I’m writing a chapter with LSU colleague David Perlmutter about bloggers as the new foreign correspondent. In researching the media coverage of blogging in the Middle East, I came across this article in LexisNexis about the growth of blogs in Iran:
Iranian news agency reports findings of a survey of Persian-language blogs
SOURCE: IRNA news agency, Tehran, in Persian 13:03 GMT, 3 Jul 05The Iranian news agency IRNA has carried a report about the growing interest in Persian-language blog-writing and about a survey of 150 blogs carried out by the Iranian Culture Ministry.
IRNA said that Persian-language blogs had registered a rapid growth over the past three years to the point where they now ranked third in the world.
IRNA added: “More than 75 per cent of the Persian-language content on the Internet belongs to Persianblog. The day when Persianblog offered a service for making Persian-language blogs, even its founders did not imagine that, in less than two years, the number of active Persian blogs would increase from 700 to 63,000.”
IRNA said that monitoring blogs was perhaps one of the easiest and least costly ways of discovering “the real views of Iranian people and young Iranians about the current situation of society and the world”. The news agency added that “in a pioneer move” the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry had carried out a survey of 150 Persian blogs “over the summer, autumn and winter of last year [last Iranian year, ending in March 2005] (50 blogs per season), analysed the contents and put a report in this connection at IRNA’s disposal.”
“According to the report, the bulk of the contents of Persian blogs is made up of social issues and daily logs (personal issues). Political blogs are few in number but influential. In other words, they have many visitors. This information can be deduced from viewing the counters’ on these blogs.
“The survey reveals that Persian blogs, noticeably and significantly, tend to be written anonymously or using pseudonyms. Also, contrary to the current view, bloggers who support the ruling system make up an extensive segment of the blogger space… Blogs that support the system have focused on subjects such as religious issues and spent less time defending the performance of the system. Many of the blogs that support the system criticize various executive and judicial officials while defending the system in principle.”
IRNA also noted that, based on the survey, bloggers showed considerable interest in the culture and civilization of ancient Iran, adding: “It seems that a wave of interest in nationalistic issues is coming about among bloggers.”
IRNA listed some of the survey’s other findings as follows:
- Instances of solidarity between bloggers, such as the case when many blogs changed their name to Emrooz for one day to show solidarity with Emrooz website, which was being blocked in Iran
- Extensive use of blogs by religious supporters of the ruling system or what IRNA described as “hezbollahi forces”
- “Neutral” blogs seem better able to attract visitors and comments
- Since some Persian-language bloggers are based abroad, blogs are allowing increased interaction between young Iranians at home and abroad
- A significant number of blogs are effectively diaries. “The use of this method means that every youngster can have easy access to the diaries of other youngsters, girls and boys, and in an on-line and fresh form at that.”
- A movement of “support for bloggers” has become a focused activity in the realm of Persian-language blog-writing
- Bloggers who move towards obtaining exclusive domains and hosts work more professionally and “this shows their long-term plan for blog-writing”
- “It seems that supporting the conversion of blogs to websites can help make their identities more transparent and make their activities lawful.”