Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World

In the past four years, Iranian Information Operations (IOs) have received a lot of scrutiny by social media companies and policymakers. From 2018 to 2021, several accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were taken down by tech companies for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Despit...

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Autores principales:	Elswah Mona, Alimardani Mahsa
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	De Gruyter 2021
Materias:	information operations iran the arab world twitter perception ios and propaganda Bibliography. Library science. Information resources Z
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/5b410dff1a074d3b8cee4ebb4f4a4c38
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:5b410dff1a074d3b8cee4ebb4f4a4c38
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:5b410dff1a074d3b8cee4ebb4f4a4c382021-12-05T14:11:00ZPropaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World2451-178110.1515/opis-2020-0122https://doaj.org/article/5b410dff1a074d3b8cee4ebb4f4a4c382021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2020-0122https://doaj.org/toc/2451-1781In the past four years, Iranian Information Operations (IOs) have received a lot of scrutiny by social media companies and policymakers. From 2018 to 2021, several accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were taken down by tech companies for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Despite the heated relationship between Iran and many Arab countries, the Iranian IOs in the Arabic online sphere have received less academic attention over the years. This study fills this gap by being one of the few studies to investigate the Iranian IOs in the Arab world. We analyse more than 9.3 million tweets posted from 2008 to 2020 using the hashed datasets shared by Twitter’s Election Integrity Hub. We found that Iran’s IOs have made the Arab world its primary target—despite the attention the US claims to receive from them. However, these IOs demonstrate very little engagement and reach amongst Arab users, limiting the possibilities of Iran infiltrating the online Arabic sphere, and fostering weak yet unruly Arab counterpublics. This study argues that Iran’s IOs garner their power from being perceived as efficient and dangerous operations that could pollute the public sphere of overseas nations, rather than through actual infiltration through engagement. We understand Iran’s efforts to be preoccupied with old propaganda efforts, through their investment in websites and imitation of news organisations. However, their efforts prove that Iran adopted the tactics of “new propaganda” that depend on creating a perceived atmosphere of distrust and chaos. We contribute to the discussion on information operations by proposing the term “perception IOs”, referring to IOs by governments that aspire to be perceived as effective meddling countries in foreign politics.Elswah MonaAlimardani MahsaDe Gruyterarticleinformation operationsiranthe arab worldtwitterperception iosand propagandaBibliography. Library science. Information resourcesZENOpen Information Science, Vol 5, Iss 1, Pp 163-174 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	information operations iran the arab world twitter perception ios and propaganda Bibliography. Library science. Information resources Z
spellingShingle	information operations iran the arab world twitter perception ios and propaganda Bibliography. Library science. Information resources Z Elswah Mona Alimardani Mahsa Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World
description	In the past four years, Iranian Information Operations (IOs) have received a lot of scrutiny by social media companies and policymakers. From 2018 to 2021, several accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were taken down by tech companies for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Despite the heated relationship between Iran and many Arab countries, the Iranian IOs in the Arabic online sphere have received less academic attention over the years. This study fills this gap by being one of the few studies to investigate the Iranian IOs in the Arab world. We analyse more than 9.3 million tweets posted from 2008 to 2020 using the hashed datasets shared by Twitter’s Election Integrity Hub. We found that Iran’s IOs have made the Arab world its primary target—despite the attention the US claims to receive from them. However, these IOs demonstrate very little engagement and reach amongst Arab users, limiting the possibilities of Iran infiltrating the online Arabic sphere, and fostering weak yet unruly Arab counterpublics. This study argues that Iran’s IOs garner their power from being perceived as efficient and dangerous operations that could pollute the public sphere of overseas nations, rather than through actual infiltration through engagement. We understand Iran’s efforts to be preoccupied with old propaganda efforts, through their investment in websites and imitation of news organisations. However, their efforts prove that Iran adopted the tactics of “new propaganda” that depend on creating a perceived atmosphere of distrust and chaos. We contribute to the discussion on information operations by proposing the term “perception IOs”, referring to IOs by governments that aspire to be perceived as effective meddling countries in foreign politics.
format	article
author	Elswah Mona Alimardani Mahsa
author_facet	Elswah Mona Alimardani Mahsa
author_sort	Elswah Mona
title	Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World
title_short	Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World
title_full	Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World
title_fullStr	Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World
title_full_unstemmed	Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World
title_sort	propaganda chimera: unpacking the iranian perception information operations in the arab world
publisher	De Gruyter
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/5b410dff1a074d3b8cee4ebb4f4a4c38
work_keys_str_mv	AT elswahmona propagandachimeraunpackingtheiranianperceptioninformationoperationsinthearabworld AT alimardanimahsa propagandachimeraunpackingtheiranianperceptioninformationoperationsinthearabworld
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Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World

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