Exploring the Impacts of Internet-Mediated Communication
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Exploring the Impacts of Internet- mediated Communication on Iranian Women’s Rights Activism A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Political and Social Sciences, the Institute for Media and Communication Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin Mina Naeli Berlin, 2018 First Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Carola Richter Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch Date of defense: September 12, 2018 Acknowledgement I could not have started, continued and completed this thesis without the generous help and support of many. First and foremost, I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor professor Dr. Carola Richter. She supported me with patience, motivation and her immense knowledge. She kept me on the path to completion when I was struggling with the difficulty of studying in Berlin and living in Tehran. I am also grateful for the advice of my second assessor Professor Dr. Barbara Pfetsch. Were I able to have stayed longer in Berlin I would have benefited further from the breadth and depth of her knowledge. Words cannot express how grateful I am to my forever friend, my husband. I owe him for staying alone when I was preoccupied with my research work; however, I am particularly grateful to him for the courage he gave me to choose a new path in life. I am also grateful to my parents for raising me with love for knowledge and for supporting me in all my pursuits. I would like to thank my fellow students at the institute for their support during my stay in Berlin and for the precious comments they made on my work during the group’s colloquiums. In particular, my sincere thanks go to Dr. Anna Antonakis for her support. I also deeply appreciate the administrative assistant Mr. Amin Louden who was always ready to help. Last but not least, my special thanks go to activists and journalists who were kind enough to share their experiences and viewpoints with me. I hope the results of this study could provide helpful insights for their future practice. Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures ........................................................................................................................ 4 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Defining an Activist/Activism in This Research ................................................................................ 8 1.2 Have Iranian Women’s Rights Activists Formed a Social Movement?............................................ 10 1.3 Current State of Research ................................................................................................................. 12 1.4 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 2 STUDYING IRANIAN WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVISM ......................................... 17 2.1 Women’s Rights Discourse in Iran Before the 1979 Revolution ...................................................... 17 2.2 The Dynamic of Women’s Rights Activism After the 1979 Revolution .......................................... 23 2.2.1 Political elite fragmentation ....................................................................................................... 24 2.2.2 Media control ............................................................................................................................. 27 2.2.3 Women’s rights activism in the revolutionary period of 1979 to 1988 ..................................... 30 2.2.4 Women’s rights activism in the 1988-1997 post-war era: the "Period of Construction” ........... 33 2.2.5 Women’s rights activism during the Reform Era of 1997-2004 ................................................ 35 2.2.6 Women’s rights activism and Ahmadinejad’s presidency (2005-2013) .................................... 40 2.3 Women’s Rights Activism in the Internet age .................................................................................. 44 2.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 49 CHAPTER 3 THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................... 50 3.1 Communication Technologies and the Internet for Activism ........................................................... 50 3.1.1 Activists’ public communication through online alternative media .......................................... 51 3.1.2 The Internet and activists’ presentation on mainstream media .................................................. 58 3.1.3 The Internet for activists’ internal relations ............................................................................... 61 3.2 Research Questions ........................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 71 4.1 Methodological Approach and Research Design .............................................................................. 71 4.2 Qualitative Interviews ....................................................................................................................... 73 4. 2. 1 The Interview analysis ............................................................................................................. 77 4.3 Online Observation ........................................................................................................................... 79 1 4.3.1 Observational analysis ............................................................................................................... 84 4.4 Ethical Considerations ...................................................................................................................... 85 4.5 Data Collection Challenges and Limitations..................................................................................... 86 CHAPTER 5 WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVISM ON THE NET: THE IMPACTS ON ACTIVISTS’ PUBLIC COMMUNICATION ........................................................................................ 88 5.1 Theme One: Women rights’ activists’ online media has enabled them to inform the public beyond print media restrictions ........................................................................................................................... 89 5.1.1 Activist groups and individuals have gained an opportunity to represent themselves ............... 92 5.1.2 Activists have found more opportunity to report officials’ actions ........................................... 95 5.1.3 Activists have gained freedom to expose women’s issues beyond cultural taboos ................... 98 5.2 Theme Two: SNSs have facilitated young activists’ communication with the Iranian public ....... 101 5.3 Theme Three: The activist online sites have created a two-way communication between activists and the public ........................................................................................................................................ 103 5.4 Theme Four: The quality of the activism’s discussions has been undermined on SNSs ................ 107 5.5 Theme Five: Activists’ online media has limited their access to specific groups of the public ..... 111 5.6 Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER 6 WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVISM ON THE NET: THE IMPACTS ON ACTIVISTS’ INTERNAL RELATIONS ............................................................................................. 120 6.1 Theme One: E-mail groups have facilitated collective decision-making ....................................... 121 6.1.1 Bypassing geographic barriers ................................................................................................. 122 6.1.2 Reducing costs of offline meetings .......................................................................................... 125 6.2 Theme Two: Activist websites and e-mail groups have stimulated interactivity and collaboration among the activist groups ..................................................................................................................... 128 6.3 Theme Three: Women’s rights websites have fostered activists’ personal empowerment ............. 132 6.3.1 Knowledge building ................................................................................................................. 132 6.3.2 Maintaining activist websites ................................................................................................... 136 6.4 Theme Four: Individual activists’ use of SNSs has raised tensions within the women’s rights activism network ................................................................................................................................... 137 6.4.1 Persuasion of individualism ..................................................................................................... 138 6.4.2 Branding of activism ................................................................................................................ 142 6.5 Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 146 CHAPTER 7 ACTIVISM ON THE