جامعه شناسی کاربردی (Jun 2024)
Analysis of Economic Sanctions against Iran as a Social Reality in the Digital Space
Abstract
IntroductionThis research took an interdisciplinary approach to the literature on sanctions. It examined the reasons for sanctions, as well as the effects and consequences of sanctions in general with a focus on anti-Iranian sanctions. The research aimed to represent and analyze the behaviors of the components within the digital network of sanctions. Iranian Twitter users were the target community for this article. However, the digital social reality of sanctions on Twitter was the result of all users who thought about, acted on, and were concerned with Iran sanctions. As a widely used social network where political news and interactions were frequently expressed and trending, Twitter was the most important community for investigating Iran sanctions. This was because those who imposed sanctions, as well as their defenders and opponents, were all present on this platform. As a result, a debate was unfolding on Twitter. Users on Twitter reproduced and redefined sanctions as an intertextual phenomenon, reintroducing it into the cycle of social reality production in the form of informal but impactful propositions. In general, the researchers in this study were aiming to conduct a big data analysis of the reactions and responses of activists within the Twitter space. Materials & MethodsThis research employed the Social Network Analysis (SNA) method. SNA is a technique for simulating and modeling communication between people, as well as the structure of networks. It also serves as a way to demonstrate the importance of individuals within a network. Approximately 2.4 million tweets in various languages were collected. After preprocessing the tweets and selecting those related to Iran, a total of around one million tweets, comprising both Farsi and English, were chosen for further analysis. Of these, roughly 24% were published in English, while the remaining 76% were in Persian. Discussion of Results & ConclusionIt appeared that in a society with high internet penetration and a large percentage of university graduates, foreign sanctions combined with internal restrictions, such as censorship and discourse weaknesses, made the meaning-making and discourse-shaping battle on social networks unequal and, in some ways, defeated. Despite the direct presence of supporters and allies of the power core the Islamic Republic, as well as the creation and dissemination of numerous bots, the resulting discourse had little effect (whether positive or negative) on the broader network, except within its own cluster and the adjacent cluster. In fact, the resulting discourse was mostly confined within the network and had not expanded significantly in terms of its reach and influence. However, the moderate cluster of government supporters had greater intertextual influence on the formation and expansion of its own discourse, directly or indirectly affecting all other clusters. The cluster of dissidents had to be considered more effective than the cluster close to the government in shaping the meaning of sanctions in international discourses, wielding greater influence than the impact of Iranians abroad. The extracted network, like all other relationships (primarily from a Foucauldian perspective), was formed through the action and reaction with power institutions and ideology. The traces of this dynamic could be found either in the context, in intertextuality, or in the formation of digital practices.
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