Journal of University Studies

Journal of University Studies

The formation of the professor-machine in the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement; The entanglement of social science professors with the leyboard

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Author
Hamed Taheri Kia
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Virtual Space Studies, Institute for Social and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran
10.22035/jous.2024.5068.1045
Abstract
During the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement, some social science professors engaged in producing critical content on Instagram and Telegram channels. These professors found themselves in the midst of unfolding events and responded by generating rapid and critical content about those occurrences. This swift and critical content production on social media platforms was a significant feature of their reaction to the events. That helped visualize what was happening and highlighted the social role of professors beyond their professional and administrative duties. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine how social science professors enact their role on social media by producing rapid and critical content for a diverse and mass audience in cyberspace. We examined the Instagram pages and posts of professors from September to February 2022 in relation to the events of October 2022. Images, texts, and comments were studied in connection with the methods of rapid and critical content production in response to the minor events within the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement. This research was conducted within the posthumanism paradigm using a postqualitative method. Consequently, the data were analyzed based on the creation of conceptual situations intertwined with theory and their expansion in rhizomatic writing. According to the findings, social science professors, based on their entanglement with the minor events of October 2022, created analytical ideas through image selection and text production, becoming part of the information flow in the digital communication network. Professors, in their entanglement with digital technology, transformed into a professor-machine position, executing the function of rapid and critical content production within a network. As a result, social science professors revealed varying degrees of intensity in enacting the professor-machine role.
Keywords
women
life
freedom
October 2022 Event
university professor
social sciences
Instagram

Subjects

Adams, S.T. & Pierre, E. (1997). Circling the Text: Nomadic Writing Practices. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(4), 403–417. doi: 10.1177/107780049700300403
Akhavan, N. (2013). Electronic Iran - The Cultural Politics of an Online Evolution. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Amir-Ebrahimi, M. (2009). Weblogistan: The Emergence of a New Public Sphere in Iran. In Seteney Shami (ed.), Publics, Politics and Participation: Locating the Public Sphere in the Middle East and North Africa  (pp. 325-358). New York: Social Science Research Council.
Athlekar, P. (05/06/2023). Bearing witness online: How hashtags enabled an uprising in Iran. Retrieved from https://www.diggitmagazine.com/papers/hashtags-uprising-iran
Barad, K. (2014).‌ Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart. Parallax, 20(3), 168-187. doi: 10.1080/13534645.2014.927623
Braidutti, R. (2019). Posthuman knowledge. Polity: Cambridge.
Deleuze, G. (2002). Nietzsche and Philosophy (H. Tonzlinson, Trans.). London: Continuum.
Deleuze, G. (2003). The three kinds of knowledge. The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 14, 1-20.
Deleuze, G. (2005). A thousand plateaus capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Faculty Focus (2009). Magna, Twitter in higher education: Usage habits and trends of today’s college faculty. Magna Publications. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263567056
Golkar, S. (2015). Student Activism, Social Media and Authoritarian Rule in Iran. In I. Epstein (ed.), The Whole World is Texting Youth Protest in the Information Age (pp. 61-81). Rotterdam: Sense Publication.
Greene, J. C. (2013). On rhizomes, lines of flight, mangles, and otherassemblages. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 749-758. doi:10.1080/09518398.2013.788763
Greeson, J. K. P., An, S., Xue, J.,  Thompson, A. E., & Guo, C. (2018). Tweeting Social Justice: How Social Work Faculty Use Twitter. British Journal of Social Work, 48(7), 2038–2057.
Hayles, N. K. (2019). Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis. In M. Kinder & T. McPherson (Eds.), Transmedia Frictions (pp. 20–33). University of California Press,.
Helberger, N. (2020). The political power of platforms: How current attempts to regulate misinformation amplify opinion power. Digital Journalism, 8(6), 842–854. doi: 10.1080/21670811.2020.1773888.
Howard, P. H., & Hussain, M. M. (2013). The Cultural Politics of an Online Evolution emocracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital media and Arab Spring. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kazemi, A. (2022). The genesis of academic influencers in Iran. Research in Deviance and Social Problems, 4(2), 1-33.
Lury, C., Parisi, L., & Terranova, T. (2012). Introduction: The Becoming Topological of Culture. Theory, Culture & Society, 29(4–5), 3–35. doi: 10.1177/026327641245455.
Mahmoudi, B. (2021). A Study of the Ways Faculty Members Enact Identity on Instagram Pages. Tehran, Iran: Institute for Cultural and Social Studies.
Noor News (2022   October  26). Terrorist Attack on Shah Cheragh Shrine in Shiraz. Retrieved from https://nournews.ir/fa/news/112607
Rahimi, B. (2014). Internet and Political Activism in Post-Revolutionary Iran” In Robert S. Fortner, P. Mark Fackler (eds.), The Handbook of Media and Mass Communication Theory (pp. 907–928), New Jersey: Wiley.
Segerberg, A., & Bennett, W. L. ().Afterword: Lessons and puzzles in studying social media materialities and protest . In Mette Mortensen, C. Neumayer, & T. Poell (Eds.), Social Media Materialities and Protest; Critical Reflections (pp. 156-162). New York: Routledge.
Shah, N. A. K., & Cox, A. M. (2017). Uncovering the scholarly use of Twitter in the academia: Experiences in a British University. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 22(3), 93-108. doi: 10.22452
Sreberny, A., & Khiabany, G. (2007). Becoming intellectual: The blogestanand public political space in the Islamic Republic. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 34(3), 267-286.
Taheri Kia, H. (2021). The digital condition and the knowledge system. Tehran, Iran: Institute for Cultural and Social Studies.
Taheri Kia, H. (2023). Transition from Writing as a "Job" to Writing as a "Role" for Social Science Professors in the Digital Age. International Conference on Web Research, Tehran, Iran.
Taheri Kia, H. (2023). Women, life, freedom: An event for occupying the public sphere of territory of Islamic Republic. Cultural Studies & Communication, 18(69), 65-100. doi: 10.22034/jcsc.2023.1972498.2618
Tejarat News (2022   October  18). Boom in the Market for Buying and Selling VPNs: VPNs Cost 1.7 Million Tomans! Retrieved from https://tejaratnews.com
Tesar, M. (2020). “Philosophy as a Method”: Tracing the Histories of Intersections of “Philosophy,” “Methodology,” and “Education.” Qualitative Inquiry, 27(5), 544–553. doi: 10.1177/1077800420934144
Veletsianos, G., & Kimmons, R. (2016). Scholars in An increasingly open and digital world: How do education professors and students use Twitter? The Internet and Higher Education, 30, 1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.iheduc.2016.02.002
Zarepour, E. (2023   February  1). Minister of Communications: The Filtering of WhatsApp and Instagram is a Decree of the Heads of the Three Branches. Retrieved from https://www.khabaronline.ir/xjH4h
Journal of University Studies
Volume 2, Issue 1 - Serial Number 5
Autumn 2023
Summer 2023
Pages 31-62

  • Receive Date 05 May 2023
  • Revise Date 16 August 2023
  • Accept Date 05 September 2023