Starting and Running a Media Business in Iran Three Case Studies of Start-Ups That Challenge the Mass Media in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Starting and running a media business in Iran Three case studies of start-ups that challenge the mass media in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Master thesis Journalism and Media University of Amsterdam Master in Media studies To: prof. dr. M.J.P. Deuze Author: Luuk Ex Student number: 6172474 June 10, 2016, Amsterdam

Introduction 5 Theory 7 Chapter 1: Start-up trends worldwide and in Iran 7

Why Iran? 7

The concept of a ‘start-up’ and how to define ‘media’ 10

Rise of SMEs in the media industry 12

Journalism start-ups as ‘entrepreneurial journalism’ 14

Start-ups in Iran 16

Chapter 2: Iranian journalism in Reese’s hierarchy of influences model 19

Introduction of Reese’s hierarchy of influences model 19

Individual journalist 20

News routines 21

Organisation 22

Extra-media 24

Ideological 26

Method 28 Chapter 3: Three case studies 28

3.1 Multiple case study approach 28

Literature analyses 28

Case selection 29

Informants 31

3.2 Questionnaire topics 31

Genesis of the start-up 31

People involved 31

Location 32

Revenue model 32

Motives 32

Goals 32

Start-up ecosystem 32

Interviews 33

3.3 Set-up of the interviews 33

Context of the interview with Jaaar 33

Start-up Jaaar 34

Start-up Peivast 34

Start-up Aparat 35

Results and analyses 35 Chapter 4: Case Studies, Jaaar, Aparat and Peivast 35

North, near Valiasr Street 35

Technology-driven start-ups 36

Fix inefficiencies, copy successful businesses, and find independency 37

What is their product? 42

When your core business is not your main revenue stream 44

Within and without the state’s policies 46

Conclusion 50

Discussion 52

References 54

Figures 66 Appendix A: Questions given to start-up correspondents 70

Appendix B: Map of Tehran with locations of the start-ups 71

Appendix C: List of respondents 72

Appendix D: Transcribed interviews 73

Introduction While observations of fast innovation and radical change in the media of Western countries have been made (Franklin, 2010), it is a topic that has not yet been thoroughly researched in other parts of the world. Western traditional print and broadcast media are challenged as readers and advertisers are moving to freely available online platforms (Castells, 2012; Grueskin, 2011; McChesney & Nichols, 2010; Meyer, 2009). This has resulted in a rise of ‘entrepreneurial journalism’ seeking to retain the practice of journalism by starting innovative business ventures, so-called ‘journalism start-ups’ (Briggs, 2012, DVorkin, 2013). Whereas some declare the crumbling of the traditional news business (Currah, 2009; C. Lewis, 2008), others observe the introduction of new possibilities (Briggs, 2012, DVorkin, 2013). For example the so-called ‘multiple journalism’ observed by Bregtje Van der Haak, Michael Parks & Manuel Castells (2014) in their study on the impact of new technologies on journalism: New technology provides new ways to produce better research, reporting and storytelling . . . we believe that the Multiple Journalism of the digital age is not a threat to the independence and quality of professional journalism, but a liberation from strict corporate control. (Van der Haak, 2014). The observation of a rise of new technologies which would produce better practices and liberation from strict corporate control is mainly an observation focused on journalism in Western countries. Similar observations have been made about entrepreneurship in the Middle East. Research about entrepreneurship in this region was the subject of the book Startup rising: The entrepreneurial revolution remaking the Middle East by Christopher Schroeder – an entrepreneur and start-up researcher based in the area. After a visit to Iran in 2014, Schroeder noticed the ascent of a new generation of entrepreneurs. He suggested that a new generation has access to the “best . . . global technology” and “unprecedented access to information” (2014). This generation of young entrepreneurs “[is] building innovative businesses on their own and creating an ‘entrepreneurial revolution’ in the region of the Middle East” (Schroeder, 2013, p. 22) – so concludes the author in an earlier book. Thus,

this thesis researches a different context and examines the assumptions of entrepreneurial journalism and multiple journalism in a non-Western, Iranian context. The main question addressed is “what does it generally take to start and run a news and journalism start-up in Iran?”

In this thesis I take existing observations about entrepreneurial and Multiple Journalism one step further, researching emerging initiatives in the Iranian media industry. During a two-week visit to Tehran I held intensive semi-structured interviews with start-up founders. Via a snowball method – I asked two journalists if they could bring me in contact with an Iranian start-up and other college’s or acquaintances who might know – I got in touch with thirteen journalists who are or have been active in the Iranian media industry, as well as two entrepreneur coaches who work for the Iran Entrepreneurship Association. The lack of factual information remained problematic for the research. Therefore, this thesis must remain an explorative study. The goal is to present and analyse typical examples of the media start-up scene in Iran. The researched start-ups have been chosen because of the variety of their backgrounds. The first is Jaaar.com, an online kiosk for all Iranian newspapers. Customers can download entire newspapers from the website. Jaaar is innovating the delivery of news by challenging classic mail delivery services. Jaaar is part of a larger company called Pouya Rasaneh, which means “dynamic media.” Pouya Rasaneh’s LinkedIn page indicates that they think of themselves as “pioneers in innovative IT solutions in news/ media monitoring/ delivery services in Iran” (Pouya Rasaneh, n.d.). They specialise in “content aggregation, content analysis and content delivery systems” (Pouya Rasaneh, n.d.). The company also claims to have the first and only news analysis system in Iran. Jaaar is the first multiplatform electronic newsstand in Iran, and has under contract over 186 publications, including most major newspapers and magazines [see figure 1]. Peivast, a classical monthly magazine about Information and communication technology (ICT), is the second start-up examined in this paper. Peivast was initiated by three journalists tries to grow by selling intensively researched articles that are longer than an average magazine piece; the publication is sold in paperback print. The third case study start- up is the video-sharing website Aparat, which, according to World Start-up Report (S,

2014), is the largest recently launched media company in Iran. Aparat can be seen as the Iranian alternative for YouTube, which is absent in Iran due to Internet filtering by the state. The three cases in this study vary in their employees’ backgrounds, strategic development, and business models. Each is situated at a different stage of media production in Iran: in news distribution, as content provider, and in social media. But all three start- ups similarly challenge a fundamental part of the mass-media in Iran. Jaaar challenges the classic infrastructure of mass media consumption and focuses on a new revenue model using new online techniques. Peivast is pushed by individual ambitions seeking ‘independency and accountable journalism’ (Peivast interview, February, 23, 2014). And Apa- rat was born out of the relatively new social media, which, as we also experience in the West, challenges classic broadcasting and has the potential to give individuals more power to express themselves. By exploring start-ups active in these subsequent stages, this thesis aims to provide encompassing insights on what it takes to start and run a news and journalism start-up in Iran. Chapter 1 provides context about entrepreneurship in the West and in Iran. It ad- dresses the emergence of start-ups worldwide, including Iran. An analysis of Iranian media according to Reese’s hierarchy of influences model is provided in chapter 2. This context is needed to understand in which conditions the researched start-ups operate. In chapter 3, the method of qualitative research via semi-structured interviews and the case study method are explained. Chapter 4 discusses the three start-ups – Jaaar, Peivast and Aparat. Finally, this thesis ends with a conclusion and discussion.

Theory

Chapter 1: Start-up trends worldwide and in Iran Why Iran? According to James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, universalistic observations about media have been derived from a tiny hand full of Western countries. In the introduction of De- Westernising Media Studies (2000), the authors write that a Western-centric thinking has

long dominated media studies in the West. As a classic example of Western-centric thinking, they review the textbook Four Theories of the Press (Siebert et al. 1956), whose authors divided the world into three camps: the free world of liberal democracies, the soviet communists, and authoritarian societies. This study served as a landmark for academics for the next forty years (Curran and Park, p. 3). It posited that developing countries would ultimately imitate the Western models of a democratic and open society, with the ideal of a press independent from the state promoting a democratic system. However, modernisa- tion did not occur in such a way for many of these countries. Moreover, the media system in Western countries was often directed toward maintaining control rather than educating for democracy (Curran and Park, p. 3). Curran and Park explain that a lack of local knowledge was one of the reasons why this Westernizing view came into fashion. Gholam Khiabany also argues against a Western-centric view. In his book Iran: The Paradox of Modernity (2010) he states that the main problem of Four Theories is caused by “the focus … on new technologies, deterritorialization, and the decline of the nation state” (2010, p. 11). In relation to Iran, Khiabany points out that the nation state has remained to play a major role: “The boundaries of the media, its goals and aims, its limits and content, is regulated and determined by the nation state and various state institutions” (2010, p. 12). State power and its role should be the focus of attention, argues Khiabany. This study aims to contribute to media studies by gaining local knowledge. In line with Khiabany it also asserts the state as a major player in media. The decision to take Iran as a site for researching entrepreneurial journalism and multiple journalism is mainly motivated by recent technological, economical, and political events. To start with the first two — in Iran, as in the rest of the global South, capital- ism and the recent technological ICT-revolution are increasingly reshaping the state and society. New media crossing national frontiers are giving people access to information authorities have difficulty suppressing. The Islamic Republic’s own image and the values it has generated (the good/revolutionary as well as the bad/exploitative) are rapidly becoming more diffuse. Marginalisation of large-scale production and feudal relations, increasing urbanisation and literacy, and the rapid spread of technological changes have all contributed to a new dynamic in the country. At the same time, new media are used by authorities to widen state influence on public communication and debates. As researcher

Gholam Khiabany states, Iran “provides a window to examine global trends of the operation of capital, the transformation of the state, the increased privatization of public resources, and the divide between the have and have-nots” (Khiabany, 2010, p. 18). At the time of this research, politics in Iran are experiencing a transitional period in internal and external affairs. In 2013, Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran; his election was hailed by reformists and Western countries as a reformist breath of fresh air. Rouhani announced changes in three fields: to restore diplomatic ties with the West- ern countries (George, 2015), to implement a high speed mobile Internet, and to give the Iranian people access to all information globally by loosening restrictions online (Erd- brink, 2014). The following quote from an interview with CNN in 2013 illustrates Rou- hani’s intentions shortly after his election: “We cannot shut the gates of the world to our young generation” (Amanpour, 2014). Changing external affairs can be seen as recently as the agreements on January 16, 2016 to lift sanctions between Iran and the U.S.A. and European Union (EU). Lifting of the sanctions could mark the end of the politics of isolation of Iran from the Western world. The sanctions originated in 1979 and were implemented as a reaction to the Islam- ic Revolution, with the U.S.A. forbidding trade with the governmental oil, gas, and petrol industries. In 1995, the sanctions were expanded with restrictions on banking and insur- ance transactions, shipping goods, and web-hosting services, and since 2006 were also imposed by countries of the European Union. In 2006, the United Nations Security Council (U.N.) imposed sanctions after Iran refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program (Axworthy, 2013). Over the years, all of these sanctions have taken a serious toll on Iran’s people and economy. The promises for the future stand in sharp contrast to the isolation policy of the administration of preceding president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), who did not want to negotiate about the sanctions. Current president Rouhani (since 2013) held on to some of his reformative promises by allowing the two mobile Internet distributors of the country to widen their bandwidth. With this action, millions of Iranians obtained access to high speed Internet using smartphones. Filtering policies have not been changed since Rouhani’s election; thus, the promise to give Iranians access to “all information globally” and the allowance of new technologies has not yet been honoured.

This internal politics of restriction has curbed much of development of Iranian media. According to Freedom House (Freedom House, 2015), Reporters Without Borders (RWB, 2015) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ, 2015), Iran is still among the most oppressive countries worldwide when it comes to freedom of the press. By the end of 2013 Iran continued to be one of world’s top ranking countries for the imprison- ment of media professionals, with fifty people held in custody (RWB, 2014). Current president Rouhani has not started to release these prisoners. Additionally, the government restricts Internet use of its inhabitants by throttling down Internet speed and filtering websites (Deibert, 2009). Over 50 percent of the top 100 most frequently visited websites, for example YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and E-bay, are not available via Iranian networks today. In the last year, hopes of reform have faded and been replaced with scepticism. Carolien Roelants, a journalist whose column focuses on the Middle East, describes the development as waking up from a happy dream about a more free Iran: “The reality is that all idealistic hawks have the constitutional possibilities – for example via department of justice – to block any progress towards a more freely society” (Roelants, 2016). What does the context of economic sanctions and recession, suppression of the press, and at the same time political change out of isolation and disruptions of government suppression from ICT developments mean for entrepreneurial journalism enterprises and multiple journalism in Iran? To answer this question I first outline the concept of ‘start-up enterprise’ in the West and Middle East, followed by an elaboration on the definition of media.

