Iranian Women’s Digital Activism: Gendered Discourses on Social Media Platforms
This project looks at the mediation of Iranian women’s activism and debates around gender issues on social media platforms as this is shaped by the political opportunity structure of the country. Centring its analysis on the generation of narratives and images on Instagram, the research interrogates the production and circulation of feminist discourses by Iranian feminists and women’s rights campaigners. To study media practices and strategies of the self-mediation of activists a digital ethnographic approach is adopted. The study frames part of the activists’ digital campaigns as forms of popular feminism that centre on the self-branding and mediation of individual activist empowerment.
Main Results
Drawing from my research project at CAIS, I propose that Iranian women’s campaigns are performed in hybrid spaces. In these spaces online and offline platforms, along with alternative digital and mainstream media, intertwine serving to mobilise support, capture the attention of both local and international mainstream media, and to create counter-narratives through producing and disseminating (self-)mediated textual and visual digital content.
Furthermore, I argue that feminist digital activism in Iran, in conjunction with the historical social and political tensions around women’s issues, are informed, and shaped by the dynamics- particularly visual affordances- of digital media, which provides feminist activists with potential visibility to articulate their women’s demands and issues, thereby enabling them to feed their perspectives into ongoing public discourses.
As part of my fellowship, I co-organised the workshop, „Digital Activism Across North-South Divides“ at CAIS, in June 2023, which acilitated the convergence of researchers researchers who focused on critical issues in digital activism, traversing North-South boundaries.
I co-organised the workshop with Dr Sara Tafakori, assistant professor in Media and Communication at University of Leeds.
I addition, I will present part of my fellowship research project on the mediation opportunities of digital media platforms for Iranian feminist activism at the ATGENDER Conference 2023: Feminist Pedagogy of/beyond Borders, September 2023, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Main Research Topics
- Feminist Digital Activism
- Digital Discourses
- Popular Feminism
- Mediation opportunity Structure
- Digital Media Affordances
Curriculum Vitae
2016-2023: PhD Researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, Communication and Media Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
February-May 2022: Visiting Fellow, Institute for Feminist Legal Studies at Osgoode (IFLS), York University, Toronto, Canada.
December 2019-May 2020: Visiting Fellow, Erasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Lectures and Publications
Peer-reviewed articles:
Shamsi, M., & Ravadrad, A. (2022). Popular Feminism in Iranian Instagram: A Critical Investigation into the Mediation of Iranian Women’s Activism on Social Media Platforms. Journal of Society, Culture and Media (Jamee, Farhang va Resaneh), 11(42).
Shamsi, M., & Ravadrad, A. (2021). Life and time of Iranian Women: Ideological Approach to the Women’s Self-Representation on Instagram. Journal of New Media Studies (Motaleate Resanehaye Novin), 7(26), 131-170.
Shamsi, M., & MontazerGhaem, M. (2015). Evaluating the Iranian Government Websites: Information, Interaction and Transaction. Journal of Information processing and Management (Pajuheshnameye Pardazesh va Modiriyate Etelaat), 31(1), 163-191.
Shamsi, M., & Jalali, Y. (2013). Computer Games in Iran: Policies, Approaches and Organizations. Journal of Strategic Studies of Public Policy (Motaleate Esterategice Siyasate Omumi), 4(10), 161-193.
Conference presentations:
Shamsi, M. (Sep 4-6, 2023). Politics of Visibility in Iranian Feminist Digital Activism. ATGENDER Conference 2023: Feminist Pedagogy of/beyond Borders. Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Shamsi, M. (July 10, 2022). Iranian Women’s Digital Activism and Politics of Polarization. Women and Digital Political Communication in Non-Western Societies. IAMCR online Pre-conference.
Shamsi, M. (Nov 18-19, 2021). Iranian Women’s Movements on Social Media: An Ethnographic Investigation into the Mediation of Collective Desires. (Re)Imagining SWANA Futurities Conference. York University.