Looking for Freedom
New Material

Hendelman-Baavur, Liora (2007) ‘Promises and Perils of Weblogistan: Online personal journals and the Islamic Republic of Iran’ Middle East Review of International Affairs [Online] 11(2) http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2007/issue2/Hendlman-Baavur.pdf [Accessed 17/12/08]

Abstract: Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iranian printed and broadcast media has been strongly controlled by the state. However, the state’s authority has been compromised due to online publishing and the free flow of information, especially through “Weblogistan”—the Iranian cyber-sphere of online self-publishing journals. This has generated much concern among the Islamic Republic authorities. Along with satellite television and mobile phones, weblogs have irretrievably changed the way people in the entire Middle East interact with one another and with the rest of the world. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s ways of coping with challenges posed by the internet in general and weblogs in particular are especially intriguing, considering that the most famous blogger in the country is the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Lowenstein, Anthony (2008) The Blogging Revolution Melbourne: Melbourne University Press

Abstract: In many countries, internet censorship has become one of the key human rights issues of the twenty-first century. Best-selling author Antony Loewenstein conducts a searching examination of the ways the internet is threatening the rule of some of the planet’s most repressive governments, including in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Egypt and Syria. With first-hand investigative reporting, Loewenstein discovers the ways that Western multinationals are assisting the restriction of information in these countries, how bloggers are leading the charge for change and how, thanks to the web, we in the West now have a unique insight into cultures at once radically different from and yet distinctly similar to our own. (Amazon)

Antony Loewenstein on Informed Comment (Juan Cole)

Qazvinian, Vahed et al (2007) A Large-Scale Study on Persian Weblogs Proc. of Workshop on Text-Mining and Link-Analysis

Abstract: Weblogs are becoming an important part of today’s web. Interactions between bloggers cause in the formation of a large social network in every blogsphere. Analysis of this network gives a lot of information in behavioral aspects of bloggers and blog readers. In this paper we introduce the largest dataset of Persian Weblogs that contains com-ments. Our contribution is twofold: first, we provide basic analysis on
the blogsphere, and second we introduce a simple model for distribution
of comments in Persian Blogs.