The concept of a ‘start-up’ and how to define ‘media’ Popular research literature mentions three main attributes to define a ‘start-up’. A start-up is a company “designed to grow fast”1 (Graham, 2012) and is “an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model” (Blank, 2010). According to Blank, a start-up business searches for ‘unknown products’ in any type of business, which, once

1 For example cited http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/technology/startup-weekend- begins-definition-startup-varies and here http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2013/12/16/what-is-a-startup/

discovered, can be sold. Adam Kramer from the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Com- merce adds that a start-up is “an innovative company that’s trying to fix an inefficiency or a problem” (Totten, 2013). Media scholars Naldi & Picard are in line with Kramer’s definition and mention that most journalism start-ups focus on the Internet to build new product and business models (Naldi & Picard, 2014). In summary, according to these definitions a start-up is: (1) a recently started, temporary, or enduring company that is planning to grow rapidly by selling a product or service that (2) offers solutions for inefficiencies or problems occurring in any market. Start-up companies tend to be small; scholars have considered them as small- to medium-sized enterprises (SME) – i.e., “businesses with less than 250 employees” (Po- well & Ennis, 2007, p. 376). In recent literature, scholars stress a growth of the number SMEs worldwide. Since 1970, after a period of Fordism – the growth of large companies with more than 250 employees responsible for most job opportunities – SMEs are re- emerging in North America and Europe. This development occurred not just in one or a few of the developed countries, but in virtually every single leading industrial country (Audretsch & Thurik, 2001). SMEs have emerged as an engine of economic and social development throughout the world (Audretsch & Thurik, 2004; GEDI, 2014); a shift occurring with an outlook on labour markets that face a labour force surplus in the coming 30 to 40 years. Although in Western countries the growth of the population is slowing, the 1980s and 1990s were years of exceptionally strong population growth with an increasing number of job seekers. Seekers in this larger population are therefore more likely to find a job in SMEs. This fundamental change has activated scholars to research whether this shift to SMEs is desirable and whether it should be promoted or avoided (Audretsch & Thurik, 2001). The same accounts for the media industry, which also is experiencing an advancement of start-up companies. To define ‘media’ and ‘media industry’ I follow the concept of Hoag & Sangho. “[T]he ‘media’ refers to traditional mass communication and content genres as well as other technologies for mediated human speech” (Hoag & Sangho, 2005, p. 3). Media include traditional print publishing (newspapers, periodicals, and books), traditional electronic media (radio and television), advertising and public relations, and new media

(YouTube, Facebook, Twitter)2. Since this study is exploratory, this more general concept of media is chosen; enterprises in the media industry can be seen as the thesis’ field of research. When comparing Western start-ups and start-ups in the Global South, this theses follows Reese (2001, p. 185) and does not take our national context for granted as a static and universal feature. As Deuze (2005) asserts, any static definition of journalism as a profession is “naive and one-dimensional” (Deuze, 2005, p. 442). Deuze argues that universal values of journalism as a profession were “challenged or changed in the context of current cultural and technological developments” (Deuze, 2005, p. 442). Iranian journalism has often viewed relative to the concept of a free press reflec- ted by annual reports about press freedom worldwide. Historically, the nation’s scores are at the bottom of all major rankings (Freedom House, 2015; RWB, 2015; CPJ, 2015). As a consequence, Iran is described as a society with an unfree press, possessing no real journalism and only state propaganda. This thesis studies start-up media enterprises that at first glance do not meet our (Western) idea of a free press. In the second chapter, which focuses on what is understood as news and journalism in Iran, the profession is discussed in greater detail. Below, I define the concept of a journalism start-up enterprise, tracing its manifestation in the context of what many scholars see as a a global crisis in journalism.

Rise of SMEs in the media industry Much of the literature about news and journalism businesses focuses on the progress of ICT. Developments in ICT are seen by some as the main cause for a crisis in traditional news organisations (newspapers, public affairs magazines, and broadcasting). This crisis manifests in the drying up of the industry’s revenue streams, as well as a decline of the quality of news and journalism products. Digital information, news, and entertainment became freely and publicly available with the expansion of the Internet, which caused audiences to desert newspapers for the new online environment. Advertisers followed

2 New media are not included in Hoag and Sangho’s study (2005), because at the time of their publication, most of the now popular social media did not have the number of users they have today.

quickly by switching to cheaper and more targeted online advertisements. This created competition for newspapers and broadcasters. The business model of market-oriented news businesses, which had worked in the 20th century, collapsed. Due to the vanishing business model and rise of the Internet, the content of existing news businesses came under financial pressure and were forces to adapt. As a reaction to plunging advertisement revenues and decreasing sales, the media industry reacted with cost-cutting reorganisations, such as cutbacks on editorial staff, reduction of investigative reporting, and cuts in international and provincial reporting. With the growth of online news platforms, journalists have to publish more stories in less time to stay in competition. Analyses of the British press in 2008 showed that this crisis has influenced the content of mainstream news businesses (Lewis, Williams, Franklin, Thomas, & Mosdell, 2008). One empirical study of British newspapers and broadcasting between 1985 and 2005 revealed that editorial cutbacks have resulted in a homogenisation of news stories, with many journalists are recycling stories from other newspapers or news wires instead of producing their own (Davies, 2008; Lewis, et al., 2008). Since 2008, the global financial crisis intensified these problems. With loans being more expensive, media companies have struggled with weakening liquidity bases, which led to even more cost cutting (Fen- ton, 2012; Ekmekcioglu, 2012). Some researchers pose the erosion of the news industry as an alarming event, suggesting that the contribution of news to public debate and its relationship to a healthy democracy are in danger (Nee, 2013, p. 327). One of these alarming changes is that a greater amount of news research is done by journalists working on temporary bases and external parties such as freelancers. This affects the established professional status, roles, and practices of journalism previously existing on the editorial floor, which removes professional control from a professional editorial staff (Nygren & Witschge, 2009). In the face of the shrinking news industry, several journalists have started small- to medium-sized enterprises – start-ups – to fill the gaps in reporting about public affairs. These burgeoning SMEs are reorienting the market for news and journalism; a growing number of them are looking at online possibilities. Such an emergence of journalists

looking for new ways to earn money is described as the rise of ‘entrepreneurial journalism’3 (Briggs, 2012; DVorkin, 2013).

Journalism start-ups as ‘entrepreneurial journalism’

Product innovation is a common result of the way SMEs orient themselves in the market (Salavou, Baltas & Lioukas, 2004). Journalism companies seek new ways to sell their product — recent trends can be seen in focussing on niche subjects (Politico, Follow the Money, FiveThirtyEight), charging for an Internet only magazine (Mediapart, De Corres- pondent), publishing news in a digital form (Vox), covering the most shared stories of news and entertainment (Buzzfeed), crowdsourcing (Bellingcat), crowdfunding (De Cor- respondent), and renewing the sales model (Blendle). Journalistic start-up companies mainly focus on possibilities online (Naldi and Picard, 2012). Researchers and policy makers are confronted with three issues regarding start-up journalism: (1) start-ups try out new business models (Naldi & Picard, 2012), (2) governments are forced to think about whether they have to make budget plans for subsidising new SMEs or leave them to the market (Nee, 2013), and (3) start-ups rethink traditional values of journalism (Fenton, 2012; Nygren & Witsche, 2009). When discussed more closely, these three issues reveal the core of operating an entrepreneurial journalism start-up. Naldi and Picard note that start-ups require a flexible business model and have to rely on more than one income stream. Advertising, e-commerce, subscriptions, member- ships, and donations are all options that can provide revenue. Small companies have advantages in the reduction on bureaucracy, gaining public support, and attracting venture capital. To eventually make a media start-up successful, new enterprises need aggressive communication to a community of readers and engaged leaders. But despite these advantages, most media start-ups have poor business plans, limited access to capital, and ulti-

3 Not to be confused with ‘journalists as entrepreneurs’, also widely researched (Das, 2007; D’Amours & Legault, 2013), referring to journalists working as freelancers for news organisations, This is a different outcome of the crisis in the media branch and is not addressed in this thesis.

mately fail (Naldi & Picard, 2012). Journalism start-ups spend most of their time working on the editorial aspect of the enterprise and not enough on the business aspect; thus, they fail to build a sustainable revenue model. This results in framing their success not in mo- netary form but in services to the community and public. If such start-ups want to stay alive they need to attend to their revenue model and (partially) rely on private funding and subsidies from the state. The concept of funded journalism brings an older dilemma to the table: should the government help start-ups or leave them to the market? Considering the prevalence of failing business models in the traditional news industry, some scholars and policymakers see start-ups as a potential solution for the crisis and suggest greater government intervention to help ensure the survival of journalism (Nee, 2014). With support via advertisements, tax regulations, and direct subsidies, the government can assist start-ups. Not only are policymakers forced to deliberate on this choice, but start-ups also need to decide if they want a business model heavily relying on government support. Although high degrees of sustainability can be insured, state funding is viewed suspiciously by journalism companies because of the control the government is granted in such an arrangement (Nee, 2014). Most start-ups researched by Nee favour a nonprofit status and try to find revenue out of advertisements, subsidies, and contracts for services. The researcher Natalie Fenton mainly sees mainly sees new journalism in light of the Internet, which brought about new ways of researching, networking with audiences, presentation, and delivery. On the one hand, Fenton posits the Internet can “reinvigorate democracy though plurality, accessibility, and participation”. But as the Internet is just a tool, its possibilities must also play out in “the same social, political and economic structures of democracy as the old journalism and traditional news media” (Fenton, 2012, p. 121). Contrary to the concept of multiple journalism, scholars are mainly focussed on the state and state institutions when analysing the factors of starting and running a journalistic start-up company. Fenton and Khiabany see state interference as more dominant than technological innovation in determining the boundaries of media. Nee and Witsche also point in this direction by examining state subsidies and describing start-up companies as entities with which the state needs to interact — either by subsidising, regulating,

or letting them operate in the market. Naldi and Picard point out that start-ups usually fail to build a sustainable business model because of a poor business plan. What results is a move towards a non-profit model relying on subsidies. This thesis therefor focusses on the relation between the state and media start-ups. Especially because the state plays a major role in the economy in Iran, as is shown in the following paragraphs. Below, I elaborate more on the social and political context of the country. Similar to the analyses provided above, I start with entrepreneurship in Iran before focussing on the media.

Start-ups in Iran Similar to start-ups worldwide, news and journalism start-ups in Iran are SMEs. Two notable observations about SMEs in the Middle East have been made in recent literature: First, the number of SME entrepreneurs in these countries is rising, and due to government regulations and (new) technological possibilities, workers in SMEs have more freedom and success in starting their businesses than before (Jafari, 2013; Schroeder, 2014; GEDI, 2014). Second, scholars suggest that only the ruling class is profiting from this new wave of entrepreneurs (Jafari 2013, Schroeder, 2014 and GEDI, 2014). The Global Entrepreneur and Development Institute (GEDI) provides a general overview stressing both the new possibilities and the ruling elite’s power in SMEs around the world. In their annual report, GEDI ranks the efficiency of national start-up ecosys- tems “through analysis of 34 essential individual and institutional variables” (2014, p. ix). Iran is listed at the very bottom of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. The common feature of this bottom group is that they are “fairly illiberal and controlled economies in which market access is monopolized by ruling business elite” (GEDI, 2014, p. 36). GEDI ranks Iran in the bottom of its Global Entrepreneurial Index because of problems in internationalisation due to external sanctions, and product innovation due to software restrictions; additionally, “bureaucracy and multiple tax burdens threaten sustainable business activities” (GEDI, 2014, Introduction page for Iran). However, the report also notes Iran as the country with the largest ranking gain in one year. It concludes Iran “exceeds the average of its neighbours in the Asian and Oceania region” and evalu-

ates Iran's physical infrastructure as “increasingly positive in recent years” (GEDI, 2014, Introduction page for Iran). This progression in Iran is also a result of technology. Due to the Internet, a new generation of the nation’s entrepreneurs is more connected with markets, capital, and entrepreneurs elsewhere, unanticipated until only five years ago (Schroeder, 2014). Ac- cording to software business analyst Jacques Van Niekerk (2014) the start-up entrepreneurs he met during his trip in Iran were “world class in software development” (Van Niekerk, 2015). However, top-end, open-source software provided by North American companies such as Amazon are (still) illegal to use because of restrictions (Van Niekerk, 2015). When it comes to entrepreneurs in Iran, it is important to understand the private sector’s small portion in the economy. The state owns 70 to 80 percent of the economy; since 2009, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) became an important player in the remaining 20 percent: “They are among the country’s most important economic actors, controlling an estimated ten percent of the economy, directly and through various subsidiaries” (Hen-Tov & Gonzalez, 2011). The IRGC are usually described as a semi-private or pseudo-private organisation that has risen as a power since it helped secure the Islamic Revolution. In the recent de- cade of privatisation, the IRGC has gained major influence in all economic sectors such as construction, university laboratories, weapons manufacturing, infrastructure, and oil and gas (Bruno, Bajoria, & Masters, 2013). Analyses about the degree of influence and what ideals this group hold are somewhat varied. Mehdi Khalalji sees the organisation as “the backbone of the political structure” (Khalaji, 2007), i.e., a guarding corps working under direct authority of leader Ali Khamenei. Ali Alfoneh sees the expansion of an organisation that can challenge the clerical establishment. (Bruno, Bajoria, & Masters, 2013). Akbar Ganji sees the IRGC as a fractioned organisation comprised of conservative, pragmatist, and reformist groups (Ganji, 2013). He argues that the ideals of the organisation are shaped by possibilities of making profit. The influence of the IRGC can also be seen in the media industry. In 2009, this former paramilitary organisation bought 51 percent of Iran’s biggest telecommunication operator from the state. Gaining influence in telecommunication could be related to the

