Is the role of new media such as Twitter and Facebook overstated in Iran’s post-electoral upheaval?  Maybe; it all depends on how we define their purpose.  Both sides of the debate are referring to some particular aspects of new media.  I brought up the question for three of my friends who are Iranian journalists, Omid Memarian, Roozbeh Mirebrahimi and Hossein.  The first two currently live in the United States and have worked- or are still working- for Human Rights Watch.  Hossein lives in Iran and wanted to remain anonymous.  All three have been heavily involved with the protest movement.  Omid believes that the role of Twitter has been exaggerated: “That was not Twitter that gave some weights to the Iranian protests.  It was Iran’s situation that introduced another mean for Twitter.” Roozbeh also is critical of the so-called Twitter Revolution.  However, he emphasizes the impacts of Facebook, email groups and other sources of communication as potent players of mobilization.  Rouzbeh said “We used Twitter just to send real-time-information to other media such as CNN, but Facebook gave us an unprecedented great platform to share our information.”

I personally was using Twitter just when there was a protest in Iran and I wanted to know what is happening on the streets in real time.  I believe the main understanding of Twitter even for its founders was something like: “OK, I had two beers so far and am going to have the third one in another bar.”  But upheaval in Iran changed drastically its purpose.

However, the purpose of Facebook was different.  To me it was a tool of communication that became a good source of news as well.  The first page I was looking at before BBC Persian or any other breaking news.  I should mention that before the election my rate of use of Facebook was about twice a week and for few days after the election it increased to once in every half an hour.  After a while, I realized that I am gradually distancing from conventional media and relying more on the new ones.  Even though as someone who belongs to TV community and had been a political commentator, the process of fact checking for those traditional media was keeping me remain behind the pace of movement in Iran.  Nevertheless, we used them as the secondary source with way larger audience to send our message to the rest of the world.  For example, one way that was so useful in terms of informing people about the protests was to receive news, videos and pictures from witnesses on the streets via Facebook and email group, and then sending it via iReport- a user-generated site- to CNN.

In another words, I think that new media is not an alternative to the old ones, they are rather complimentary.  New media in comparison with newspaper and TV are metaphorically blind.  There is no vision or missions in their services.  In fact they all are tools in the hands of their users.  Therefore, it is impossible to trust every news and it is hard to find meaningful information that helps you understand what exactly is the government reaction or how to draw an outline for the next strategy.  But if you have enough information outside these platforms, they are the best tools to organize, create a message, and mobilize people.  Facebook grew to be a great medium for these goals.

Hossein pointed out the notion of vast use of internet by the Iranian youth as the main source of news for protesters.  “Although government shut down internet and text messaging many times during the pick of protests, those who had access to internet via satellite or in neighboring countries like Dubai were distributing information to others”, he said and added: “Nothing is more encouraging than to know your voice is being heard.”

A simple demographic analysis of protesters shows that they are all from major cities where internet is more accessible.  In addition, we know that more than 70% of Iranian populations are under thirty years old who use internet severely.   Therefore, we can easily come to the conclusion that the role of online communication has been crucial in the post-election mobilization.  As the Iranian government is being more isolated and most of people in UN are walking out when Ahmadinejad speaks, Iranian people are sensing a community with the rest of the world.  “You don’t consider it just an Iranian movement when you see your friends from other nationality on facebook are posting video of Neda on their profiles,” Omid said.   With no doubt new media has made Iranian Green Movement globalized, which gave me an opportunity to write about it here.