#iranelection: Hashtag Solidarity and the Transformation of Online Life

by Negar Mottahedeh

The protests following Iran's fraudulent 2009 Presidential election took the world by storm. As the Green Revolution gained protestors in the Iranian streets, #iranelection became the first long-trending international hashtag. Texts, images, videos, audio recordings, and links connected protestors on the ground and netizens online, all simultaneously transmitting and living a shared international experience.

#iranelection follows the protest movement, on the ground and online, to investigate how emerging social media platforms developed international solidarity. The 2009 protests in Iran were the first revolts to be catapulted onto the global stage by social media, just as the 1979 Iranian Revolution was agitated by cassette tapes. And as the world turned to social media platforms to understand the events on the ground, social media platforms also adapted and developed to accommodate this global activism. Provocative and eye-opening, #iranelection reveals the new online ecology of social protest and offers a prehistory, of sorts, of the uses of hashtags and trending topics, selfies and avatar activism, and citizen journalism and YouTube mashups.

Genres: Iran, Nonfiction

138 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2015

Reviews

[Karen Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The similarities between Iran's 2009 online/on the street protests and the USA's 2017 online/on the street protests validate the pink-hat movement that Trump has so effectively vilified and ridiculed. Scary how we resemble a theocratic autocracy more and more each day. This book kills any shame about seeking online solidarity. It's not a "feel good"thing: "Netizens live a cultural life a previous generation would have called self-centered and narcissistic...the selfie aligns with the quotidian body of the collective, as opposed to, say, the body of the monarch" (Mottahedeh 82-83). Mottahedeh tracks the powerful influence of the camera, the television, and finally social media to subvert oppressive governments and restore human rights. Obviously a ways to go in both Iran and the USA, but this is the tool, so it's not only acceptable but essential to call for solidarity online, a groundswell of opposition.

[Kathy Elrick]

So far (loving) - the author explains main events surrounding the 2009 Iranian presidential election and how they ramped up viral activism. Twitter was used for direct information, calling on authorities to act, and the rise of citizen journalists in the lapse of major media outlets folly (they showed sitcoms instead of protests). The writing is clear, specific, narrative; reader relives the moment and tension.

[Mills College Library]

324.955 M921 2015

[Rachel Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating history and analysis of #iranelection, Twitter hashtagging, online collectivity and activism, and the 2009 Iran election crisis.