344 Mediated Publics
word “mirror.” For many of them the weblog was a mirror into their souls,
a place where they could represent and define themselves according to
their preferences and desires. But it was also a mirror in which they could
see how others perceived them. This mirror has a double and contradic-
tory effect on bloggers: it can increase their self-confidence or become
very critical and disturbing. For women who in Islamic society have to
conceal themselves and perform identities constantly, this virtual self-rep-
resentation takes on added significance. Their weblog becomes a mirror
in which they can reveal their “inner selves,” the part of their personality
that they always hide in a moralistic Iranian society:
Sometimes I forget who I am. Then I read my weblog and find
myself there, it calms me and I feel better. (Sara dar Ayeneh—
Sara in the Mirror—female blogger, http://www.ayene.org/,
2003)or men the meaning of “mirror” is different. As discussed above, F
Iranians in general do not reveal their private and personal lives in public,
and after the revolution they also learned to perform certain roles accord-
ing to the situation. But in general, Iranian men do not have to perform as
much as women in the Islamic context of decency; they have many rights
that women do not have. Still, in their blogs they too can discover facets
that have been hidden:
For me “mirror” is the best description of the weblog. Because
there, we look at our “self,” as we look in a mirror, seeing dif-
ferent angles, we can mime or perform as we want, we can see
facets that we are not used to seeing. (Alpar—male blogger,
http://alpr.30morgh.org/, Focus Group 2003)ere lies the main difference between Iranian female and male H
bloggers. In the majority of interviews, male bloggers believed that the
self-image presented in their weblogs was very similar to that of their
real selves because they are less obliged to play predetermined roles in
real life. For women, their virtual image is closer to their “inner self,” hid-
den mostly in public life under the pressure of Islamic conventions. The
absence of the body and of face-to-face contact allows women more free-
dom to express themselves in virtual space, especially when they remain