The ratification of the Press Law by the first majles or parliament on February 8, 1908, marked a significant development in the history of censorship in Iran. The Press Law was a comprehensive set of fifty-two articles, inspired by the 1881 French press law, that covered all forms of expression and delineated the boundaries of what was permissible and impermissible to publish in print-media (whether books, newspapers, or announcements), and defined the responsibility of its distributors (whether bookstores, printing houses or newspaper peddlers). In regard to newspapers, while on the one hand, it listed the conditions that needed to be satisfied in order for an individual to obtain a license for the publication of a newspaper from the Ministry of Publication, on the other it outlined the red lines that a newspaper had to respect. Thus, the Press law was important not only because this was the very first time that what was fit to print was being regulated officially, but also because it was long-lasting, in that its provisions, by and large, remained on the books until 1952 when it was replaced by the Second Press Law. In the little that has been written on the Press Law, this development has been explained primarily in terms of constitutional politics, and the pressure that the first majles was put under by royalist forces close to Mohammad Ali Shah who had been angered by the anti-royalist tone of some constitutional newspapers. Rarely has the press law been considered in the broader context of the history of censorship in Qajar Iran, and the attempts that had been made by the state in previous decades, to take control over what people read, and the acts of resistance that ensued in order to fight them. This paper aims to contextualize the Press Law and to consider what it tells us about the story of censorship in Qajar Iran. How did the understanding of what censorship should entail change throughout the years, and what challenges and dilemmas did censorship pose for both the authorities as well as the increasingly politicized subjects/citizens at different points in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Iran, culminating in the Press Law in spring 1908? This paper is based on a close reading of a number of newspapers published in Iran between the 1870s and 1908, as well as diaries and memoirs pertaining to this period.

This article offers a new perspective on the extensive discussion of the role of new media in facilitating the 2011 Egyptian uprising. We seek to expand the scope of analysis by placing it within the historical context of the way in which the state has responded to new media—any new media—that has come into use in the last decades (newspapers, radio, television, satellite television, Internet and social media). Analyzing the way in which the state has addressed new media from the introduction of the printed press to the present, we discern a cyclical recurring pattern characterized by a dynamic of openness–adaptation– narrowing: at first, the state allows the new media freedom (openness), it then acts to subjugate the new media and minimize risks the regime perceives this new medium casts on him (adaptation), until finally managing to limit the new media (narrowing), and so forth. Yet, each such wave results in an expansion of the media space compared to the previous one. We suggest seeing the role of the new media in the Arab Spring and its aftermath on this continuum, as an extension of processes of state-media relations developed over the preceding decades. When first introduced, Internet and social media operated without significant intervention by the state, challenging the authoritarian regime by eroding its long-standing control over the information to which the Egyptian public was exposed. The Internet became a platform for oppositionists, creating an online public sphere in which a lively critical political discourse was produced and public opinion was formed without the initiative of the regime (the openness phase). The Egyptian regime had trouble dealing with the challenges posed by the Internet and social media, using outmoded methods, previously employed to deter the traditional media. At this juncture the Arab Spring erupted, in between the opening and the narrowing of the space allowed by the regime to the new media, at a point where it had not yet succeeded in curbing the influence of the new technology (the adaptation phase). Since then, however, the state has demonstrated adaptability. In recent years, it is evident that Egypt is moving into the phase of limiting the new media, using traditional and innovative "digital authoritarianism" methods (the narrowing phase), in accordance with the pattern of the relationship between the state and the new media we refer to.

Over the past decade, Turkey has routinely been one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, and this has produced, in conjunction with other factors such as self-censorship and corporate-clientelism between news companies and state officials, an incredibly restrictive and repressive media climate that is purposefully punitive towards journalists. Despite this, there has simultaneously been a proliferation of citizen journalism in the country. This paper traces the seemingly paradoxical rise of citizen journalism in Turkey during, arguably, Turkey’s most restrictive media climate ever. Juxtaposed against the overall decline of professional journalism in Turkey, citizen journalists do not merely fill a void left in the wake of their censored professional colleagues but have actively worked to alter the function of the news media. I argue that during the first half of the decade, especially during and in the aftermath of the Gezi Park Protests of Summer 2013, citizen journalism expanded precisely because of the broad censorship in the Turkish mainstream media but also, in part, due to emergent technologies such as Twitter. However, the state of emergency powers afforded to the government after the failed coup attempt of 2016, in conjunction with state censors becoming more adept at handling social media technologies, altered the trajectory of citizen journalism in Turkey. By focusing on Turkey’s most well-known and accomplished citizen journalist group, 140journos, this paper finds that the group, throughout its now more than eight-year tenure, strategically shifted from a “just-the-facts” configuration during and after the Gezi Park protests towards more affective, social commentary-driven content in the wake of the failed military coup. In doing so, the group abandoned the moniker of citizen journalism altogether in lieu of referring to itself as a “new media publisher” that creates original documentary series, conducts social research, and creates visual stories. This paper argues that in addition to the group positioning itself as a “new media publisher,” in essence professional visual journalism, the group’s affective turn can also be understood as a part of a lineage of social-justice journalism—or journalism that is advocacy-driven.

