The Time Has Come: Analysis of Iranian Celebrities' Digital Activism during the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Framing for the 21st Century

Abstract

In this study, I investigate how Iranian celebrities leveraged Instagram for digital activism during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” (WLF) movement. Drawing on Driessen’s (2013) concept of celebrity capital and Benford and Snow’s (2000) framing theory, I employ Tracy’s (2024) Phronetic Qualitative Data Analysis to examine fifty Instagram posts shared between September 2022 and April 2023 by Iranian celebrities inside Iran and in the diaspora. My findings suggest that Iranian celebrities served as mediators of political meaning, offering diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames that challenged the state’s monopoly over information. Instagram operated as a digitally networked public sphere where celebrities not only depicted state violence but also disseminated the movement’s slogans, planned grassroots organizing, and articulated future-oriented narratives of justice and democracy. In this case study, I posit three main arguments. First, Iranian celebrity activism demonstrates how social media platforms facilitate political participation in authoritarian regimes where conventional avenues for dissent, such as rallies and strikes, are rigorously restricted. Second, celebrity capital became a strategic resource for mobilization. Iranian celebrities in Iran and the diaspora shifted from online advocacy to offline leadership roles, participating in protests, coalition-building, and international diplomacy. Third, public responses to celebrity posts in the comment sections demonstrate how digital activism leads to cognitive elaboration, emotional engagement, and civic learning.
My research is among the first in-depth sociological analyses of celebrity-led digital activism during the WLF movement. While most studies of celebrity activism focus on democratic contexts (Archer & Cawston, 2021), my paper analyzes how digital activism unfolds within an authoritarian state, where censorship, surveillance, and political repression shape the public sphere. Instagram’s “cute cat” impact — its popularity among Iranians and its role as a mobilization resource for Iranian celebrities and social movement organizers — makes this case especially illuminating.

Author

• Zahra Mansour, University of Kansas