organisation’s large and capable intelligence agency, the "Unit of Reservation of Infor- mation”. This unit exists in parallel with and is quite influential within the Ministry of Intelligence (Khalaji, 2007). Critics have warned the deal exposes ordinary people, especially political activists, to intensified spying and electronic surveillance (Tait, 2009). Since the IRGC has strong ties with the government, there are resultant consequences that more than 80 percent of the economy is directly or indirectly related to governmental institutions. The situation illustrates how involved the state’s operation is in comparison with Western economies. Both the state and the IRGC politically favour certain entrepreneurs to become contractors, suppliers, and recipients of low-interest rate loans and licenses (Jafari, 2013). This reality, of a country in which the economy is largely owned by the state and semi-state organisations, puts Iranian entrepreneurs in a contradictory position: On one hand, many entrepreneurs find themselves in an oppositional relationship with economic monopolies tied to the state and the semi-private sector. Hence they have an interest in political reform that undercuts the authoritarian structures that privilege the monopolies. At the same time, however, they have a high level of state dependency. While challenging networks of patronage is one option to conquer a bigger economic space, becoming part of those networks remains an attractive alternative that meets less resistance from the state. (Jafari, 2013, p. 18) If one considers independency as an important value in starting a businesses, this dichotomy in Iran shows it is hardly possible to operate independent from the state. When applying Naldi and Picard’s arguments about a successful start-up ecosystem to the Iranian context, a few observations can be made. Start-ups need to be flexible in revenue streams, but start-ups in Iran mostly rely on the government as a capital source (Naldi & Picard, 2012). Naldi and Picard also argue that start-ups are best helped with less bureaucracy. But, as mentioned above, the main concern of reports about Iran is the complex bureaucratic system and multiple tax burdens that threaten start-ups. The aforementioned observations apply to entrepreneurship in Iran, and not specifically to news and journalism entrepreneurs. The next chapter of this thesis will zoom into the Iranian media industry to get a better understanding of the specific ‘environment’ in which Irani- an news and journalism start-ups are trying to run their businesses.

Chapter 2: Iranian journalism in Reese’s hierarchy of influences model

Introduction of Reese’s hierarchy of influences model This thesis is part of a transnational comparative study about starting news and journalism enterprises around the world. As Reese has stressed in Understanding the Global Journalist (2001), comparing professional journalism in different countries and cultures is a delicate issue to study, requiring structured guidance. Reese proposes “the hierarchy of influences model” (Reese, 2001) as a framework for comparative research in a “socio- logy-of-media level”. In this model, he stresses research should not only be done on the individual level of a journalist, but also on the larger structure in which a journalist functions — i.e., a web of organisational and contextual constraints. Before I analyse the media in Iran with Reese’s model, a short introduction of the model is given below. To sort out how news and journalism operate simultaneously across the globe, and are impacted at different levels of strength, the model uses a “multi-perspectival approach” (Reese 2001, p. 174). The different perspectives are respectively categorised as follows: “the individual journalist, news routines, organizational, extra-media , and ideological” (Reese, 2001, p. 178). I show these categories in Figure 2; ordered hierarchically, the most influential levels are at the top of the structure. As is shown in this figure, the higher levels of influence have impact on the lower individual level. The shape of the figure is my own interpretation of this hierarchy. As Reese states, routines can shape the final content more than the individual journalist’s ideologies. Reese’s model helps in sorting out the crucial concept of the level of analyses and identifying connections between levels of influence. For example, in Iran, the extra-media level can have large impact on individual journalism practices. By analysing journalism in Iran per level, the impact of these higher levels are clearly revealed.

Compared with the case studies, these analyses show a clear struggle between the ideals of start-ups and the reality of their working environment. Similarly stated by Jafari in chapter 2 — start-up enterprises are interested in reform and working independent from the monopolistic state-owned media, but to get a market share, they have to take advantage of their network with ruling elites. This contradiction is also formulated by Khiabani about the state vs. media dichotomy. Oppositions such as ‘public’ and ‘private’,‘restricted’ and ‘free’, ‘state’ and ‘market’, have formed some of the most controversial pairings in modern liberal societies, often valued in their terms’ degree of separation. “In case of the press (media) in particular, separation from the ‘state’ remains an ideal” (Khiabani, 2013, p. 9). Below, I analyse the media industry by discussing it within the hierarchy of influences framework. This analysis provides more insight on the direct and indirect contexts in which media start-ups are working, making more discernible the relation between state and start-up.

Individual journalist There are few scholarly publications about the profile of individual journalists in Iran. In available literature the concept of professionalism is viewed from different perspectives: historically, compared to Western journalism, or how new techniques of mass communication affected the profession. However, as I will argue at the higher levels of influence, much of the work of individual journalists is much more affected by forces at the meso- and macro-levels. Only those influences that root directly in the individual journalist’s background and behaviour are analysed at the individual level below. New York Times correspondent Thomas Erdbrink argues that the occupation of journalist in Iran is mainly a partisan job. He sees “a vague line between journalists and the government” (Erdbrink, 2005), and defines this occupation as that of “journopoliti- cians”. Members of the government are journalists and journalists are politicians. This is confirmed by Hossein Shahidi in his book Journalism in Iran (2007). He writes that managers or senior editors receive daily telephone calls from the Ministry of Information about what they should or should not publish (Shahidi, 2007). Both Shahidi and Erdbrink argue that agendas of newspapers are set by politicians who are neither objective nor in-

dependent, but who are heads of staff. They both portray the Iranian journalists of having tight relationships with either the government or other powerful elites. Besides these political links, their low income makes Iranian journalists dependent on commercial parties (Shahidi, 2007). An anonymous journalist from Iran describes in the Nieman Reports Iran - can its stories be told (Anonymous, 2009) that the income of a good journalist is so meagre that they are forced to compromise on their professionalism. He remembers many times that his coworkers planted favourable reporting in their pieces about businesses or goods to get extra money (Anonymous, 2009, p. 8). With the dissemination of the Internet in Iran, a new way of mass media communication arrived and thus a new public entered the political arena. The Internet became immensely popular among individuals who started their own gazette or weblog. This new, easily accessible mass communication technique gave a new group access to the information field. Since the arrival of the Internet “individuals and organisations can un- dermine the state’s claims to power and assertions of legitimacy as soon as they are made, using the same technologies and often in the same virtual locations” (Akhavan, 2013, p. 112). Seen at the level of individual journalists, journalism in Iran appears to be a highly dependent profession in three ways: (i) Iranian journalists have historically been partisan. They are affiliated with either the ruling elite or its opposition. (ii) Political propaganda seems to be the first purpose of journalism. However it is not easy to divide the journalists in clear groups of authorities and dissidents. The oppositional groups are “no- toriously factionalized, and shifts occur regularly but unpredictably” (Akhavan, 2013). (iii) Besides dependency on the state, journalists write for business partners to generate more income.

News routines The same anonymous journalist in the Nieman Reports of 2009 writes about the routines of his colleagues. Unpartisan publication is possible at this level of influences, argues the source. Despite being servant to the highest ruling elites – “Whatever is written should prove that you are a strong believer in the ruling establishment and you see eye to eye with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei” (Anonymous, 2009) – journalists who

consider their work ‘pluralistic’ and ‘independent’ can be found. This can be best described as a political authoritarian state with pockets of pluralism (Milani & McFaul, 2015). In these pockets, according to the anonymous journalist, a ‘neutral’ press can emerge: “by taking advantage of the dichotomy of so-called reformist and conservative camps” one can act as a journalist with impartiality (Anonymous, 2009, p. 8). While being recog- nised as a sympathiser of the supreme leader Khamenei you can also “criticize the in- cumbent government” (Anonymous, 2009, p. 8). The anonymous journalist defines a good journalist as: “a person who can say what he means in a way that the friends (audience) can get the point and the enemies (censors and pressure groups) miss the point” (Anonymous, 2009, p. 8). But without giving any examples, it is not very clear what the source means. This broadcasting or printing messages ‘between the lines’ may be undermining an authority, but this does not need to make journalism into an unpartisan occupation. Ultimately, journalism can be independent in news routines by producing pluralistic stories. This means letting opposing sides speak at the same time without taking sides.

Organisation Deeply rooted in the Iranian society is the concept of press as state gazette. Journalism in Iran started as a print with news about and from state officials. The mission of news and journalism organisations was to counter “lies” of rival foreign states and domestic enemies (Amin, 2015, p. 271). According to scholars, this political partisan goal of the press has not changed after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. After the monarchy was over- thrown, the Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini preserved the national radio and television station and renamed it Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). In the Islamic Republic Constitution of 1979, the Revolutionary Leaders decided that the IRIB should be in line with Revolutionary Ideals and promote Islamic culture, avoiding anti-Islamic threads. In 1983, the IRIB was given monopoly and anyone who started their own television or radio station would be prosecuted (Shahidi, 2010, p. 95). Other state officials who wish to work with, influence, or own media have to re- sort to the written press. Newspapers are therefor often used to promote specific economic, political, and cultural agendas of various factions (Khiabany, 2010, p. 135). At the

organisational level it becomes visible that news and journalism are an expansion of the political arena. As stated by Shahidi (2010) and Erdbrink (2005): politicians sit on top of the newspapers and decide their agendas. At this level of analyses it also becomes understandable what the disruption of ICT can do. Recent development of the Internet worldwide gave many an opportunity to enter into public debate online. With less dependency on government subsidies and per- mits, online publications can be created by individuals in every corner of the country. They do not have to own expensive machines and invest in a distributing channel. And at the same time they have virtually endless space, able to deliver their product right into the public’s mobile devices. But what is seen by optimists like Schroeder or proponents of multiple journalism as “liberation technology” others argue has not delivered its promises. Both perspectives have merit. Liberation technology is “any form of information and communication technology (ICT) that can expand political, social, and economic freedom” (Diamond, 2010, p. 70). This includes the computer, the Internet, mobile phones and their countless innovative applications including new social media. It is a decentralised technology that has the ability to connect a large number of people very quickly. In sharp contrast with radio and television, this new technology is a multi-form method of communication and is well suited for grassroots organisations. It has the potential for individual users to speak to thousands of people at the same time, and thus challenge authorities. However, the Iranian government has strict control over all liberation technologies. It has acquired impressive technological capabilities to filter and control the Internet, and to identify and punish dissidents (Diamond, 2010). Such media can only exist legally if accepted by the state. The information published outside Iran develops very much like former technological innovations did. It is mainly used by dissidents and oppositional parties of the state. Erdbrink explains that it is naive to think of Iranian journalists or news platforms working outside the country as neutral or independent. These initiatives are “political debates outside the Iranian political arena”. Sources inside Iran do not dare to talk about opinions opposing the state.

To summarise the first three levels of hierarchy — the state is present in many aspects of journalism. It is indirectly involved in the press being historically partisan and institutionalised; journalists can find freedom of speech in a pluralistic approach but find their limits when writing about subjects like the Islamic Revolution and its leaders. At an organisational level, the broadcasting companies and some newspapers openly belong to the state and are under direct influence of the leading elite. At this level the state influence is directly visible, owning the broadcasting institutions on television and radio and holding a tight grip on newspapers and online media. This becomes even more explicit at the extra-media level of analyses.

