on 5-12-2018). 8 See for example: Zeitzoff, Kelly, & Lotan, “Using Social Media to Measure Foreign Policy Dynamics: An Empirical Analysis of the Israeli-Iranian Confrontation (2012-13),” JournalofPeaceResearch, vol. 52, no 3, 2015, pp. 368-383. 9 Google Trends is a search engine provided by Google that shows you trends in what people search for in google. A search shows statistics per week of the frequency specific words were searched. As such, I #DEFENDERS_OF_ISIS 65 Figure 1: A poll posted by @BanooReyhan on April 11, 2018. contained a poll10 addressing Iran’s involvement in the war in Syria were taken into account. In total, I collected 192 tweets and 228 Instagram posts. This study opens a window into the effects of public debate on government policy and how the usage of social media circumvents the restrictions posed by the absence of freedom of speech in Iran. In the light of censorship and political repression it is important to study online activism as the online nature of it renders it relatively untouched by state policies and influence. Operating outside of the official governmentally approved realm of politics, a description of the online public discussion reflects a more complex and heterogenous entirety of Iranian opinions and discursive arguments. Especially put against more traditional forms of activism that often operate ‘under the radar’, online activism — both the opposition and the supporters of Iran’s involvement in Syria — effectively exposes this complexity. Moreover, an analysis of the popular debate on Iran’s involvement in Syria will improve our understanding of Iran’s foreign policy and the underlying social dynamics that influence this policy. The very fact that the Iranian government tries to cover up parts of this discussion through censorship, testifies the government deems these (oppositional) opinions threatening to their efforts in policy making. Some authors stress the importance of public opinion to the formation of foreign policy in Iran. David Thaler (2010) for exam- ple contends Iranian politicians “shape foreign policy to serve domestic objectives”11 and identified specific weeks during which interests in the Syrian conflict peaked. Searches that contained the .showed a peak in the week of 8-14 April 2018 ”سوریه“ and ”جنگ“ words 10 @BanooReyhan poses the following question: “In the case of the war in Syria, do you agree to give financial, psychological, or military support to Bashar al-Assad and the shrine of Hazrat-e Zeynab against America and criminal Israel?” 11 David Thaler, “Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: An Exploration of Iran’s Leadership Dynamics,” RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2010, p. 76. 66 L. SCHUT Paola Rivetti (2017) argues that voices of political dissent influence the decision making processes of the Iranian state through both formal and informal channels.12 Domestic and foreign policy should thus not be studied separately from each other and an improved understanding of domestic public opinion is thus crucial to understanding Iran’s political objectives in Syria. Finally, this study finds societal relevance in countering stereotypical presumptions about Iranian political ideology and international stigmatization of the Iranian regime. An objective analysis of the societal debate on Iran’s involvement will help understand how Iran can support Bashar al-Assad and his government, a political choice many people deem unjust that has been the object of international criticism. It is important to mention that the outcome of this research is not necessarily repre- sentative of the whole Iranian population, nor of all Iranians participating in the online debate, as certain social groups cannot be represented by only
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