One Person, One Broadcaster Social Media and Iran

Abstract

The post-election violence in the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 presidential election was viewed through the lens of new, social media. New media publishers created and supported a movement, and in the process they wove a national struggle into the global media landscape. This exploration places Twitter in the context of other historically oppositional narratives, notably pamphleteering during the American Revolution, samizdat publishing in the Soviet Union, and Iran’s 1979 Revolution, when cassette tapes played the role Twitter would take on thirty years later. It explores the role new media plays in convergence culture and explains the workings, effectiveness, and downsides of relying on those mediums to spread dissident messages.