Extra-media All of the Iranian state’s power is clustered at the highest level of the ruling elite — na- mely, the Supreme Leader, nowadays Ali Khamenei. To enforce his power a legitimisati- on is anchored in the Constitution. The Supreme Leader ‘allows’ and recognises political participation, but “he keeps an ultimate veto for the ruling clergy on the basis that the sovereignty belongs not to the people but to God, and in reality to representatives [such as the Supreme leader] and the guardians of his will” (Khiabany, 2010, p. 157). In the state’s interest is the propagation of a certain type of Islam defined as a national ‘culture,’ which the ruling elite has actively subscribed to since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The country’s freedom of the press is arranged similarly to the freedom of political participation. In general, it can be said that in Iran there is freedom of publication until it harms the ideologies of the Islamic Republic. As is written in The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979): “the freedom of expression and dissemination of thoughts in the Radio and Television of the Islamic Republic of Iran must be guaranteed in keeping with the Islamic criteria and the best interests of the country” (Khiabany, 2010, p. 141). Because the Revolutionary Islamic criteria is guarded by the ruling clergy, the press has some external responsibility to the electorate but their responsibility ultimately is to the Supreme Leader. Personal intervention of the supreme leader, the ultimate power in Iran, has not by any means been rare (Khiabany, 2010). Governmental institutions do so not only by cen-

soring the media, but also expanding, regulating, and subsidising, as well as owning its infrastructure. Because of this system, the press in Iran cannot be seen as the ‘fourth estate’ or a ‘watchdog’ as in Europe's ideal press; rather, the media is part of the political structure and power in which it is placed. Besides legal power, the state also has economic advantages. Since the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government has directly owned and operated hundreds of state- owned enterprises. Since ’79, the state has nationalised many companies, including those within mass communication. The state, therefor, is the only media mogul in Iran. Khiabany states that future perspectives are not towards a press independent from the state. First of all, the risk of producing a newspaper in a country with little to no history in democracy and open access to information is not an attractive prospect for the private sector. Second, newspaper entrepreneurs not only have to acquire expensive machines for printing, but also lack proper distribution networks such as rail, roads, and online infrastructure. Third, it is difficult to publish viable and credible newspapers in a country with no political and social accountability and transparency (Khiabany 2010, p. 88). In contrast, all of these difficulties are no major concern for the state, which has access to institutions and governmental departments. Press linked with governmental institutions has economic, technical, and infrastructural benefits. For example, Hamshahri, — owned by the Tehran Mayor’s Office and therefore closely linked to the highest ruling elites — and The Islamic Republic News Agency — the state’s official news agency — get 60 percent of the subsidies out of foreign exchange facilities. Kayan and Ettela’at, two state newspapers under supervision of the Supreme Leader, have their own modern printing press. Hamshahri holds the only license for full colour advertising — a unique selling point, as most newspapers are sold precisely because of Hamshari’s colourful advertisement pages (Anonymous, 2013, p. 8; Shahidi, 2006, p. 3; and “Why finding a flat in Tehran is as hard as in London and NYC”, 2015). Besides the advertisement revenue, a major source of income for these enterprises is sales at kiosks. This source is also dominated by the State. Governmental newspapers keep their price as low as possible, which makes for difficult competition. Other players could compete by choosing the most controversial and sensitive political subjects, or pu-

blishing sensational and popular entertainment, in order to keep the numbers of sales high. But both areas are sensitive and may lead to forced closure for a lack of political or moral sense. Therefore, according to Khiabany, there are no viable alternatives for private printed newspapers to compete with government-related newspapers at the kiosks (Khiabany, 2010, p. 89).

Ideological The meaning of ideology in Iranian journalism can be traced by some historical debates in the newspaper industry. First is the ideal of a state gazette: “Newspaper” means attracting the special attention of the government. And “journalist” means the protector of the government’s affairs. “Newspaper” means the government’s voice. And “journalist” means the trusted servant and keeper of the government’s secrets. (Kermani (1877) in: Amin 2015, p. 274) With this statement, literary critic Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani defined journalists in 1877 as state servants. He belonged to the first generation of journalists working in the Persian monarchy. Starting with this quote, Amin sketches a history of the media (between 1870 and 1940) with a highly partisan press and broadcasting. The ruling monarchy used the mass media for propaganda and forbade dissidents to publish or broadcast. People with oppositional opinions were forced to move outside the country where they founded newspapers and broadcasting agencies to compete with the ruling elite in Iran. Thus, from the beginning of mass media in Iran, the media became a tool to spread interests of politicians. This can still be seen today. All television and radio stations are in the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and under control of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. According to the Islamic Republic’s Constitution, these media must be used as a tool to “serve the diffusion of Islamic culture” and must “strictly refrain from diffusion and propagation of destructive and anti-Islamic practices” (Khiabani, 2010: 138). Similar to the radio and television, this makes working as a servant of the state’s propaganda an ideal of the press. This press as state propaganda is not the only ideal expressed in Iran. Another ideal is similar to the Western ideal of the press: journalism as independent from the state. Shahidi gives an example of an expression of this ideal in the now closed newspaper

Ayandegan. This daily was forced to close because it put itself on the wrong side of the ruling elite: the paper published an interview in which Khomeini had expressed his desire to remain a member of the clergy and to keep his distance from politics. With this message, the newspaper tapped into a discussion about the role of the clergy in the system. The ruling elite reacted by labelling the paper as Zionist and Communist. The paper respon- ded with the publication of a symbolic newspaper. Four pages, three of which were emp- ty, whose last page contained a text that said: It is the duty of a journalist to put the people in the picture and keep them informed of what is going on, not to sweeten everything or present it as divine guidance, so that no one knows exactly what and how bad the probable ills of the people are. (Khiabani, 2010, p. 157) Ayandegan was the first of hundreds of newspapers that had to close because the regime labelled them as dangerous for the Islamic Republic. This trend reveals a certain consci- ence of the occupation of journalism as an independent informer for the Iranian public. But as is shown by the closing down of Ayandegan and many other newspapers since then, this ideal has little reality in Iran’s media industry. Shahidi argues that despite the suppression of the press, the profession has matu- red and, after more than a century of toil, trouble, and struggle, is now successfully in- forming the public. What it means to be a journalist in Iran, Shahidi writes, is “to inform the public with the information that they need to find their own answers” (Shahidi, 2006, p. 27). This is also stated by the aforementioned anonymous source: what is meant can be found between the lines. Shahidi concludes that this information service offered by the press is the true task journalists see as their mission.

Method Chapter 3: Three case studies

3.1 Multiple case study approach There is more than one reason why a case study approach has been chosen as the method of research. First, the main question of this study is descriptive. Methodologists have suggested that these ‘what is’ or ‘what has happened?’ questions are best answered by studying one or more cases (Yin, 2012, p. 5). This would be so because answering such questions cannot be done from existing data. For instance, when learning about Iranian journalism start-ups, readers want to learn about what motivation drives entrepreneurs, in what conditions they work, and in what way enterprises are supported or restricted by regulations from the government. To address these subjects, the participants themselves and their direct day-to-day context have to be researched. Second, (English-language) literature about Iranian journalism start-ups is missing. Thus, this gap has to be filled in by primary fieldwork. Third, the case study research method is defined by Robert K. Yin as an empirical inquiry that investigates “a contemporary phenomenon (e.g., a ‘case’), set within its real-world context - especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2012, p. 4). This description fits start-ups in Iran rather well. As shown in the first two chapters, start-ups worldwide and journalism start- ups in Iran in particular are a contemporary development. Also, the relationship between start-ups and their context is not clear. For example, Iran’s external sanctions and the internal filtering of the Internet have various impacts on the running of start-ups. Case studies can explore these larger influences in ‘local’ circumstances. The aim of these case studies are to connect the macro-level with the micro-levels of analysis, thus gaining a better understanding from both perspectives.

Literature analyses In this thesis, the literature about SMEs worldwide and journalism in Iran has been analysed in two steps. Firstly before the period of collecting data, and secondly after that

period. For example, Christopher Schroeder’s book about entrepreneurs in the Middle East helped in defining the topics of the questionnaires used for open-ended interviews. Also, the geographical and cultural difference of Iran and my own Dutch background demands adopting some theoretical perspectives before the fieldwork. Nonetheless, in the second phase, after the visit to Iran, the theory has been rewritten and expanded. This is done with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of Iranian society.

Case selection This paper’s research started with finding suitable cases to study. A suitable case was defined as a starting SME in the media sector, not older than five years. As discussed in the first chapter, a case did not have to be specifically a news or journalism start-up. The concept of media I follow is from Hoag & Seo (2005) who accept new (social) media as part of this sector. Revivals or renewals of a major organization was treated as suitable cases, as well as start-ups that discovered a new way of distributing media content or were starting a whole new outlet. To locate these cases, I researched via e-mail with a snowball method. I first e-mailed acquaintances in Iran whom I had met during a summer holiday there in 2014, asking if they knew journalists in Iran who could help in finding “entrepreneurial journalism and/ or media start-ups in Iran”. In the e-mails, I referred to Schroeder’s article about the entrepreneurial boom in Iran (Schroeder, 2014), as well as the Multiple Journalism website to show some examples from around the world. I corre- sponded with thirteen Iranian journalists and professionals working in the media industry in total, and with two Iranians working with entrepreneurs. Interestingly, two persons claimed there are no journalism or news start-ups in Iran. One wrote: Unfortunately, I don't know any promising start ups in the field of media in Iran. Actually, I think it is so hard to expect that under a totallitarian [sic] regime, media can do their globally-defined job. (e-mail, 12 August, 2014) This answer corresponds with Deuze’s analysis that researchers often write about journalism as if it is a consensually defined job. However, Deuze argues, there is a lack of international consensus about the key theory and methods of the profession. The “globally- defined job” the respondent was writing about is an occupational ideology. The correspondent concludes that, in the totalitarian regime of Iran, this ideology does not have a

reality. Weaver’s study concludes that most journalists in elective democracies speak of shared values (Deuze, 2005). This respondent, currently living in Norway, clearly belongs to this group. Other contacts who live in Iran proposed several companies working in the media sector. They mentioned: a blog about technology and health (1pezeshk4), an online kiosk for newspapers (Jaaar5), a news analysis service (Newshub6), news aggregation services (Hypermedia7, DAKKE8), a news application builder, and a video streaming website called Aparat9. One more suggestion sent via Twitter to professor Deuze was the Finan- cial Tribune,10 a financial daily newspaper publishing in English. The last start-up ad- vised as a case for this research was Peivast, a recently started monthly magazine.11 This recommendation came from a speaker at the Iran Web & Mobile Conference during the 15th and 16th of June, 2015, in Tehran. Out of all these suggestions I chose three cases, each active in different fields of the Iranian media industry and representing three different perspectives on media and journalism innovation in Iran. First is Jaaar, an online newspaper kiosk working in the infrastructure of news delivering. Second, Peivast, a classic monthly magazine about news in ICT. Aparat is the third case — a streaming website that is not strictly working in news and journalism, but as a platform for publicly generated video like YouTube. Ob- serving different types of start-ups allows me to track developments in organisations whose founders have varying backgrounds, strategies, and tactics. These perspectives taken together give a representation of what is involved with starting and running a journalism start-up in Iran. As evidence, this thesis uses a textual database with the transcriptions of semi-structured interviews.

4http://1pezeshk.com/ 5http://www.jaaar.com 6http://newshub.ir/ 7http://www.hypermedia.ir/ 8https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dkh/id844095531?mt=8 9http://www.aparat.com/ 10http://financialtribune.com/ 11 http://peivast.com/

Informants All three start-ups were reached by e-mail. In the first contact, I asked for interviews with the staff and if it was possible to visit the companies for some days. This was accompanied by a letter signed by professor Mark Deuze [[see: Appendix D Project Iran Journal- ism start-ups]. All start-ups declined my request for an extensive research period with multiple visits, interviews with all staff members, and document research. Therefor, I chose to research more than one case by doing extensive interviews. Jaaar agreed to meet for an interview in a restaurant with three members of their staff. At my request, the CEO and head of the software department accompanied the PR-chief. Peivast invited me to their office for two interview sessions, both with one of the founders who is now editor- in-chief. Aparat agreed to have an interview at their office with their PR-chief.

3.2 Questionnaire topics The semi-structured interviews were held with a topic list set up prior to the dialogue. The topic list was provided by Mark Deuze with the aim of collecting comparative data on journalism start-ups worldwide. Topics of discussion were: (1) genesis of the start-up, (2) people involved, (3) revenue model, (4) motives, (5) goals, and (6) start-up ecosystem.

Genesis of the start-up Addressing the genesis of start-ups provides knowledge about the context and ideologies in which the businesses began. Original goals might have changed and prior assumptions have been tested.

People involved To understand what occupational groups are forming in journalism start-ups and the nature of their mutual relations, people involved in the start-ups are addressed. The background, loans, and tasks of employees are explored.

Location Where are the start-ups situated? The locations of a company reveals information about its goals, networks, and need of physical representation in the city. When founders decided where their office would be, they may take factors into account such as the rent or mortgage, the neighbours, the neighbourhood, or the visibility and accessibility.

Revenue model Start-ups need to establish a durable income to pay for their costs and invest in growth. Establishing a business model can require a variety of financial approaches. This subject gives insight into the different revenue streams of start-ups and the economic resources with which they build their enterprise.

Motives Overall motives of the start-ups, articulated by PR-managers or CEOs, can differ from individual motives. For comparison with Western ideas, I asked the respondents to elaborate on similarities and differences of motivations to begin start-ups in Iran compared to Western countries.

Goals I asked respondents to evaluate their original goals addressed in the genesis of the start- up. Did the start-ups meet their goals, why (not), and how did they reach these goals?

