[Bigdatasur] "Living with Instalive in Iran - Social Media Use in Authoritarian Countries during the Pandemic"

[Maria Faust M.A.]

Dear List Members of Data Activism Collective,

We kindly announce our publication "Living with Instalive in Iran - 
Social Media Use in Authoritarian Countries during the Pandemic" which 
you can access here:

https://data-activism.net/2020/07/bigdatasur-covid-living-with-instalive-in-iran-social-media-use-in-authoritarian-countries-during-the-pandemic/

Hossein and I took the opportunity to publish on this timely topic as we 
found that Iran, and in particular alternative Iranian media i.e. 
Instalive, are highly underresearched in Western contexts. Moreover, 
Iran is one of the countries in the world with the highest infection 
rates with COVID-19 - though it is frequently overlooked in global 
debates on power, international relations and (in)equalities of 
different kinds.

In this article, we argue that Instalive is not only a channel for 
personal communication; it also functions as an alternative TV in 
restrictive contexts with limited access to free and independent media. 
Therefore, we briefly discuss how and to what extent Iranians use 
Instalive to produce, share, and access content which is prohibited in 
Iranian official media, thus, resisting the political and social structures.

Finally, a few words about us:

Hossein Kermani, PhD in Social Communication Science (University of 
Tehran), is studying social media, digital repression, computational 
propaganda, and political activism in Iran. His research mainly revolves 
around the discursive power of social media in making meaning, shaping 
practices, changing the microphysics of power and playing with the 
political, cultural and social structures in Iran.

Maria Faust, M.A. in Communication/Media Studies and Culture Studies, is 
a Doctoral Candidate at Leipzig University, Germany. She has published 
articles, a special section and two edited books on digital media, 
authoritarian contexts, temporal change, de-Westernization, the Global 
South(s), theory-building and visual culture(s) and continues her work 
in these fields.

Please enjoy our article! Any kind of feedback is very welcome!

Have a nice weekend,

Hossein and Maria


-- 
Maria Faust M.A.
Doctoral Candidate

UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG
Institute for Communication and Media Studies

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Faust2
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-faust-6a158837/