Mini-project: Global Information Ecosystem (GIT) Report on Iran

Background

The internet:

Iran’s access to the Internet started in 1993. The Internet World Stats (2021) shows that, until June 2021, Iran has 78 million Internet users out of the entire population consisting of 85 million people, with an Internet penetration rate of 91.8%. In fact, the penetration rate of Iran in 2017 was only 69%, and there were merely 250k Internet users back in 2000. In other words, Iran has been witnessing a sharp growth in Internet usage and development over the past years, the rate of which has been the highest among all the Middle East countries (Internet World Stats, 2021; OpenNet Initiative, 2009).

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Benefiting from the rapidly developing infrastructures for Internet use, an increasing number of people have been participating in digital communication practices through the Internet, such as online discussions on social media. Web services such as Google and Instagram are widely used by Iranian people. According to Mazrooei, Sabahi, and Zanconato (n.d.), the construction and advancement of Iran's Internet infrastructure also arise from the country's need for "receiving and publishing news and debates on the current issues” responding to “the closure of outspoken and reformist newspapers” in Iran. Basically, the Internet has been the primary platform where Iranians discuss and voice their opinions, as well as where the authorities publish announcements and address specific issues. While in the meantime, the Iranian government adopts various policies and measures, such as limiting Internet access speed for households and Internet filtering, to restrict its citizens' access to web content. Online speech in Iran is also strictly monitored and controlled by the authorities.

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Social media:

As mentioned above, Iran has a relatively high Internet penetration rate among its citizens. Most Iranian people have been using different online services. In Iran, Google has been the most widely applied search engine; Instagram has been the most frequently visited social media website (Alexa Internet, 2022). While, when it comes to social media platforms in general, Telegram has been the most popular messaging application as well as the top used social media platform (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.). According to Media Landscapes, 71% of the social media users in Iran use Telegram, following which WhatApp ranks second and Instagram ranks third.

Since the 2000s, the Iranian authorities have been restricting Internet use in Iran, banning people’s access to certain web applications. Those web services include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and many other social media platforms and applications. In 2009, videos have been uploaded to those platforms recording how the country abuses its security forces against the people, the street demonstrations, and the violent oppression carried out by the government (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.). With an increasing number of protests happening on the Internet, the government blocks those platforms within the Iranian domestic network. Another possible rationale, which was also given by the government to justify their behaviors, has been to ban the contents of pornography and anti-Islamism on the Internet.

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Despite the ban from the government, people have been using VPNs and private servers to access blocked websites, such as Facebook. According to the Internet World Stats (2017), there were 40 million Facebook users out of the 56.7 million Internet users in Iran back in 2017. It seems obvious that the government is not fully capable of restricting people’s access to the Internet. Actually, the government also has official accounts on those social media platforms. While recently, the Iranian government announced its new measures, based on legislation named "Legislation to Protect Cyberspace Users," to ban social media platforms and web services in Iran (Sinaee, 2022). It is expanding the range of banned services that the citizens have access to, resulting in severe protests from the people.

 

TV:

First introduced to Iran in 1958, Television has been the main medium for Iranian people to receive news. IRIB, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, has national, provincial, and international channels provided through TV with eight foreign languages available (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.). The contents are prepared for both people living in Iran and Iranian people living in other countries, and the categories of programs cover news, sports, science, documentary, etc. According to BBC (2021), the most-watched channel provided domestically is based on IRIB's Network Three, the contents of which are related to sports and entertainment.

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Since 1994, satellite television has been restricted with equipment banned in Iran (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.). Yet, despite the government’s strict censorship, foreign and international channels have been quite popular among Iranian people, and about 40% of the people were watching satellite channels back in 2010. Particularly, channels based on Persian have been gaining much popularity in Iran, among which BBC Persian has been the most received one. In 2014, the number of audiences for Persian BBC reached a maximum of 11.4 million people, and its contents include “news, art, science, culture, technology, and sport” (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.).

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Radio:

Same as TV, Radio broadcasting in Iran is also under the control of the IRIB (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.). The IRIB possesses 12 radio stations specifically for domestic audiences and 30 radio channels for Iranian audiences outside Iran and international audiences. There also exist several radio broadcasts from other countries that are popular among Iranian audiences, such as Radio BBC in Farsi and Radio Farda. These channels are either under the censorship of IRIB or would encounter radio jamming from time to time (Milewski, 2008).

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Newspapers:

Iran has approximately 100 newspapers that conduct daily publishment, mostly in Persian, with some significant English newspapers existing as well (Mazrooei, Sabahi & Zanconato, n.d.). With the Internet and web media developing rapidly, people read newspapers less frequently, while some of them remain influential. Most of these newspapers are about politics and news. Hamshahri and Jam-e Jam, two Persian newspapers possessed by Tehran Municipality and IRIB, are considered two best-selling papers of centrism, both of which possess circulations of around 50,000 a day. Keyhan and Resalat are two conservative Persian-language newspapers that are popular among Iranian people, with their circulations ranging from 10,000 to 20,000. In addition, Shargh has been the newspaper with reformist views published, which has reached a circulation of 20,000. Aside from Persian newspapers, Iran Daily and Tehran Times are two English papers that are widely known by Iranian people.

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