Start-up ecosystem To define ‘ecosystem’ I use Moore’s definition of an ‘economic ecosystem’: “an economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals – the organisms of the business world” (Moore, 1996, p. 26). Several organisations are directly or indirectly involved with the start-ups. Directly involved are investors, legal juridical advisors, start-up coaches, start-up accelerators and events, and governmental organisations. Indirectly involved are environmental conditions such as Internet companies and money transfer networks. With this subject I try to understand how different organisations interact within a start-up ecosystem.

Interviews All the interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed with a topic list. The second interview with Peivast was recorded on camera and used for a publication on the website Multiple Journalism. This interview was also transcribed and can be found in the appendix, together with the transcriptions of the other interviews.

3.3 Set-up of the interviews

Context of the interview with Jaaar Prior to the interview with Jaaar, I asked twice if we could have a meeting at the company’s office. This would serve the purpose of allowing me to study the working environment. However, their PR-chief rejected this proposal via e-mail. He wrote that the office was too busy at the moment to have a meeting: “Frankly it's our busy season now and on top of that we're doing some maintenance in our offices so I think it's better to have our meeting in a coffee shop or somewhere. (Paravarpishe, Pedram. “Re: Research project on entrepreneurial media/journalism.” Message to author. 10 February, 2014. E-mail.) My first meeting with Jaaar was on the first day of the Startup Conference in Teh- ran, on February 15th, 2015. The PR-chief texted me and asked to meet in front of the building, during a break. There I met the PR-chief and the CEO of Jaaar, who were visit- ing the conference because their company was selected for an award for most promising media start-up. And eventually, Jaaar won. Outside the main entrance, I found both of them standing in the sun. The PR-chief started introducing himself and said Jaaar was honoured to be the subject of research. He said they would do everything to help with the study. I asked why they did not want to meet at the office and explained it was in my interest to see in what conditions the company and its employees were working. As soon as I asked this, the PR-chief lowered his eyes and turned his head left and right to look behind him. I realised then I might have crossed a red line, unbeknownst to me, regarding which subjects I could openly discuss and which I should not mention in public. He looked again at me, smiled and said, “We will see what we can do”. We shook hands and they promised to arrange a meeting.

Five days later the PR-chief picked me up at my hotel with a taxi. In the car I asked again why it was not possible to meet at the office. This time he explained that at least one person from the government was at the office, checking “who comes in and who goes out”. Because media is a very sensitive topic, he elaborated “it is dangerous to talk to you with the knowledge of this person”. About specific consequences he did not say anything. He replied that, since Jaaar had just started, “it is better to work low-profile”. When we arrived at the restaurant, we met the CEO of the company as well as a major stakeholder and head of the software branch. All three seemed relaxed and I turned on my audio recorder. The founders and PR-chief patiently answered my questions and the ses- sion last over two hours.

Start-up Jaaar The interview with Jaaar took place in an Iranian restaurant during lunch. The attendees were three respondents: the CEO, who spoke little English; the shareholder and head of software development, who also spoke little English; and the chief of public relations, who spoke fluent English. He acted as a translator.

Start-up Peivast The interview with Peivast took place at their office. The respondent was one of the co- founders, now the editor-in-chief. He invited me to the office, situated in north-west Teh- ran [see: Appendix B Tehran map with start-up locations]. We were the only attendants in the meeting and sat in one of the two editorial rooms. The editor-in-chief sat behind his desk facing his employees. Because his English is at a fluent level, it was easy to com- municate. Before we started he stressed he could only talk for one hour, as everyone was very busy working on the next issue — a special for the upcoming Nowruz, Iran's New Years celebration. After this first interview, I met him a week later for another interview of half an our, again at his office.

Start-up Aparat The interview took place in an oval meeting room of the office. The marketing manager invited me the office of Aparat in eastern Tehran. Tea was served twice by a waiter during the interview. We were the only attendees.

Results and analyses

Chapter 4: Case Studies, Jaaar, Aparat and Peivast North, near Valiasr Street The city of Tehran can be roughly divided into two parts — the north and the south. The latter is known as the old city. This should not be interpreted as a positive sentiment, as in the idyllic old centres of European cities. South Tehran is the place from which nearly all governmental institutions, universities, commercial districts and entertainment have moved away to reestablish in the north. Another main point of orientation for Tehranis is the famous Valiasr Street: the longest highway in the Middle East or maybe even in the world, as is repeatedly told to visitors. In a span of 20 kilometres running right through the middle of the city, the street connects north and south Tehran. When driving from south to north, one can see the buildings get higher, shopping malls more luxurious, and the air less polluted. The north is more prosperous, modern, and cosmopolitan. In the most northern part of the city, real-estate prices are sky-high and square meters are sold for the same prices as in London and Tokyo. All start-ups mentioned the two orientation points when asked where they had their office. As Tehran’s bureau correspondent for the Guardian wrote, “Tehranis derive a sense of respectability . . . depending on how far north an address is located” (“Why finding a flat in Tehran is as hard as in London and NYC”, 2015). It is in the northern area — not far from Valiasr Street — where all start- ups have their offices. Considering all three start-ups, Peivast is the most southerly located, with an office in a central Tehran neighbourhood called Bahar [See: Appendix B]. According to its Wikipedia page, this neighbourhood is a favoured area, close to the metro station Haft-e- Tir, the central cross in Tehran’s business district. With “increasing commercial activities

[and] two small malls along the main street, it is a busy area” (Wikipedia: “Bahar, Teh- ran”, n.d.). The office of Peivast is in a three-story building with a small garden in front. The first two floors hold offices for Peivast; on the second floor there are several desks for editors. Most of the office’s walls and hallways were decorated with cartoons published in previous issues of the magazine. The office of Pouya Rasaneh (Jaaar) is situated in the northern part of the city at Sarv Street, a turn-off from the famous Valiasr Street [see appendix B]. The area is a non- residential business district with a concentration of government agencies. Jaaar is housed in a three story building on two floors; downstairs there is a lawyers office. The start-up has been there from their genesis because, as they say, “the majority of our customers are nearby”. Next to the building is a magazine company. Other neighbours are unknown to founders. The office of Aparat is situated near Jaaar on a side street, again, not far from Val- iasr Street. Many larger companies have offices in the area. Down the same street several oil business can be found [see Appendix B]. After entering the front door, a hallway passes into a courtyard. Behind the courtyard is a four- or five-level building in which employees have their desks.

Technology-driven start-ups Among the thirty employees working for Jaaar, ten have a journalism background and five work in development. Five work full-time for Jaaar. According to the PR-chief, people like to work at the company because, “first of all we are pioneering” and all employees are between 20 to 32 of years age — “a young team is very attractive”, he explained. The salary varies per speciality. The technical department has the best pay, with 4-5 million Toman (1,169-1,461 Euro12) per month. Marketing employees earn 1.5 million To- man per month (438 Euro13). At the time of the interview, Peivast had grown into a company with more than thirty people involved. These included writing journalists, website designers, administra-

12 According to the exchange rate from Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran on 21 February, 2014, 1 Euro = 34.208 Rial or 3.421 Toman. 13 Ibid.

tion, and software developers. Most people I met during the visit were younger than 40. The editor-in-chief studied civil engineering and SMEs management. He is an experienced journalist who wrote for national papers such as Hamshahri and the ‘reformist newspaper’ Shargh. The other two founders share a journalistic background. In the beginning, the magazine tried to outsource the development and maintenance of their website. This did not work in the long run because, as the the editor-in-chief stated, in the end one needs to train the developers for one’s own goals. Aparat has seventy employees from different backgrounds; the staff includes ac- counting and economic management, designers, user interface designers, and social network specialists. At the time of the interview, the company was understaffed and had vacancies in software development. The PR-chief said it was not easy to find software specialists, as “developers and technical people tend to run their own companies.” This problem is compounded by the large “brain drain” Iran is suffering from. Many of the young, highly educated people have left Iran to European and North American countries: “this creates a shortage of high skilled people”. All start-ups hire a staff with a variety of skills. This can be due to the selection of technologically driven companies. But even Peivast, mainly focused on a paper magazine and started by three writing journalists, decided to hire their own developers to build their website.

Fix inefficiencies, copy successful businesses, and find independency Jaaar and Aparat started with similar goals — both start-ups evolved as media companies that wanted to extend their market share by developing new products. When analysing the genesis of both start-ups, particular Iranian circumstances that have shaped and formed the companies can be identified. Jaaar and Peivast more or less fit to the definitions of a start-up given in chapter 1. For example Jaaar is in line with the definition in paragraph 1.2: a business in search of “unknown products” (Blank 2010) and “an innovative company that is trying to fix an inefficiency or a problem” (Totten, 2013). The search for a new product to fix inefficiencies is rooted in the business model of the Jaaar’s mother company PouyaRasaneh, which company started three years before Jaaar was launched as a website. Before the CEO started PouyaRasaneh and Jaaar he was

working at IT-departments of newspapers and as a PR-employee. He noticed the need for an automated news search and news monitoring system. As is explained in chapter 2 of this thesis, Iranian authorities hold a tight grip on news publication and check if anyone is publishing something against the press law. This has always been checked by hand, but with the digitalisation of newspapers new technologies became available. The CEO saw that “electronic newspapers were booming, but there was no [digital] monitoring service”, thus identifying new possibilities. The PR-chief elaborated: The manual way is you hire ten people; you give them keywords [and] they start to search the newspapers. . . . They cut out the related articles . . . stick it to paper and they give them back. The automated online service is the machine do[ing] the same job. You define [a] word for the machine; [it] automatically start[s] searching for that word online and [it] gives the report back. To find out if there would be customers for such a service, the CEO started interviewing PR-departments. He spoke with thirty Iranian ministries — “they reacted positively” — and was convinced the the service could be a lucrative business. The first thing the CEO did was reach out to an old friend who had 20 years of experience working as a journalist, asking him to join the company. According to the CEO he “wanted to know how news works, what the ecosystem of news is.” “[This] wasn’t something you can read in a book”, the PR-chief explained. The CEO did not elaborate on what the journalist told him exactly, but added that he had to understand the “mafia of media” to start his business. With a greater knowledge of the newspaper industry, the CEO convinced newspapers to let him digitise their articles in a database so that he was able to scan their content. The first product the company built was a software program in which customers could enter keywords to make their own news bulletin. They called this service Newshub. In the first three years of its existence, their news database grew from 6 million articles in 2009 to 23 million in 2010 and 34 million in 2011. Since the start, the company has been adding sources that publish news and articles in Persian to their database. In 2015 they monitored around 1,200 Persian news sites. In the words of the PR-chief, “Basically, we monitor any Persian news website”.

Since Newshub was a business-to-business service, it was not so visible in public. Being visible is important to get new customers; therefore, from Newshub’s beginning the CEO was looking for a way to get more public appearance. “We needed a marketing arm in the public”, the CEO explained. To show the capability of the company he decided to make a public webpage. In 2011 the company launched a website that displayed frontpages of Persian newspapers. They called it Jaaar. Progressing from Newshub to the online kiosk of Jaaar was a small step. The infrastructure was already available with Newshub’s software; the company only had to make a small part of their service publicly available. So they ultimately decided to show the front pages of newspapers every morning on their webpage. “[Jaaar has the] same feeling [as if] you stand in [a] kiosk in front the newspaper[s]. But we make this feeling online”. Surprisingly, the CEO of Jaaar was not initially interested in selling newspapers, but merely wanted to show their front pages to attract people to the company’s website. However, as soon as they started, they received e-mails from website visitors who wanted to download the complete newspaper. At the time, no newspaper in Iran was available online. So Jaaar did exactly that, as the first company to provide this infrastructure. Step by step, the company digitised Iranian newspapers. Seen in the increasing number of newspapers offered on their online kiosk, Jaaar has grown every year [See figure 1]. With Newshub and Jaaar, the company built an innovative product to tap into a new market. With new digital possibilities, the start-up challenges the traditional delivery system of news. In examining the genesis of Jaaar, the news company is revealed to originate from specific Iranian circumstances that have formed and shaped the company. Newshub was developed merely to help Iranian clients with the automation of a previously manual task. Thus, the question of why Jaaar started can be answered by focal circumstances and needs. On the other hand, the Jaaar’s product does not have to be limited to Iran. For example, there is the very similar Blendle, an originally Dutch digital kiosk for newspapers currently operating in The Netherlands, Germany, and the U.S.A. This product was an obvious outcome of new digital techniques becoming available.

