saeeid zokaei; Mohammad Javad Imani Khoshkhoo
Abstract
Regarding that political humor was one of most prevalent communicative themes during the presidential election in 2017, this research aims to answer this question that how political humor is used in most politicized period of time. So we chose two virtual communities in Telegram messenger including extreme ...
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Regarding that political humor was one of most prevalent communicative themes during the presidential election in 2017, this research aims to answer this question that how political humor is used in most politicized period of time. So we chose two virtual communities in Telegram messenger including extreme advocates of two main political parties and analyzed more than 7000 massages of these groups during 30 days up to presidential election in 2017, using the Cyber-Ethnographic method. We have found that humor is utilized in two ways: as a weapon (in semiotic battle and keeping up cognitive distance against opponents) and as a relief (for reducing anxiety and nervous pressure and growing sympathy with insiders). But the main distinction between these groups was implementing Survival humor (laughing at misery) by the reformist one. Also these communicative departure to virtual space has caused changes both in Telegram as a medium (customization based on recipient’s lingual and cultural context) and in logic of politics (because of inherent characteristics of this medium). In fact, we are witness of blending areas (political and nonpolitical, personal and impersonal, sadness and happiness and …).
Mohammad Rezaei; Maryam Pooraskari
Abstract
This study tries to examine the relations between using Facebook and people’s voting behavior in Iran’s presidential election in 2013. Taking a qualitative approach, we used virtual ethnography and observation techniques, as well as in-depth interviews to gather the research data and we used ...
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This study tries to examine the relations between using Facebook and people’s voting behavior in Iran’s presidential election in 2013. Taking a qualitative approach, we used virtual ethnography and observation techniques, as well as in-depth interviews to gather the research data and we used thematic analysis to analyze to gathered data. The results show that for a number of reasons, Facebook played a role in changing people’s minds from not attending the election to taking part in it. The election was the first after the disputed presidential election in 2009 and some people considered voting a taboo. Lack of dialogue and political discussion in Iran’s political and media environment outside Facebook, improved the website’s role. Another reason was the fact that Facebook provided an alternative to the state media. We argue that analyzing the effects of specific social media is only possible if one looks into the country’s political environment and the role of the social media websites in the society. The results show that political arguments may result in increasing people’s level of political information or motivation, but don’t necessarily change their voting behavior.
