Amir-Ebrahimi 349wave of newspaper publication and the expansion of new public spaces
has been constantly subject to cycles of disappearance and reappearance
due to the permanent confrontation between civil society and the Islamic
state. Over the years, Iranians have learned how to live with this provisory
situation. Since 2001, this transient public sphere has been partly trans-
ferred to and partly duplicated by cyberspace. Weblogistan has become
a new public space for a middle-class urban population to practice self-
expression, to discuss issues and to form new ideas with a higher level of
tolerance. In the virtual space of Weblogistan, new identities are formed,
sometimes anonymously and sometimes under real names, creating new
and diverse networks and communities. From these networks social
actions have taken place that have had impacts on physical space.
n the context of a fast-growing network in Weblogistan, which I
attracts new members from diverse backgrounds and situations daily, the
Iranian government has increased its control and applies more and more
sophisticated filtering to limit the expansion and power of Iranian cyber-
space. Despite this control, cyberspace remains much less controllable
than physical space. In Weblogistan, the government is challenged every
day by talented youth and Internet users whose authority is maintained by
their vast technological knowledge. Iranian youth have shown that they
can defend themselves in this arena better than the government.
fter the contested reelection of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, despite A
very powerful filtering and censorship, and in the absence of independent
journalists, Iranian protesters organized themselves for rallies through
diverse virtual networks and through Weblogistan via anonymyzers and
anti-filters. They immediately posted their videos on the Internet and
news for the world to see. The number of Internet videos and news posts
from the Iranian Green Movement made this movement one of the stron-
gest virtual social movements in the world.^42 The experience of many
years of presence in cyberspace, blogging and finding new and diverse
ways of self-expression, dialogue and constructing virtual communities,
despite the state’s heavy filtering, prepared Iranian youth to circumvent
new limitations on the Internet and to construct a new public and politi-
cal sphere where “each Iranian is a media / each Iranian is a leader,”^43
thinking about and deciding the future of the Green Movement.