The genesis of the start-up Aparat also lays in its mother company, Sabaidea. Similar to Jaaar, it has specific roots in the Iranian society and is at the same time very similar to Western companies. Aparat, the YouTube of Iran, did not try to find a new product like Jaaar did. The company copied successful foreign formulas to launch an Ira- nian version. And they did this more than once, launching local versions of Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix. It probably has helped that these foreign companies were, and still are, not allowed to enter the Iranian market due to sanctions. The first time the company created an Iranian version of a successful foreign company was in in 2004, when Sabaidea was just founded. At that time, a social media network called Orkut was popular in Iran14 (Akhavan, 2013, p. 85-86) — the first social network popular in the nation on a large scale and unprecedented in its form. It largely depended on user’s participation. People working at Sabaidea looked at the popularity and thought an Iranian version could be successful, so they more or less copied the network, called it Cloob, and launched it into the Iranian market. It almost immediately became a hit, with up to 4 million people registering in a few years. Suddenly, in 2006 the Iranian government decided to filter Orkut (“Internet Filter- ing in Iran in 2006-2007”, 2006). In the same period other social networking sites, including YouTube and Facebook, were also finding eager audiences in Iran (Akhavan, 2013, p. 86). But during the aftermath of the elections of June 2009, both websites, as well as Cloob, were filtered. This surprised the PR-chief: We thought, well they are international players, and we are Iranian and we are under the supervision of the government. Whenever they wanted something to be removed, they can just tell us or come here and say the name of [the] clip [that] should be removed. . . . So we didn't think they would filter Cloob as well, but they did it anyway. Cloob did not stay filtered for long; after a couple of days the website was online again and starting to attract users. YouTube and Facebook are still filtered during the writing of this thesis. Inspired by the success of online video sharing in other countries, the compa-

14 The network was owned by Google and was mainly popular in Iran, India, Brazil, and the U.S.A.

ny decided it wanted to incorporate video uploading in their social network. With no competition from other video streaming websites, they launched Aparat in 2010. By 2012 they had 1 million videos streaming per day, and in 2014 the website had grown to 5 million videos per day. “The need for Aparat is huge”, said the company’s PR-chief. With the growth of mobile usage in Iran, the website is among the most visited websites in the country. Even while many people use virtual private networks (VPNs) or other software to circumvent the state’s filters, there is still a need of a legal and publicly available video-sharing platform. Videos can be uploaded to Aparat and embedded on a website, which is useful for commercial companies who want to legally show videos on their websites. Similar to Jaaar, Aparat seems to be specific to the Iranian political context, born out of filtering and regulations policies. The success of Aparat stems largely from sanctions on their direct competitors. Where YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are filtered, Aparat takes their potential place on the market. Jaaar’s predecessor Newshub was erected because of the state’s custom of monitoring newspapers; the founder saw a new technological innovation within this specific context. Differing from the other two start-ups, Peivast was started with an ideological goal. The start-up was erected by three friends who all worked as journalists for the weekly ICT-magazine Asre-e-Ertebat (Age of Communication). They got fired due to “financial reasons” and decided to start their own magazine so they could work more “independently”. Thus, the founders started Peivast with an ideal: working as independent journalists for an independent company. This ideal can be seen in their business model and the content of the magazine. The wish to work independently from the state introduced a dilemma: where to go for funding? Should the company accept subsidies from the state or private donations? As Nee has observed, start-ups in Western countries see state funding as suspicious because of the control it would provide to the government (2014). This is almost literally formulated by the editor-in-chief of Peivast. To work independently means, according to the editor-in-chief: To have no connections to government or to another existing company … as soon as you get into the political things and you are really neutral, they are going to

come after you and it is not good. I think everywhere in the world it is the same, but in Iran it is really exaggerated. The founder sees their ideal of independency as a basic principle of a “real start-up”. The editor-in-chief argued that there is a clear distinction between government entities which call themselves a start-up and “real independent start-ups”. The first are used for “political reasons”, the second are small, private, recently started initiatives: “many young media [companies] you can not call a start-up, because they have been backed by the government or semi-government”, he elaborated. For example the founder had doubts about Aparat. He categorised it as a state entity with investments from political entities. This, he considers, is not a real start-up.

What is their product? When analysing the products sold by start-ups and the revenue model they build on, a deeper understanding of these companies unfolds. While start-ups try to build their business around ideals or to make profit, political and economical circumstances shape the enterprises. This is pointed out by Khiabany when empathising “The boundaries of the media, its goals and aims, its limits and content, is regulated and determined by the nation state and various state institutions” (Khiabany, 2010, p. 12). The three start-ups in this study sell very different products and thus target different fields in the media industry of Iran. Thus, these start-ups can be placed within the wide variety of entrepreneurial journalism, mentioned in paragraph 1.4. Jaaar sells an infrastructure for newspapers distribution; Aparat is a platform for users’ generated content; and Peivast’s printed magazine is very traditional. To attract people to buy its magazine, Peivast is mainly focussed on “quality content”. Quality to this start-up means longer then average articles with insights that competitors do not give. Whereas other media just give an account of an event, Peivast tries to reach the core: “We don’t just write about events, but tell you what the reasons are behind this event”, the editor-in-chief explained, “In that way your content is really important to people, and they are going to pay for it”. To reach this quality the founders decided to focus on a niche market, that being ICT-developments in Iran. For example,

when a social network or application is filtered, Peivast analyses the political situations underlying these regulations: “We write about what is going on behind the curtain”. Also noteworthy is the way Peivast sells its product in hardcopy print. With a printed magazine, Peivast is running against the trend of digitalisation, which is particu- larly remarkable because of the magazine’s subject. Peivast’s founders believe the physical presence of the 180 hardcopy pages in full color is something someone wants to have on his or her desk — especially during a meeting. The magazine functions as a physical representation of insight into ICT-developments. Aparat targets its market by providing free online space for video sharing. The unique selling point is a non-filtered video website. This is needed because people want a reliable service; illegal connections via VPNs are slower than regular networks. A legal online video space such as Aparat is used when a company wants to add a promotional video to their website. Aparat largely relies on revenue from advertisements. Since Aparat is one of the most visited websites in Iran, it has high revenues out of advertisements. The main page has three banners with ads (see figure 5 and 6) and an advertisement video of five se- conds plays before before streaming a video. If an advertiser wants to display its add on 10 percent of the videos it will cost around 7000 euro per month. At the time of writing this paper, Jaaar showed the frontpages of 186 Persian newspapers. After registering, visitors can buy the digital newspapers from its website. The website is updated daily at 7 a.m. and the database lets people search back to newspapers from January 2011. The homepage is free to visit and the frontpages of the newspapers can be enlarged with a single click, to the extent that headlines are easily readable [see figure 3 and 4]. The newspapers, which are sold to the users, become a visible product visible for visitors of the website. At the same time, Jaaar sells its users’ data to the newspaper publishers. By monitoring users’ mouse movements Jaaar can analyse how newspapers are being received. “[We show] how people are interacting with the pages”, said the PR-chief. This way journalists can learn from behaviour of their readers. Study- ing this behaviour is not new in the media, but with Jaaar, the survey becomes much larger and easier. Most newspaper websites in Iran do not sell their newspaper online and thus cannot track user behaviour in this way.

According to the founders, almost all the newspapers in Iran only sell their newspaper via Jaaar: “90% of [the newspapers] have their own website to sell commercial goods, but they sell their paper on Jaaar”. The technical infrastructure Jaaar provides is apparently something newspapers in Iran outsource. The infrastructure and maintenance is too expensive for individual papers, concluded the PR-chief. The company suggests the kiosk appearance has an synergetic advantage. Con- sumers prefer buying newspapers in one newsstand where all papers are shown next to each other, instead of buying newspapers from different websites. It is convenient and encourages the customer to buy more, said the PR-chief.

When your core business is not your main revenue stream Naldi and Picard (2012) notice the start-ups they researched did not have a flexible business model, with poor business plans and limited access to capital. Such start-ups spent most of their time working on the editorial part of their business. All three Iranian start- ups do not match this characteristic. Their business models are flexible and rely on more then one income stream. Several revenue models were mentioned during the interviews: advertisements (all three), donations, subscriptions, venture capital (Peivast) and subsidies (Aparat) were mentioned by the start-ups. Besides their core products, all three start-ups have revenue streams alternative to what is displayed in public. When looked at the revenue streams both for Peivast and Jaaar, these secondary streams of income are larger then the income made from the start- ups selling their main product. Besides their magazine, Peivast has become a well-known brand. The editor-in-chief hosts public discussions about ICT, for example at the Iran Web Festival in 2014. Peivast covers the festival by promoting it in their magazine, tweeting about it, and organising and presenting Q&A’s. The audience usually know the editor-in-chief; he is also a television host for a talk show called Techcafe, discussing ICT on the national television station IRIB (Social Innovations Startup Weekend, n.d.). The editor-in-chief estimates 60 percent of their income comes from these kind of pro- jects. Peivast’s editor-in-chief recalls that, initially, many people had doubts about their business model. First of all because they tried to sell an old-fashioned hardcover paper

for a high price. But they also launched a free online edition. To a lot of people, this seemed like Peivast competing with its own product. However, the editor-in-chief said, this turned out well. The online edition helped to spread their brand. At the same time, people started buying subscriptions for their hardcover magazine. Their circulation tri- pled between 2012 and 2014; at the time of the interview, 8,000 magazines were printed. Not a large number for the Iranian context, but it was higher than they had expected from the start. The magazine is mainly sold by subscription, which the editor-in-chief called Peivast’s “winning card”. With the subscription model, the magazine distinguishes itself from its competitors, which mainly focus on kiosk sales and the online market. Aparat's product is a “safe environment, religious-wise”. Although there are many different understandings of the motivations of the government for filtering YouTube, one is definitely protecting citizens against explicit video material. The company builds an environment suiting the Islamic Republic’s vision of what should be exposed to citizens. As the company’s PR-chief said, If restrictions were lifted . . . many people would still like to surf the net in a … how do I call it? In a save environment religious-wise, moral-wise. For example, Iranian families are not comfortable leaving their kids on YouTube. Users on Aparat have slightly more freedom to information than what is provided by the state-owned news channels. The company receives notifications from authorities when content is against the values of the Islamic State. But the company has noticed it has slightly more freedom than what is shown on television: For example, a singer is singing an upbeat song. It is not common for national television to play upbeat songs. It is against the … I mean … it is not very … easy to do that. But if someone uploads an upbeat song on Aparat, there will be no report on that, no one removes it . . . The television has the signature of the government and does not show such things. Though the company has been growing within the vacuum caused by sanctions, Aparat anticipates a possible future in which sanctions are fully lifted and YouTube can enter the Iranian market. The PR-chief thinks Aparat has acquired such a large market share that YouTube cannot get around it anymore: “We have our own slice of the pie. If YouTube is smart enough they would come and acquire us”. The same thing is happening

with Aparat itself, which also owns the photo-sharing webpage and application Lenzor,15 the social network Cloob,16 and the second-largest blogging service in Iran, MihanBlog.17 From these branches, the company also gains income out of advertisements.

Within and without the state’s policies As is stated by Khiabany, when analysing Iranian media one has to consider the state as an important factor in shaping and limiting businesses. As is seen by the genesis of all three start-ups in this study, state policies influence the very core of the businesses. The start-ups profit from policies, have the government and government-related entities as their main customers, and at the same time formulate ideals of independency from the state. It is not always clear which entities are governmental and semi-governmental, as is argued in chapter 2 and by the start-ups themselves. However, dealing with and without the government is surely a topic of conversation. Contradictory relationships sometimes unfold when the target group and its economic circumstances are examined. In an early stage of Newshub, the company wanted to target the private sector. However, soon after starting, they discovered this was largely impossible: “Our goal was to cover 70 percent of PR-departments of private companies in Tehran”, said the PR- chief. The CEO thought enough companies in the private sectors would value the insights Newshub could provide. But the CEO realised this was naive after a year, since “the government owns 90 percent of the economy”. The first customer was the Ministry of Com- munication, which used a prototype version of Newshub two years after the company started. From then on, Newshub focussed on government and government-related companies. At the time of the interview the company had 120 paying customers, nearly all of which were governmental. This illustrates the Iranian context in which start-ups run their businesses. If they want to have business the company needs to deal with governmental entities, as the state operates and owns such a large portion of the economy. This is what Jafari (2013) also mentions when suggesting that entrepreneurs find themselves in an oppositional relationship to the state. Iranian entrepreneurs work inde-

15 http://www.lenzor.com 16 http://www.cloob.com 17 http://www.mihanblog.com

pendently, but find they are tied to the state where it holds economic monopolies. In the interview with Jaaar, the founder did not seem to have a problem with this high level of state dependency regarding their Newshub business. It is simply the reality in which they work. However, a different view can be observed in the motivation to start Jaaar. Besides the public-relation purpose of Jaaar, the kiosk is meant for everyone who is interested in buying newspapers. The founder sees Jaaar as a project of democratising the supply of news: everyone with an Internet connection in every corner of the country can buy news articles from the kiosk. To create their ideal financial structure with no ties to the government or existing parties, Peivast had to take on two obstacles: finding an investor with no political ties, and building a revenue model without subsidies from the government. This principle of independency relates to the start-up dilemma Nee formulates (2014): How does a start-up position itself in relation to the state? Finding an independent investor was the most challenging part, according to the editor-in-chief. He did not want to give detailed information, but said their financier is someone who works in the medical industry and already invested in a magazine about medical instruments. This investor gave Peivast’s founders enough money to start their project. The second challenge for Peivast was to compete with other magazines and newspapers without help from government subsidies. Because of the sanctions, the price of paper import and production has been very high. To help publishers, the government sub- sidises paper. However, to stay independent Peivast decided to not request this subsidy; thus, Peivast pressures its price at the kiosk to compete with other magazines and newspapers. This results in a relatively high price for the hardcover magazine. “The price of a publication of Hamshahri is about one hundredth of the price of Peivast . . . When people go to the kiosk it is hard to compete with [the other papers]” explained the editor-in-chief. Compared to the daily paper Hamsharhi, one magazine of Peivast is one hundred times more expensive to produce. However, in the kiosk it costs only twenty times more — Peivast is 10.000 Toman (€ 2,90, at the time of the interview), Hamsharhi is 500 Toman (€ 0.15, at the time of the interview). Here the indirect influences from the state become visible. By subsidising dailies, the government influences other players in the market.

