Document Type : Science - Research (Iranian Political issues)

Authors

• mostafa samiei ¹
• ali davari ¹
• mostafa ghaffari ²

¹ Master's student of Islamic Studies and Political Science, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, I.R.Iran.

² Assistant Professor of political sociology, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Political Sciences, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, I.R.Iran.

Abstract

The development and expansion of new Internet-based technologies as the main infrastructure for the growth of cyber space in recent years has been the source of major changes in the personal and social life of humans and like an ecological evolution, many traditional concepts and patterns of known political action such as social movements have undergone fundamental and essential transformations.Based on this, Manuel Castells, by inductively examining the process of Islamic awakening in Arab countries and some other countries, expresses indicators for new social movements. Therefore, the main problem of this research, which has been done by its researchers, is to analyze the nature of the 2022 unrest in Iran by using Castells' theory about new social movements. Thus, the main question of the researchers of this article is whether the unrest in Iran in 2022 is considered a "new social movement" based on Castells' theory? The method of analysis used in the current research was " Grounded Theory" (Network Community Theory). By studying various works published by Castells and more closely examining the book "Networks of Outrage and Hope", the researchers categorized the set of 10 indicators that Castells mentions for modern social movements in three aspects: nature, internal mechanisms and consequences, and based on this new model, they analyzed the developments of 2022 in Iran. The findings of this research show that the unrest of 2022 in Iran, although it has some characteristics of a modern social movement, such as being networked, local-globalized, the virality of the dissemination model, the lack of a specific program, the change of society's values, and the lack of a single leadership, but still it does not have some other key characteristics of the new social movements considered by Castells, such as non-violence, self-reflection, spontaneity and occupation of the urban space due to the deviation arising from the extensive involvement of external factors and for these reasons, the series of changes that occurred as a result of the unrest in Iran in 2022, along with the series of social platforms created during the past years, can be considered as a "social movement in transition".

Keywords

• I.R.Iran
• New social movements
• Virtual social networks
• Manuel Castells
• Autumn unrest 2022

Main Subjects

• Political Sociology