As Iran's government cracks down on traditional media after the country's disputed presidential election, tech-savvy Iranians have turned to the microblogging site Twitter.
In Iran, as in many still-developing countries, Internet usage is mostly still a phenomenon of the affluent, the youth and city-dwellers — meaning Twitter and other networks are used mostly by the young and liberal — and may overemphasize their numbers while ignoring more-conservative political sentiments among the non-connected.
The conservative media is not in favor of regime change in Iran and so there are these little barbs which attempt to discredit the upheaval.
Iranians must outsmart government blocking to use Twitter, on which users post messages limited to 140 characters called "tweets."
Twitter and other social-networking sites remained blocked Monday in Iran. Users must go to other sites that post tweets for them and allow them to read tweets from others.
Twitter has played a role in other world political events. This April, protesters of parliamentary elections in Moldova used Twitter and the Internet when mobile phones and cable news television stations went down. They rallied as many as 10,000 people to one demonstration.
But some experts warn of overestimating Twitter's role. Censorship adds another layer of technology that people have to overcome.
For people following events in Iran from abroad on Twitter, it's easy to think that everyone is an outraged Mousavi supporter.
To assist people in accepting change, a concept called the
"Change Acceptance Curve" can be applied. Basically the change
acceptance curve states there are five steps individuals initiate when
encountering change: awareness, self-concern, mental tryout, hands-on
trail, and acceptance.
I would replace "self-concern" with resistance. At first glance, especially with new technology you could argue that people question the benefit and sometimes belittle or downplay the change / new technology as being unnecessary, even a waste of time or silliness.
According to the Guide, the number of social network users grew 25% between June 2007 and June 2008. Further, as of June 2008, social network users represented 67% of all Internet users, as more than one-fifth of adults around the world visit social networking Web sites.
source: FPR