Start-ups have to think on how they want to be related to these subsidies. Use them, or — as Peivast does — make a statement of independency. As mentioned before, the founders of Peivast clearly formulated an independent- from-the-state ideal. However, when the product Peivast sells and the costumers they have are examined, the contradictory position mentioned by Jafari (2013) regarding the state is revealed. By stating that the magazine publishes neutral stories, the founder plac- es himself in the contradiction addressed in chapter 2 — i.e., Peivast has interest in reform with start-ups as totally independent, but the magazine is also dependent on the state as both its audience and its subject of interest. Those in charge are their first source of information and, at the same time, their readers. For their quality content, the magazine needs connections to decision makers. When asked how they do this, Peivast’s editor-in-chief said: “We have connections to all the major players in Iran’s ICT market — for example unions, governance, semi- governmental corporations and enterprises”. In addressing how they could stay out of political affairs he said, “Ehm … there is some speculation about it. But it is a professional thing, you should know how to write about them. It is really tricky I have to con- fess”. Contrary to suggestions made by the editor-in-chief of Peivast, Aparat’s PR-chief said the company is “totally independent” and has “no ties whatsoever with the government”. However, their dependency on governmental restrictions becomes very explicit in two ways: first, the government is closely involved regarding the strict control of the content. Second, Aparat is largely dependent on the infrastructure owned by the state, mainly because the company needs servers to store videos. Aparat does not own these servers, like its counterpart YouTube, but acquires them from a governmental supplier. Rules of law also limit the company. Just like YouTube, Aparat has a policy for uploaded content: “Videos cannot conflict with copyrights, have disturbing content, conflict with moral and social conventions, offend political authorities, make fun of citizens, or offend ethnic and religious minorities” (Aparat, n.d.). To maintain these rules, the company is overseen by the government. The PR-chief said that four years ago authorities regularly filtered the whole website when there was a video uploaded against the

rules. The PR-chief remembered waking up in the morning and seeing the whole website was filtered: We would not know who blocked it. [We] had to pick up the phone, call organisations, and ask: ‘Did you block it?’ And they [said], ‘I don’t know I didn't do that.’ We had to make so many phone calls to find out who [blocked Aparat]. There are, for example, six or seven entities who had the power to do that. This relationship between Aparat and the government changed in January 2009 when the FATA, also known as the Iran Cyber Police, was founded. Now if there is any illegal content on the website this department notifies Aparat. “They drop us a note, an e- mail or a fax, and we remove that and it is ok, we have no problem”. The company does not see this as a big problem. This is what is working within the laws of the government practically means. Another important business relation with the government can be seen in the infrastructure. The biggest issue with the infrastructure is bandwidth. Aparat uses a large portion of the total bandwidth provided by the Iranian Internet service providers. According to the PR-chief, the company uses more bandwidth than some service providers provide in total. Since the Iranian government throttles the Internet speed, Aparat had to made a special deal that allowed their bandwidth usage. “The rate that we … get from them, is more reasonable to end users”, the PR-chief explained. Yet the speed of the Internet is still slowed down by the government, which is a big hurdle for the company: “If there were no restrictions … and if it were free for everyone, the usage would be much more than what it is now”.

Conclusion In studies about the consequences of the crisis experienced in traditional news and journalism companies, scholars have noticed the rise of entrepreneurial journalism. Research has shown that issues about journalistic ideals, revenue models and state dependancy are at the core of running these entrepreneurial businesses. However, scholars have mostly focussed on journalism enterprises starting in Western countries. Findings about developments in the global South are scarce. Through its research in the Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran, this thesis enriches the debate about media innovation and entrepreneurial media businesses. Recent technological, economic, and political events show the return of Iran in world politics after two decades of isolation. With the country’s history of a regulated press and an economy dominated by the government, new online technologies have a notable disruptive potential (Schroeder, 2014, Van der Haak, 2014). With a monopoly from the state on radio and television broadcasting, media start-ups can only start with newspapers or online news. This thesis has focussed on three important factors at play when running a news and journalism business in Iran: how the start-up evolved, what their product is, and the nature of their relationship with governmental entities In this paper, a sample of start-ups in the media industry has been studied. Alt- hough the enterprises studied work in different parts of the media industry, many similar issues arise. Naldi and Picard (2014) notice that start-ups mainly focus on online business. This is partly true for the start-ups studied in this thesis. Jaaar and Aparat are only online, but Peivast is running against the trend of digitalisation by selling a hardcover printed magazine. But as ICT developments in Iran are Peivast’s subject, the magazine has strong links with the digital world. Naldi and Picard argue most start-ups have a poor business model and success would stem from a mix of revenue streams. All three Iranian start-ups seem successful in their business; they are still very active on their websites and Twitter at the time of writing this conclusion (July 2, 2016), 17 months after the original interviews. In the interviews, the founders mentioned different revenue models and therefor they do not fit the findings of Naldi and Picard. However, based on revenue from the companies’ core products alone, Jaaar and Peivast would not be able to keep running.

More then half of their income is earned with other branches of the start-up. Jaaar’s mother company PouyaRasaneh invests money made from Newshub in Jaaar. Peivast is doing public-relations work, which makes up 60 percent of their income. Solely living on income from advertisements and subscriptions is not possible. The second observation which has been made by scholars about entrepreneurial media start-ups is their rethinking of traditional journalism values (Fenton, 2012; Nygren & Witsche, 2009). This subject has only partly been touched upon in this thesis. Aparat and Jaaar mainly started to make a profitable business; traditional journalistic values were not at stake as the start-ups work in the facilitation of media. However, the democratisati- on of news consumption has been developed with Jaaar, because now every Iranian with an Internet connection can buy newspapers from all over the country. The monitoring of readers’ behaviour can be studied by the newspaper business, which can have an impact on their writing. But this last possibility is not observed. In its genesis, Peivast has thought about traditional journalism values. Its founders run the start-up with the ideal of pure journalism independent from the state. By publishing longer stories with background information about events, the founders try to be different than, for example, the former magazine they wrote for. Observed by Nee (2014), start-ups and governments think about how these new enterprises should be helped or left to the market. When considering their revenue stream, again Peivast’s ideal of independent journalism is at stake. By not taking subsidies from the state for paper and trying to find an investor with no political background, the founders send a specific message to other media that are working with these subsidies and tied to governmental organisations. As is shown in chapter 2 of this thesis, connections between media and political parties or individuals with political influences can be seen in every level of the media industry of Iran. Peivast is clearly trying to change this pattern. One important issue about running a new or journalism business in Iran is the company’s relationship with the state (Khiabany, 2014). This is not studied enough by Western-oriented studies, according to Khiabany (2014), and should be more at the centre of discussion. Jafari (2013) noted that entrepreneurs have a contradictory relationship with the state. They try to work independently from the government, as is seen in

Peivast’s ideals, but are shaped by state policies and a government that dictates the economy. This contradictory position can be seen in all three researched start-ups’ geneses, their revenue models, and their ideologies. Peivast’s subject and main customers are state institutes and state-owned companies; ninety percent of Jaaar’s customers are from the state; and Aparat is in regulation and deals with Internet service providers linked to the state. Local roots in the three start-ups can be clearly seen by looking at their geneses. Iranian political and economical circumstances have shaped the start-ups. Jaaar has roots in Newshub, the other branch of the company. This digital monitoring system automated the tasks of scanning and checking newspapers’ content, a task the Iranian government is known for. The company of Aparat is successful mainly because of the banning of a foreign product. However, Aparat’s product itself is not Iranian but copied from foreign companies. This scenario seems to belong to an isolation country with entrepreneurs who are looking outside its own borders to see what is being missed.

Discussion Yin (2012, p. 6) argues that case studies are often put aside for their lack of trusted credible data. In this case study, the credibility of the correspondents’ answers can also be a liability. Media, and especially journalism, is a sensitive subject in Iran. Journalists are at constant threat of being arrested; the interviews being held in their natural environment guaranteed in no way that respondents felt safe or free to talk. Therefor, the responses to the semi-structured questionnaires are handled with care. This is certainly affecting the data. Another problem in this study is the lack of multiple sources of evidence. Out of the six common sources of evidence in doing a case study designed by Yin (Yin, 2012, p. 10: Exhibit 1.1), only two types of data were available: direct observations and interviews. The other four sources — archival records, documents, participant-observations, and physical artefacts — are missing. Such sources would have provided stronger evidence for the analyses. This study had been done with a sample of a specific type of emerging journalism enterprises. The views of the participants may not generalise to all journalists in Iran.

This claim has not been made in this study. With the qualitative nature of the data, it lacks opportunities for generalisation. Further research should be done with a larger sample of Iranian media start-ups and with multiple sources of evidence.

References Abdo, G. (2015, June 8). The Iran Primer. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/new-political-tools

Aparat Policy. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2015, from

http://www.aparat.com/etc/main/policy

Akhavan, N. (2013). Electronic Iran: The cultural politics of an online evolution. Bruns-

wick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=469368

Amanpour/Rouhani [Television broadcast]. (2013, September 25). In Amanpour. Atlanta:

CNN. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/25/transcript-amanpour-rouhani-interview/

Amin, C. (2014). The press and public diplomacy in Iran, 1820–1940. Iranian Studies,

48(2), 269-287. doi:10.1080/00210862.2013.871145

Anonymous. Journalism in a semi-despotic society. (2009). Nieman Reports, 63(2). Re-

trieved November 30, 2015, from http://niemanreports.org/articles/journalism-in-a-

semi-despotic-society/

Aryan, S., Aryan, H., & Halderman, J. (2013, August 13). Internet censorship in Iran: a

first look. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

https://www.usenix.org/conference/foci13/internet-censorship-iran-first-look

Audretsch, D., & Thurik, R. (2001). What's new about the new economy? Sources of

growth in the managed and entrepreneurial economies. Industrial and Corporate

Change, 10(1), 267-315.

Audretsch, D., & Thurik, R. (2004). A model of the entrepreneurial economy. Interna-

tional Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 2(2), 143-166.

Axworthy, M. (2013). Revolutionary Iran: A history of the Islamic Republic. London:

Penguin.

Bahar, Tehran. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahar,_Tehran

Berahmand, A. (2014, February 25). Peivast Video [Personal interview].

Blank, S. (2010, January 25). What's a startup? First principles. Retrieved December 1,

2015, from http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-principles/

Briggs, M. (2012). Entrepreneurial Journalism: How to build what's next for news. Los

Angeles: Sage.

Bruno, G., Bajoria, J., Masters, J. (2013, June 14). Council on Foreign Relations. Iran's

Revolutionary Guards. Retrieved on June 29, 2016, from

http://www.cfr.org/iran/irans-revolutionary-guards/p14324

Castells, M., Van der Haak, B., & Parks, M. (2012). The future of journalism: Networked

journalism. International Journal of Communication, 6(2015), 2923-2938. Retrieved

November 30, 2015, from http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/issue/view/8

Committee to Protect Journalists [CPJ]. (2015, April 10). 10 most censored countries.

Retrieved December 1, 2015, from https://www.cpj.org/2015/04/10-most-censored-

countries.php

Currah, A. (2009). What's happening to our news: An investigation into the likely impact

of the digital revolution on the economics of news publishing in the UK. Oxford: Reu-

ters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.

D'amours, M., & Legault, M. (2013). Highly skilled workers and employment risks: role

of institutions. Labor Studies Journal, 38(89), 89-109.

doi:10.1177/0160449X13495920

Das, J. (2007). Sydney freelance journalists and the notion of professionalism. Pacific

Journalism Review, 13(1), 142-160.

