Capabilities and Challenges of Virtual Social Networking for Iranian Civil Society

This paper identifies the capacities and challenges of virtual social networks in the development of civil society in Iran and the attitudes of civil activists in Tehran about them. This study was a blended method and its method was deep interviewing and scrolling. The statistical population in the qualitative section of academic scholars and civil and party activists, among them 27, were selected through targeted sampling and a small portion of civil activists in Tehran, among which 384 were selected by simple random sampling. The findings show that experts have 16 capacities and 12 challenges for social networks in developing or weakening civil society. The discovery of equality, the possibility of dialogue, disclosure, the establishment of a communication link, the reduction of the cost of civil activities, freedom to exchange information, defend civil society, introduce abnormal civic behaviors, coverage, strengthening social capital, increasing the power of choice, including capacities. weakness of professional use, filtering policy, false civil demands, the existence of a state of government monitoring and control, the expansion of cyberspace problems to civil society, they are among the challenges. Among these cases, the civil activists in Tehran have the most important capacity for civil society networks to attract people to networks, easy access to citizens, and categorize their views and reduce the cost of civil activities. And the most important challenge is the weakness of professional use, filtering policies, and the dissemination of false civil claims.