It’s a mystery to me why more media outlets weren’t doing everything they possibly could to get Clay Shirky to talk about the recent movement in Iran. The mass protests, largely organized through text messages and social media, pretty much exactly followed the script he describes in Here Comes Everybody: a movement comprised of individuals, empowered by new communications technologies, sidesteps relatively stable institutional authority and uses flash mobs to challenge that power. The authorities, unaccustomed to the new power of ‘organizing without organizations’ use tactics of another era (official pronouncements, intimidation, etc.) to quell dissent, but the protests continue, garnering a worldwide audience through new channels (specifically YouTube, with the now-famous Neda video). Regardless of the outcome, traditional sources of power are threatened, demonstrating the influence of many-to-many communication tools.
The fidelity of recent events in Iran to Shirky’s ideas is remarkable, and should serve as notice for more people to pay attention to what he’s said. However, there are several ways of viewing this story that he doesn’t address, and it is tempting to misread what is going on in the world as some great flourishing of democracy. I don’t mean this as a criticism of his work; rather, my intent here is to apply his thinking to a larger context and to argue that these tools are not necessarily as ‘democratic’ as they may first appear.
As a warning, I am by no means an expert in Iran. This post isn’t really about Iran per se, but about the relationship between social media and political, cultural and social systems. But I do believe that the pro-Mousavi movement (more accurately, the American understanding of that movement) is an important learning moment.
So to begin, let me just say that I am not convinced of any electoral regularities in the recent election. That is not to say that I have any particular faith that it was carried out honestly. I am simply unfamiliar with the situation in that country, and have absolutely no way of analyzing the situation. But I am suspicious of the treatment of what is happening by the American press and political structure.
For one thing, it is pretty clear that most everyone has a vested interest in having anyone other than Ahmadinejad in power in Iran. So there’s probably a (subconscious) predisposition to question the legitimacy of his victory. But more importantly, pretty much all of the focus has been on (impressively) large demonstrations in major cities. This focus has been rather unquestioningly used as evidence that the street protest are a symptom of a wide-scale democratic revolution.
Yet Iran is a country of 65 million people, and no matter how large the crowds get, it’s logistically unfathomable that these crowds could ever represent anything more than a relatively small group of passionate supporters. Add to that the compelling narrative and accompanying visual scenes from the street, and you have a recipe for easy misinterpretation.
What I mean by this is that it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) from afar to divine whether what is happening is truly a revolutionary mass movement, or a release of relatively less consequential energy that is the inevitable result of revolutionary new media. The political meaning of these events is far from certain. Do they reflect a real, popular opposition? We cannot say with any certainty.
[Stopping here for a moment, I want to say that the treatment of the protesters has of course been disturbing, and that there have almost certainly been innumerable violations of human rights by the regime. While those are absolutely worthwhile topics, they aren't the focus of this post. I hope that this entry doesn't come across as crassly dispassionate, but I am simply focusing on a separate aspect of what has happened.]
For the sake of argument, assume that the official results in Iran were legitimate. In this scenario, the protests were nothing more than an expression of exasperation at a legitimate defeat. But the protesters are emboldened, and more importantly, politically empowered by the experience. This would occur once the ruling class, fearing similar events in the future, will make concessions to the opposition.
At first glance, that seems like the ideal democratic process in action. But it isn’t, and this isn’t limited to Iran. This should be the lesson of all of this, and it is why I don’t consider myself a technological utopian, nor a libertarian. What we would see in this scenario (and I’m certain we have already/will continue to see in countless other ways) is not simply the empowment of individuals, but the empowerment of certain individuals at the expense of others.
As Shirky (and many others) have noted, many-to-many communications systems allow spontaneous collective action in a way that has never been possible. In theory, this ability is granted to everyone. Yet in practice, this simply isn’t the case. Even in a situation wherein everyone has equal access to these new technologies, not everyone has equal skill nor experience with them. And the determinants of skill and use of social technology are almost certainly not randomly distributed.
We have evidence that (in the United States at least), those who tend to already have power and influence are (perhaps not surprisingly) those most likely to make the most of social media. The upper-middle classes–the most educated and upwardly-mobile citizens–are the most adept at these tools. So in any situation where these tools become a major determinant in social or political influence, these groups almost certainly stand to gain a disparate amount.
Obviously, you can’t coordinate a flash mob of the type Shirky describes without mobile phones and text messaging. But you also can’t do it without social capital. Or an eager, educated base of support. Or any of the countless other nuances and undiscovered factors that are important.
All of this suggests that we have to temper our enthusiasm about the possibilities of social media to create true, democratic change with the realities on the ground. While it is extremely tempting to assume (as would a technological utopian or libertarian) that unleashing these tools will topple injustice and make the world a better, democratic place, the facts do not support this. I am still confident that the net effect will be positive (power for the middle class is, after all, preferable to aristocracy or authoritarianism), but I believe that there is a need to recognize that, as with all media, these tools are not magic bullets.
In Iran, the poor and rural (Ahmadinejad’s base) might very well lose relatively political strength. Similar situations seem likely to crop up throughout the world.