In the wake of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, by the United States in January 2020, Iranians took to social media to express a wide range of responses. In aggregate, these communications reflected the political collectivities and tensions that undergird Iranian society, all the while circumscribed by a domestic surveillance apparatus as well as a global sanctions regime that limit Iranians’ free expression. On the one hand, all Western social media platforms except Instagram are officially blocked by the Iranian government. On the other, usage of these blocked platforms is so widespread that most top government officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani actively utilize them. While navigating these idiosyncratic and inconsistent restrictions after the assassination, which came soon after nationwide protests prompted by a spike in fuel costs, Iranians discovered that Instagram had begun removing posts relating to Soleimani’s death and suspending or removing accounts associated with those posts. Despite Instagram’s claims that the decision was motivated by the need to comply with US sanctions policies relating to firms doing business in or with Iran, inconsistent application of sanctions has resulted in disparities in Iranians’ ability to communicate via social media. This paper explores these disparities, including class demarcations and geographic distributions in technology access, in order to shed light on how Iranians navigate practical limitations to free expression in both domestic and international domains; how the application of sanctions law in the as-yet underdeveloped domain of social media serves to exacerbate profound inequities in Iranian society; and how currents of nationalist and anti-imperialist political thought in Iran exist in persistent tension with one another.

This paper analyzes the impact of the deteriorating security conditions and shrinking spaces of academic freedom in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) on the emotional health of researchers working in or on the region (“MENA researchers”). With the notable exception of Tunisia, the environments of academic activities have become more hostile in almost all other MENA countries. These tendencies do not only result from the spread of violence in civil war countries such as Libya, Syria and Yemen. Also, the incumbent regimes in most other MENA countries have tightened their control and surveillance of academia in general, and social sciences in particular: Rulers such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey), Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia), Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed (UAE) or the Council of the Guardians around Ayatollah Khameini in Iran have intensified their restrictions on academic research, resulting in the rejection of research proposals on “national security” grounds, if not even leading to the dismissal or eventual arrest of researchers. This has led to increasing self-censorship among MENA researchers, implying a loss of academic relevance of MENA-oriented research. The paper discusses the findings of a comprehensive survey on the professional and personal situation of academics working in and on the MENA region, highlighting in particular their major emotional challenges and stress factors. Based on a questionnaire distributed globally in November/December 2019 among MENA researchers, it problematizes psychological hardships for academics working on and in the MENA region. Fear of professional and personal consequences has spread among local, but also international researchers, having a clear impact on their emotional health. Thus, the paper problematizes the extent to which MENA-oriented research can threaten researchers’ mental integrity, and what individual scholars as well as research institutes and funding organizations can initiate to better support researchers in emotionally stressful situations. Based on the answers of 274 questionnaire respondents, the paper will not only analyze the prevailing assessment of the state of academic freedom in the MENA countries by those who are directly affected, but also shed light on the specific working conditions for MENA-oriented scholars and the resulting consequences for their personal well-being. Thus, the paper will also contribute to the current discourse on research ethics and the responsibilities of academic institutions for field researchers in non-democratic settings.

In September 2018, amid major economic grievances in Iran, a Twitter campaign emerged to target key American foreign policy figures for their support of a democratic transition in Iran. In addition to amplifying messages in favor of regime change in Iran, the #IranRegimeChange campaign quickly became a conduit for conveying the strategic interests of the political opposition groups. In response to these subversive messages, coordinated activities on Instagram surfaced that indicated an ostensible association to the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). We will apply a quantitative methodology along with the theoretical framework of “soft war” to identify and analyze the actors and their tactics in the #IranRegimeChange campaign. To this end, this paper will entertain the following research questions: 1. How do social media platforms affect the perceived soft war between Iran and foreign actors? 2. What differences characterize the affordances of Twitter and Instagram that allow for distinct strategic choices in the Iranian soft war? Using supervised machine learning, we identified 26 Twitter popular hashtags (e.g. #IranRegimeChange and #IranProtests) between September 21 and October 24, 2018 and collected a total of 1,238,566 tweets via Twitter’s streaming API. In addition, we analyzed the co-occurence of tagged users in state-aligned communications on Instagram. We apply social network, community detection, and other statistical analyses with R and Python scripts to analyze coordinated inauthentic activities throughout the campaign. The paper will demonstrate that the weaponized use of social media platforms can bolster nonmilitary objectives, such as political pressure for regime change. The #IranRegimeChange campaign exemplifies the long-held anxiety of the IRI about the soft war that seeks to influence the Iranian public and undermine the IRI. This in turn prompts IRI to respond to these perceived threats. However, we argue that a thorough evaluation of the success of influence operations is key to the holistic understanding of their capacity and limits. Through the case study of #IranRegimeChange, the paper contributes to the relatively small literature on Iran and the soft war. It also adds to the body of knowledge on the implications of new technological tools for foreign policy debates, in particular for Iran-US relations under the Trump administration. The paper will conclude by recommending future research that integrates the nuances of emerging threats that digital mediums pose to diplomacy in the Middle East.