Recognizing the Role of Virtual Social Networks in Recreating the Cultural Ethnic Identity of the Arab People of Khuzestan Province in Iran with Emphasis on Instagram

The process of globalization has provided the condi[1]tions for the emergence of local and ethnic cultural identities, and was not leading to cultural unification in practice. Identity is a variable that changes during the social experience and with the formation and expansion of new communication tools and methods. This study identify and describe the construction of the  Arab people of Khuzestan province's identity in virtual social networks by qualitative content analysis method and tries to identify a pattern for recreating the ethnic cultural identity of this people in their activity in the virtual social network Instagram. For this purpose, 30 selected posts from 20 active channels related to the cultural-ethnic identity of this people in the virtual social network Instagram were selected and through studying them based on the content analysis unit, users' action patterns were discovered. The results indicate the existence of three action models: confrontation with official culture, Repetition, and innovation in the elements of ethnic cultural identity of the Arab people of Khuzestan province.