The Iranian Election Through Colored Glasses
First, Twitter did not revolutionize citizen protests. If anything, it made for lazy journalism, wherein reporters and journalists spend time reading what other people have tweeted than providing their own analysis of the situation. It should be known that Iran still remains a vastly opaque country, with information becoming even more muddled as the Iranian government shuts down many communication services and blocks web access. Just today, reports of the Obama Administration scrambling for reliable information made the news.
While Twitter has provided breaking, up-to-the-minute news about what’s going on in Iran, is the source to be trusted? You have to wonder who on the “other side” is reporting. There have been many false reports of protest traps, Mousavi under house arrest, and election results . Additionally, there has also been speculation that Iranian hardliner elites are manipulating the protests to “hoist themselves back into power.” Just like any other news source, you cannot take what you read at face value.
What Twitter, YouTube, and 24-hour news syndicates have proven, though, is that media is very saturated in the average computer-user’s life. Thus, the repeated news stories from citizen journalists, bloggers, and reporters lead us to believe that much more is happening in Tehran than what may actually be transpiring. Additionally, there has been an uneven focus on the students and protestors, who by no means represent the majority political sentiment in Iran, yet many outside the country believe that sweeping political change (probably via Mousavi) is on the verge of dawning. That is not to say that there isn’t balanced news. For example, George Friedman at STRATFOR has released “The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test,” and provides solid analysis of the realities in Iran.
Second, I appeal to anyone with a green icon on their Twitter account to explain to me a) why they did that, b) who they support, c) why they support him, and most importantly, d) to name one policy issue of the candidate in question. Why? Because I believe that people are conflating election freedom with who we feel we (as the West) want as President of Iran. It’s turned into an anyone-but-Ahmedinejad mindset. We in the West hopelessly believe that radical changes will occur once Mousavi is given the seat as President.
Third, while there are some parallels between the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in China and what’s currently unfolding in Tehran, it is not the 2009 [Twitter] Tiananmen. Yes, both states have cracked down on foreign and domestic media, both states have turned against their own citizens, both states have citizens that were frustrated and muffled by the current regime. Fundamental differences also exist between the two acts of mass citizen action, and although I don’t agree completely with this post, it does provide some sound reasons on why Tehran 2009 cannot be equated with Tiananmen.
Don’t get me wrong–from what I know, the election results do seem fraudulent. What the Iranian government is doing to its people is despicable, and a desperate attempt to protect the status quo. I do sympathize with the protesters–I fear for their safety and for their political freedom. But I also fear that those of us outside of Iran are looking at the situation with colored glasses, as well.
UPDATE (26 June 2009)
I happened upon this Slate article by Daniel Byman, “Is Iran ripe for revolution?” which provides excellent analysis on the political situation in Iran.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Personally, the green icon thing for me is not to stand for Mousavi (though yes, I know it’s Mousavi’s color) or any other party, but more a sign of support to the people there who just want to have their voices heard and rightfully accounted for.
I’ve followed other political issues ie, Tibet and China, Israel and Palestine, and more and more I find that the politics going there is complicated and certainly best left for the protagonists to deal with. However, that doesn’t prevent me to show some compassion with the victims of those conflicts.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:17 pm
A controversial view, but one that I happen to agree with (see earlier tweets part1, part2).
It isn’t the first and most definitely won’t be the last time that Twitter (Facebook, etc.) users jump behind a cause without stopping to understand or even question what it is they are supporting.
Have we become so swamped with information that we are no longer able to stop and think? It seems as if people are more interested in following the herd and jumping on the next bandwagon rather than forming and expressing their own opinions.
Great blog post.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I generally agree with the article. The green icon is really a symbol and with people coming on board to the ‘movement’ so quickly, it’s not really a sure thing that they understood what the symbol stood for in the first place. Twitter doesn’t really allow for the ability to ‘catch up’ with a conversation but rather lets people join in midstream and try and figure out what’s going on. As with any symbol, it’s meaning has probably changed since it was originally instituted (as the first commenter mentions).
What’s interesting to me is how quickly this has happened. There has been an explosive growth of people interested in the story, but from what I can tell, it’s already tailing off. There were protesters before everyone knew via Twitter, and conversely, just because it’s not as big on Twitter, doesn’t mean there aren’t any more protesters.
But I think in the US, if this falls off the radar, it will just go out of mind and be something we look back on in six months.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:27 am
I’m afraid most of those with a green icon cannot give you clear and convincing explanations. To simplify it a little bit, they do this because the mainstream media tell people to do so. They have done this to Iran, China and Venezuela, etc. I am not surprised. Politics is complicated.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Great article. What I’m unable to discern, and maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places and this is obvious, is what information actually came out of Iran via Twitter. I asked on Twitter and didn’t get any meaningful response. What was this info? Was it in English or Persian or something else? Were people tweeting from home computers or from internet enable phones, or can you tweet by text in Iran?
There is so much info about how wonderful Twitter was in getting information about the Iran situation out but I can’t figure out what it was. It’s been great way for those of us outside Iran to keep Iran in our infostreams — I’m just unclear of the actual Twitter impact in, and coming out of, Iran.