New Media, Contentious Politics, and Political Public Sphere in Iran

This article examines the challenges new communication technologies – the internet, smart phones, and satellite television—pose to the functioning of Iran’s authoritarian and ideological political system. With a focus on nation-wide protests that swept dozens of Iranian cities in 2017–2018 and 2019, the paper explains the ways new media have intensified contentious politics and facilitated oppositional collective actions. It also demonstrates the process through which the internet has expanded, diversified and complicated Iran's political public sphere by giving dissenting voices unprecedented chances of being heard in public, and by enabling them to set the agenda for public conversations. The article argues that ideological states such as Iran are particularly vulnerable to the free flow of news and ideas facilitated by new communication technologies.