Oppositional Politics and the Internet in Iran: A Visual Semiotic Analysis of the Iranian Green Path Movement’s Website

Authors

  • Yousef Mostafalou
  • M. Adnan Hamedi

Abstract

This article analyzes the Iranian Green Movement’s websites for promotion of their cultural and political struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s oppressive policies. It analyzes the website contribution in four different conditions that establish the movement: the alternative forms of information, culture and meaning production and dissemination for representation and reconstruction of collective identity, the networking and developing of alliance and solidarity between oppositional movement’s activists, the organization and mobilization of public demonstration, and the direct expression of political protests. The goals of the study are to illustrate ways in which the Internet is utilized by the Iranian oppositional movement activists to promote and advance their cultural and political struggles. Toward this end, Roland Barthes’s visual semiotic approach has been deployed to analyze the Iranian oppositional movement’s websites and texts. Findings of the study show that the Internet or websites have being extensively used by the Iranian Green Movement’s activists for the promotion of the alternative forms of information, culture and meanings for representation and reconstruction of collective identity, the organization and mobilization of public demonstration, the networking and development of alliance and solidarity between oppositional movement’s activists and the direct expression of political protests. But, the Iranian Green Movement activists do not used full potential of the internet and website for promotion of their political struggles.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n2s1p113

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Published

2016-03-08

How to Cite

Oppositional Politics and the Internet in Iran: A Visual Semiotic Analysis of the Iranian Green Path Movement’s Website. (2016). Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2 S1), 113. https://www.richtmann.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/8876