The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Emotional Structure in the Mirror of Iranian Virtual Social Networks

The emotional structure of every society forms the dynamic cultural part of that society. Despite the profound and pervasive effects of these emotional networks on the social context and daily interactions, a systematic and analytical study of on structure of society's emotions is performed rarely in the Iranian social sciences space. Over the past few months, the coronavirus pandemic has had significant effects on the emotional structure of the Iranian society, especially the two emotions of hope and anxiety. Cyberspace is a continuation of real space that well depicts these changes. Relying on virtual ethnography, semiotics and thematic analysis, the present paper shows that the spread of the Coronavirus, in cyberspace more than ever and in the continuation real emotional structures of society has put collective hope against public hope. Based on the results, criticism has tended towards utopian optimism as well as the carnivalization of space. Nevertheless, there are traces of agentic hope, which, of course, sometimes lead to deviation in that space. Anxiety, as an emotion that is inversely related to hope, and especially collective hope, has increased dramatically with the rise of the coronavirus pandemic. Since the increase in structural anxieties does not lead to agentic hope, it has added to frustrations and boredom and existential anxiety. Even the transformation of existential anxiety into visual once has not been able to reduce its severity. Eventually, the anxiety out of corona becomes an abomination to all members of the society and then increases it further.