Gilda Seddighi
stipendiat
Senter for kvinne- og kjønnsforskning
Representations of Gender in Online Political Actions
A study of Iranian political grassroots? campaigns and scholarly texts in cyberspace
How are women brought into the discussion on the secularization of Islamic governance? How is masculinity represented by political activists? How are the discourses of gender and Islamic democracy related?
My Ph.D. project is an interdisciplinary research with focus on gender and social media in Iranian context. The aim of the project is to examine how masculinity and femininity are represented in the discourse of secularization of Islamic governance in cyberspace. The focus is on the online grassroots campaigns and texts of scholars active in the online political movement. I examine how marginalized communities and groups who have earlier been denied to have a voice in political discussion are present in the virtual communities. Women's access to online political movements challenges the religious discussions on Secularization of Islamic governance. In addition to women, young men are searching for new masculinity in the democratization process and are involved in the online campaigns.