The Role of the Internet in the Unrests Following the Tenth Presidential Elections in Iran

Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the West felt it was being threatenedby its cultural impacts and made every possible attempt to alter the structure of the Islamic Republic by making it change its behavior. However, the policies and management strategies of the great leader of the revolution, Imam Khomeini (rah.), and the Supreme Leader, Imam Khamenei, as well as the resistance of the Iranians made the attempts of the hegemonic system fail. Accordingly, feeling threatened by the Islamic Republic, the West followed every possible action ranging from hard, semi-hard to soft measures in order to overthrow the Islamic government in Iran. Taking advantage of the international, regional and domestic potentials, the U.S. imposed the heaviest pressures on Iran by carrying out the Delta Project and media battle. The context of elections in Iran and the existence of a favorable background for their activities made the West utilize the Internet to accomplish their goals. The present study attempts to deal with this question: “What is the role of the enemy’s utilization of the Internet in the unrests following the elections in Iran?” The findings of this study suggest that the measures taken in cyberspace, launching and supporting various blogs and websites and taking advantage of the web 2 are all indications of the hegemonic system’s full use of the Internet in the unrests following the presidential elections in Iran and its impact on training their agents, providing information for them, coordinating them, running psychological operations, etc. It can be said that the Internet has been of a special interest for the West due to its multimedia function and wide range of potentials and capabilities which are not confined by the time and space boundaries. This has caused the Islamic Republic of Iran to pay a special attention to the Internet, too and take a serious approach towards it.