Online Presentation of Self in Repressive Contexts: The Persian Twittersphere

• In Event: Communication and Coordination Under Conflict

Abstract

Self-presentation online through profile images provides key insights into a user’s motivations and behaviors (Hogan 2010; Mendelson & Papacharissi 2010; Qi et al 2018). This article analyzes the demographics of Persian language Twitter by examining the profile images of 2.4 million Twitter users. Iranian Twitter usage is quite high despite the platform being banned in the country. Approximately 24% of the country uses Twitter daily, a percentage comparable to countries like the United States (Jafari 2017). At the same time, Iranian’s access to the internet and social media is severely restricted by the government. For instance, Digital Society Project data on democracy shows that the national government frequently blocks, filters and surveils internet traffic (V-Dem 2020; Mechkova et al. 2020). Post-revolutionary Iran has experienced fluctuating civil liberties along with increased government social media censorship and monitoring. Despite these restrictions, there has been an increase in the use of social media to organize offline violence and the population frequently uses social media platforms like Twitter to voice their concerns and discontents (V-Dem 2020). In this context, it is crucial to examine the incentives of Iranians to identify themselves online to understand the importance of anonymity in repressive contexts.

Authors

• Layla M Hashemi, GMU

• Steven Lloyd Wilson, University of Nevada, Reno

• Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca, WZB Berlin Social Science Center