Dayem, M. (2013). Attempting to silence Iran’s ‘Weblogistan’. Nieman Reports, 62(2),

42-42.

Diamond, L. (2010). “Liberation Technology.” Journal of Democracy, 21(3) (2010).

DVorkin, L. (2013, January 29). The rise of the entrepreneurial journalist in a world see-

king credible voices. Forbes. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2013/01/29/inside-forbes-the-rise-of-the-

entrepreneurial-journalist-in-a-world-seeking-credible-voices/

Davies, N. (2008). Flat Earth News. London: Chatto & Windus.

Deibert, R. (Ed.). (2009, June 16). Iran. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

https://opennet.net/research/profiles/iran

Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists

reconsidered. Journalism, 6(4), 442-464. doi:10.1177/1464884905056815

Ekmekcioglu, E. (2012). Impact of global economic crisis on media restructuring. Inter-

national Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(5), 154-156.

Entrepreneurship ecosystem in Iran. (2013). Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

http://www.cgiran.org/main/images/files/20140429102612_IranEntrepreneurshipEcos

ystemReport-IEA2013-v2.pdf

Erdbrink, T. (2005, December 24). Sander Thoeneslezing: de Iraanse journopolitici. Vrij

Nederland. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.vn.nl/Archief/Buitenland/Artikel-Buitenland/Sander-Thoeneslezing-De-

Iraanse-journopolitici.htm

Erdbrink, T. (2013, September 17). Facebook and Twitter blocked again in Iran after res-

pite. The New York Times. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/world/middleeast/facebook-and-twitter-blocked-

again-in-iran-after-respite.html

Erdbrink, T. (2014, September 2). Tehran unfetters cellphones, and the pictures start flo-

wing. The New York Times. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/asia/iran-speeds-up-cellphone-

connections.html?_r=0

Fallah, A., Sadeghi, A., & Saeedi, K. (2012). Understanding entrepreneurship and media

management in Iran. Journal of Applied Sciences Research, 8(3), 1736-1738.

Fenton, N., Siapera, E., & Veglis, A. (2012). De-Democratizing the news? New media

and the structural practices of journalism. In The Handbook of Global Online Journa-

lism. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Franklin, B. (2014). The future of journalism. Journalism Studies, 15(5), 481-499.

doi:10.1080/1461670X.2014.930254

Freedom House. (2015). Iran. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/iran

Ganji, A. (2013, November, 10) Revolutionary Pragmatists. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved

June 29, 2015, from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2013-11-

10/revolutionary-pragmatists?cid=soc-twitter-in-snapshots-revolutionary_pragmatists-

111113&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AMideast%2520

Brief&utm_campaign=Mideast%2520Brief%252011-12-2013

George, M. (2013, April 11). Former nuclear negotiator joins Iran's presidential race.

Reuters. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/11/us-iran-election-

idUSBRE93A0CM20130411

Global Entrepreneur and Development Institute [GEDI]. (2014). A regional leader in

entrepreneurial self-belief. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.gemconsortium.org/country-profile/71

Gordon, M., & Sanger, D. (2015, April 3). The Iran nuclear deal: What you need to

know. The New York Times. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/world/middleeast/the-iran-nuclear-deal-what-

you-need-to-know.html

Graham, P. (2012, September 1). Startup = growth. Paulgraham.com Retrieved Decem-

ber 1, 2015, from http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

Griffiths, M., Kickul, J., Bacq, S., & Terjesen, S. (2012). A dialogue with William J.

Baumol: Insights on entrepreneurship theory and education. Entrepreneurship Theory

and Practice, 36(4), 611-625. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00510.x

Grueskin, B., Seave, A., & Graves, D. (2011). The Story So Far: What We Know About

the Business of Digital Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Haak, B. Van der e.a. (2012). The future of journalism: networked journalism. Internati-

onal Journal of Communication, 6(1), 2923–2938.

Haak, B. Van der. (n.d.). About Multiple Journalism. Retrieved November 30, 2015,

from http://www.multiplejournalism.org/about

Hen-Tov, E., & Gonzalez, N. (2010). The militarization of post-Khomeini Iran: praetori-

anism 2.0. The Washington Quarterly, 34(1), 45-59.

doi:10.1080/0163660X.2011.534962

Hoag, A., & Sangho, S. (2005, April 2). Media entrepreneurship: Definition, theory and

context. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/237827857_Media_Entrepreneurship_Definit

ion_Theory_and_Context

Internet Filtering in Iran in 2006-2007. (2006). Retrieved December 6, 2015, from

https://opennet.net/studies/iran2007

Khalaji, M. (2007, August, 17). Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Inc. The Washington

Institute. Retrieved June 29, 2016, from http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-

analysis/view/irans-revolutionary-guards-corps-inc

Karami, A. (2014, March 15). Iran's Fourth Estate. Retrieved December 5, 2015, from

http://english.aawsat.com/2014/03/article55330035

Khajehpour, B. (2000, March 20). Iran chamber society: Domestic political reforms and

private sector activity in Iran. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from

http://www.iranchamber.com/government/articles/political_reform_private_sector_ira

n.php

Khiabany, G. (2010). Iranian media: The paradox of modernity. New York: Routledge.

Lewis, Charles. (2008, April 25). New models for news. In Charles Lewis (Chair), New

Models For News The Breaux Symposium. Symposium conducted at Reilly Center for

Media & Public Affairs. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

http://uiswcmsweb.prod.lsu.edu/manship/ReillyCenter/files/item16015.pdf

Lewis, J., Williams, A., Franklin, B., Thomas, J., & Mosdell, N. (2008). The quality and

independence of British journalism. Cardiff: Cardiff University.

McChesney, R., & Nichols, J. (2010). The death and life of American journalism: The

media revolution that will begin the world again. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Nation

Books.

Meyer, P. (2009). The vanishing newspaper [2nd ed.] saving journalism in the informati-

on age. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Milani, A., & McFaul, M. (2015, August 10). What the Iran-deal debate is like in Iran.

The Atlantic. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/iran-deal-politics-rouhani-

khamenei/400985/

Motoyama, Y., & Watkins, K. (2014). Examining the Connections within the Startup

Ecosystem: A Case Study of St. Louis. SSRN Electronic Journal. Retrieved December

1, 2015, from http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research reports and

covers/2014/09/examining_the_connections_within_the_startup_ecosystem.pdf

Naldi, L., & Picard, R. (2014). “Let’s start an online news site”: Opportunities, resources,

strategy, and formational myopia in startups. Journal of Media Business Studies, 9(4),

69-97. doi:10.1080/16522354.2012.11073556

Nasseri, L., Foroohar, K., & Salehi, Y. (2013, June 16). Iran celebrate surprise Rouhani

win as reason for hope. Bloomberg. Retrieved December 30, 2015, from

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-15/rohani-clinches-iran-

presidency-in-surprise-victory

Nasseri, L. (2015, May 5). Start-ups surge as Iranian tech finds silver lining to sanctions.

Bloomberg. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-05/startups-surge-as-iranian-

tech-finds-silver-lining-to-sanctions

Nee, R. (2013). Social responsibility theory and the digital nonprofits: Should the go-

vernment aid online news startups? Journalism, 15(3), 326-343.

doi:10.1177/1464884913482553

Orkut. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved December 5, 2015, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut

Picard, R. (2015). Unique characteristics and business dynamics of media products.

Journal of Media Business Studies, 2(2), 61-69.

doi:10.1080/16522354.2005.11073433

Roelants, C. (2016, May 30). De Zweep gaat er over Iran. Leve de revolutie! NRC Han-

delsblad. Retrieved June 7, 2016, from http://www.nrc.nl/next/2016/05/30/de-zweep-

gaat-weer-over-iran-leve-de-revolutie-1623955

Pouya Rasaneh. (n.d.) LinkedIn [Profile page]. Retrieved December 1. 2012, from

https://www.linkedin.com/company/pouya-rasaneh

Powell, S., & Ennis, S. (2007). Organisational marketing in the creative industries. Quali-

tative Market Research: An International Journal, 10(4), 375-389.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13522750710819711

Reese, S. (2001). Understanding the global journalist: A hierarchy-of-influences ap-

proach. Journalism Studies, 2(2), 173-187. doi:10.1080/14616700120042060

Reporters Without Borders [RWB]. (n.d.). 2015 World Press Freedom Index. Retrieved

December 1, 2015, from https://index.rsf.org/#!/

Reporters Without Borders [RWB]. (n.d.). Middle East and North Africa. Retrieved De-

cember 1, 2015, from https://rsf.org/index2014/en-middle-east.php

S, L. (2014, July 7). Start me up. The Economist. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/07/daily-chart-6

Salavou, H., Baltas, G., & Lioukas, S. (2004). Organisational innovation in SMEs. Euro-

pean Journal of Marketing, 38(9), 1091-1112.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090560410548889

Schroeder, C. (2013). Startup rising: The entrepreneurial revolution remaking the Middle

East. Londen: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schroeder, C. (2014, November 9). Startup rising: Iran. Retrieved December 1, 2015,

from http://pando.com/2014/05/20/startup-rising-iran/

Shahidi, H. (2006). From mission to profession: Journalism in Iran, 1979–2004. Iranian

Studies, 39(1), 1-28. doi:10.1080/00210860500470177

Social Innovations Startup Weekend. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2015, from

http://www.up.co/communities/iran/tehran/startup-weekend/6146

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014 - 2015. (2014, January 31). Retrieved Decem-

ber 1, 2015, from http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-

2014-2015

Tait. R. (2009, Oktober, 7). Revolutionary Guards buy 51% stake in Iran's telecommuni-

cations company. The Guardian. Retrieved June 29, 2016, from

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/07/revolutionary-guards-iran

Totten, K. (2013, August 9). As startup weekend begins, definition of 'startup' varies.

Reviewjournal.com. Retrieved December 1, 2015, from

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/technology/startup-weekend-begins-

definition-startup-varies

Van Niekerk, J. (2015, March 1). 4 Reasons to re-consider technology in Iran. LinkedIn.

Retrieved December 1, 2015, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140606065949-

2718001-4-reasons-to-re-consider-technology-in-iran

Van Niekerk, J. (2015, March 1). Iran tech industry after sanctions. LinkedIn. Retrieved

December 1, 2015, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iran-tech-industry-after-

sanctions-jacques-van-niekerk

Weaver, D. (Ed.). (1998). The Global Journalist: News People Around the World. New

York: Hampton Press.

Welter, F. (2011). Contextualizing entrepreneurship-conceptual challenges and ways

forward. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(1), 165-184. doi:10.1111/j.1540-

6520.2010.00427.x

“Why finding a flat in Tehran is as hard as in London and NYC”. (2015, April 27). The

Guardian. Retrieved at June 29, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-

blog/2015/apr/26/iran-housing-market-tehran-apartment-search

Witschge, T., & Redden, J. (2010). A new news order? Online news content examined. In

N. Fenton (Ed.), New Media, Old News Journalism & Democracy in the Digital Age

(pp. 171-187). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Wojcieszak, Magdalena and Briar Smith. Will politics be tweeted? New media use by

Iranian youth in 2011. New Media Society. 16(1), 91-109.

Yin, R. (2012). A (Very) Brief refresher on the case study method. In Applications of

Case Study Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Figures Figure 1: Growth of available newspapers between January 2011 and Novem- ber 2015

Growth of newspapers available at Jaaar 200

183 174 150

135 100 100 102 105 92 Newspapers 50 66 66 47 48 38 38 37 29 0 Jan 11 Aug 11 Nov 11 Jan 12 Aug 12 Nov 12 Jan 13 Aug 13 Nov 13 Jan 14 Aug 14 Nov 14 Jan 15 Aug 15 Nov 15

Figure 2: Reese’s hierarchy of influences model

Figure 3: Front page of Jaaar.com on November 15, 2015

Figure 4: Jaaar.com after clicking the daily Afteb-e Yazd

Figure 5: Front page of Aparat.com June 10, 2016

Figure 6: Aparat.com after clicking on a video, June 10, 2016

Appendix A: Questions given to start-up correspondents Questionnaire

Main question What is involved with starting and running a news and media start-up in Iran? In the case of [start-up]?

Sub-questions Genesis When was the genesis of [start-up]?

People involved Who is involved with [start-up], and what are their professions?

Revenue model What is the revenue model of [start-up]? What products is [start-up] offering, and what is it planning to offer?

Motives What are the professional motives of the people involved? How does [start-up] relate to other national and international initiatives? What are [start-up]’s resemblances and differences with Western start-ups?

Goals What were the original goals of [start-up]? Did [start-up] achieve these goals?

Start-up ecosystem Who are persons/platforms that are important for making a start-up in Iran successful?

Appendix B: Map of Tehran with locations of the start-ups

Close-up: Start-ups along Valiasr St.

Appendix C: List of respondents

Available with request email to: [email protected]

Appendix D: Transcribed interviews Available on disk with request email to: [email protected]