The Iranian Blogosphere

Map of the Iranian blogosphere produced by John Kelly and Bruce Etling for their paper, Mapping Iran’s
Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere
The Internet and Democracy project represents a series of studies carried out by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University that examine “how the internet influences democratic norms and modes, including its impact on civil society, citizen media, government transparency and the rule of law, with a focus on the Middle East”.
The Center’s initial studies looked at areas where the internet’s influence on democracy has been significant: at the impact of news site, OhmyNews, on the 2002 elections in South Korea; at the use of mobile technology in the organisation of protesters during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution; and, as shown above, at the Iranian blogosphere and its possible impact on political and democratic processes. The results from this third study offer up some interesting conclusions on the rise of blog culture within Iran…