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Virtual Gateways to Iranian Cultural and Intellectual Production
Abstract
The emergence of what has been dubbed the "weblogistan" in Iran, as well as the intensive usage of other kinds of new media technologies, can be considered the among the most important developments in the Iranian people's struggle to reclaim alternative spaces for the free flow of information, current events, and culture. In this paper, I explore the rise of the blogosphere in Iran as resulting from and producing increased demands for free and open individual expression, pluralism, and democratic governance among the youth of post-revolutionary Iran. I offer a sampling of interviews I conducted with relevant cultural figures in Iran's exiled community of writers, journalists, and artists in Paris (Reza Ghassemi, Mana Neyestani, Mohammad-Reza Yazdanpanah) that variously use the internet to promote these ideas in their works, and outline their thoughts on the role of mediated cultural and intellectual production for stimulating civic engagement. I conclude that the weblogistan makes it possible to overcome, in part, the challenges that exile brings to intellectual production within the Iranian diaspora, enables the staging and circulation of discourses of cosmopolitanism and inclusivity endemic to constructing civil society, and preserves and strengthens a sense of cultural grounding necessary for political action.
Discipline
Media Arts
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries