Seeking Personal Autonomy Through the Use of Facebook in Iran

Facebook in the Middle East and Iran

Aims

This study relies on the individual Facebook users’ own experiences and reflections, and instead of assuming Facebook as a political or a social platform, takes an inductive approach by which individuals themselves lead the researcher to come to a conclusion in this sense.

This study doesn’t claim to be representative of Iranian youth on Facebook, rather each informant is a case here. Each informant informs the researcher, not only about his or her own experiences of self-presentation on Facebook but also about a larger network of social meanings and norms. This study also explores whether social meanings and norms are opposed or reinforced by the informants’ use of Facebook in the context of Iran.

This qualitative study focuses particularly on how young Iranians themselves reflect on their own self-presentation on Facebook. To do so, a limited number of young Facebook users (five informants) who currently live in Iran and were interested in participating in this study were recruited and then interviewed in person.

The main questions that are explored in this study are as follows:

Strategies

In the following, the term strategy will be defined using definitions provided by Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl, and Liebhart (2009) and Erving Goffman (1959). These definitions will then be combined and modified in relation to self-presentation on Facebook.

As Wodak et al. (2009) write, “the concept of strategy derives from Greek strategia and, since the nineteenth century at the latest, has meant ‘the art of a commander-in-chief; the art of projecting and directing the larger military movements and operations of a campaign’” (p. 31). According to Wodak et al., drawing on Oxford English Dictionary definition (1998, p. 852, point 2a) “a strategist is someone who is skilled in leading an army.”

As Wodak et al. (2009) further write, “abstracted from a purely military context, the concept of strategy generally denotes a more or less accurate plan adopted to achieve a certain political, psychological or other kind of objective” (p. 31). Moreover, they write that “the strategist attempts to anticipate all those factors which may have an impact on his or her actions” (Wodak et al., 2009, p. 31). In fact, the use of the term strategy in this study is particularly derived from the latter definition in which the strategy refers to anticipations that one makes in order to control factors which might have impact on his or her actions. As Wodak et al. write, drawing on Bourdieu’s definition, “the significance of strategies cannot be associated with a simplistic, finalistic and voluntary perspective” (p. 31). According to Wodak et al., “strategic action is oriented toward a goal but not necessarily planned to the last detail or strictly instrumentalist; strategies can also be applied automatically” (p. 31). In addition to the definition provided by Wodak et al., Goffman (1959) writes that “when an individual appears before others his actions will influence the definition of the situation which they come to have” (p. 6). He further argues that “sometimes an individual will act in a thoroughly calculating manner, expressing himself in a given way solely in order to give the kind of impression to others that is likely to evoke from them a specific response he is concerned to obtain” (Goffman, 1959, p. 6), and sometimes he acts in “a calculating manner” because of “the tradition of his group or social status require this kind of expression and not because of any particular response” (Goffman, 1959, p. 6). However, the definition provided by Goffman seems more applicable for self-presentational situations in which people’s use of strategies/calculating manners might be modified due to “the tradition of his group or social status” which necessitates those types of expressions. According to both of these definitions, there are some anticipations or calculating manners considered to be able to make some aims or needs met. Accordingly, the term strategy here will refer to the anticipation and calculating manner that one considers to denote a plan to achieve a/some particular aim(s) or an “attempt to anticipate . . . factors which may have an impact on his or her action” (Wodak et al., 2009, p. 31).

In the following paragraph, self-presentation is defined and discussed in relation to online self-presentation and also in relation to Facebook and young Iranians.

Self-Presentation

Self-presentation in Goffman’s (1959) view is compared with a theatrical performance. In relation to any presentation, there is an actor, a performance, setting, viewer(s), front stage, and backstage. What is important in this definition is to see how actors perform before people on the front stage where they are separated by the setting. Goffman uses the word performance to refer to “all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period . . . before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observation” (p. 22).

In relation to the importance of self-presentation and impression management, Leary et al. (1994) write that “because people’s outcomes in life depend, in part, on others’ perceptions and evaluation of them, people sometimes try to convey impressions that will help them obtain valued goals” (p. 664). Leary et al. further write that “as a result, they often monitor and attempt to control the impressions they are making, a process known as self-presentation or impression management” (p. 664).

According to Zarghooni (2007), drawing on Walther, Slovacek, and Tidwell (2001, p. 110), “one of the reasons why self-presentation on social networking sites may be different from face-to-face is that online one may ‘inspect, edit and revise’” (p. 4). So, one can present himself or herself before the presentation is made available to others. According to Zarghooni, “the self-presenters are the same people as before, but they have got a new self-presentational tool and a new arena for social interaction” (p. 6). Therefore, it seems that the two main concepts of this study: strategy and self-presentation online are quite interconnected. Self-presentation online provides a situation in which one can inspect, edit, and revise for managing it suitable for some particular aims.

Goffman (1959) uses the term front to refer to “that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance” (p. 22). Therefore, in relation to the front itself, it would be interesting to see “what seem to be standard parts of front” (Goffman, 1959, p. 22). I use the word standard not only referring to standard and visible factors in front such as furniture, décor, and physical layout which Goffman calls setting but also to standard behaviors, acts, norms, manners, and activities. As Goffman writes, “those who would use a particular setting as a part of their performance, cannot begin their act until they have brought themselves to the appropriate place and must terminate their performance when they leave it” (p. 22). But more interesting than the term setting, Goffman writes about “the scenic parts of expressive equipment,” or personal front which is “the expressive equipment . . . [which] we most intimately identify with the performer himself,” such as “clothing, sex, age . . . size and looks; posture; speech patterns; facial expressions; bodily gestures” (p. 24). As he carries on, sometimes “the signs are relatively fixed and over a span of time . . . [and some] are relatively mobile or transitory” (p. 24).

Drawing on Goffman’s (1959) definition of backstage, Courtney, Britt, and Mckibben (2011) write that backstage is “an area as a place where individuals can drop their guards, expose their flaws, and seek to determine how they will later portray themselves” (p. 19). Goffman writes that “very commonly the back region of a performance is located at one end of the place where the performance is presented, being cut off from it by a partition and guarded passageway” (p. 113). He further writes, “the back region will be the place where the performer can reliably expect that no member of the audience will intrude” (p. 113).

Middle Stage and the “Detached Self”

Zarghooni (2007) uses the term “detached self-presentation” (p. 17) to refer to the self, shaped somewhere in between the backstage and front stage self (offline), that modifies his self-presentation (online) in a way to distance himself from his own self and from the current state. What he refers to is more applicable in relation to the online and the offline selves.

Similar to the difficulty of separating between front and backstage, it seems that it is quite difficult to specify where public and private spheres meet on Facebook. These two spheres seem quite overlapping and in many ways the characteristics of both are observed, for instance, in private groups where access can vary from public to private/closed members. Moreover, people can make private groups in which the access is limited to those addressed. Private group access however varies between private and public.

Conforming to the Norms and Expectations of Society?

According to Goffman (1959), “when the individual presents himself before others, his performance will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does his behavior as a whole” (p. 35). I assume that this statement might be correct in the offline (in person) interactions, and in situations in which people are in contact with those they know. On Facebook, however, it may be a bit complicated. Depending on people’s intentions for using Facebook, their audiences might vary from closer friends to newly met people and even strangers. Therefore their actions might not necessarily conform to the expectations and norms of the society in which they live. People might be there to experience something new. Moreover, they might manage to perform different selves in different spheres.

Goffman (1959) writes that “in thinking about a performance, it is easy to assume that the content of the presentation is merely an expressive extension of the character of the performer and to see the function of the performance in these personal terms” (p. 77). According to him, “this is a limited view and can obscure important differences in the function of the performance for the interaction as a whole” (p. 77). As he writes, “it often happens that the performance serves mainly to express the characteristics of the task that is performed and not the characteristics of the performer” (p. 77). Accordingly, if young Iranian Facebook users try to perform different roles in different situations simultaneously, it shouldn’t be read simply as their own characteristics but rather as the characteristics of the task which can be a self-presentation on Facebook.

Leary et al. (1994) write that “the kinds of impression people try to create are affected” by different factors such as “norms and roles, the characteristics and values of the people whom the person want to express, others’ existing impressions of the person, the person’s own self-concept, and his or her desired images of self” (p. 664). Therefore, to get a better image about self-presentation, in addition to presentation itself, one should give particular attention to the cultural, social, and religious context/situation in which the performance is made.

Self-Presentation in Different Cultures

Jungsik, Seongsoo, and Wansuk (2011) investigate “how the length and strength of an expected social relationship are related to different self-presentation” (p. 63). They reflect on Eastern cultures such as Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. They write that in Korea, “being a collectivist culture, the Korean participants might feel a greater need for humble self-presentations” [and there is more pressure] “when an individual is in a long and intensive relationship” to get socially accepted (p. 71).

Moores (2000) argues that there is a need for empirical case studies which consider the double consciousness of people who inhabit plural or multiple cultures. In relation to double consciousness, which was brought up in Moores’s study, Khosravi’s (2008) study on young Iranian youth also shows that they perform different public and private selves simultaneously. As Khosravi writes “everybody knows the rules of the game. They know where and when they should switch from one to the other. The youth of today have grown up in this between-ness” (p. 123). However, one might discuss that it may not be unique only to Iran. Jungsik et al. (2011), explain “how Japanese people manage two opposite selves, ‘honne’ (inner self) and ‘tatemae’ (self-expressed to others) to coexist in an interdependent structure” (p. 71). They write about “dual selves” and conclude that their study has shown empirically that “Koreans seem to flexibly handle such dual needs for individual competence and being socially humble in response to the opportunities” (p. 71). They also criticize “the research on self-view and self-presentation [since they] have neglected various social situations as influencing self-presentation behaviors” (p. 71). They write that, “self-presentation and the motivation behind it must be understood within a context of social relationships, rather than within isolated individuals” (p. 72).

Chiung-Wen, Ching-Chan, and Yi-Ting (2011) in a similar study on Taiwanese users of Facebook discuss that the users might “interact differently with different types of friends when choosing Facebook tools” (p. 474). However, that cannot be limited to the Eastern culture, rather to everyone who wants to make sure which types of image one gives of oneself. They also discuss the differences in interaction, and write that “users might act differently with their new friends than their close friends” (p. 474). Their study’s findings show that the users “tend to choose less time- and effort-utilizing tools to interact with newly met friends and more privacy-controlled tools when interacting with closer friends” (p. 476). They don’t discuss their findings further, but one can interpret that in relation to the social control by which one might feel more concerned about the impression they give to close friends and family members rather than newly met people (Moghadam, 2003). As mentioned by Leary et al. (1994), as people’s outcome in life depends on how other people perceive and evaluate one, people try to transfer impressions that help them attain appreciated aims.

When discussing different cultures and how self-presentational acts are performed, one should refer to some cultural factors within the Iranian culture that seem important to be mentioned. In addition to the social control which was mentioned earlier, one of the main cultural factors in Iran is one’s own and family reputation (Moghadam, 2003). It is important to mention that, as Moghadam (2003) writes, “a family’s honor and reputation rest most heavily on the conduct of women . . . sex segregation and veiling, legitimated on the basis of the Shari’a, is part of the Islamic gender system” (p. 123). Women usually, according Moghadam “is seen as a direct threat to manhood, community and family” (p. 165). And that can be appeared in forms of “the control of extended families over women” (Moghadam, 2003, p. 60). Compulsory veiling, according to her “has been a mechanism of social control: the regulation of women” (p. 160).

It is worth mentioning that veiling is not only limited to physical coverage but also to voice, ways of conduct, looking, and so on (Khosravi, 2008). However, meanings attached to veiling should be explored in any particular sociocultural context, rather than generalization. According to Naficy (2000, p. 562) “veiling of the voice includes using formal language with unrelated males and females, and decorous tone of voice, avoidance of singing, boisterous laugher, generally any emotional outburst in public than the expression of grief or anger” (cited in Khosravi, 2003, p. 73). “The patriarchal father’s attention to the female virtue (namous) of his family is now part of how the state manages space” (cf. Focault 2000: 207, cited in Khosravi, 2003, p. 74).

Veiling may not be all about limiting women; different studies have shown that within closed and fundamentalists situations, it has provided some sort of freedom of acts for women to be participants within the society and live in public (Mohanty, 1991). Hourani (1991) gives a cultural background about the Middle East and explains how public and private spheres had been separated along the gender lines by which public spheres were in control of men, business, and trades, and private spheres of home and family were in control of women in which women could have “maintained a culture of their own” (p. 120). One of the factors he mentions in relation to separation of public and private is “hijab” (women’s head to toe veiling), which was actually meant to separate public from private, so women could still keep their private spheres even while attending in public.

According to Goffman (1959), as it also mentioned earlier people’s presentation of self might differ depending on the audience’s gender, age, facial expressions, and so on. This is particularly accurate in Iranian culture in which there is a wide range of different norms and social meanings enacted differently for men and women. Iran is a gendered segregated society in which males and females are expected to present themselves differently.

In relation to the theoretical discussions above, it is important to clarify how principal issues such as needs, strategies, and resistance are interrelated with each other, both on Facebook and within the context of Iranian society. There are needs when one decides to use Facebook. Needs can range from personal to community and involve a variety of social, cultural, and political expectations. However, needs are not always compatible with one another, and sometimes are in conflict. In these types of situations, in order to fulfill conflicting needs, one might apply strategies. Strategies are useful as long as one tries to maintain two or more expectations, but when one prioritizes satisfying one need—for instance, the personal over the community—a form of resistance can appear. This resistance doesn’t necessarily appear with the larger aim of transforming cultural and political restrictions, but rather can be simply for gaining one’s own personal autonomy. Thus, resistance is closely related to the acts of fulfilling one’s personal needs and striving for autonomy.

Method

Final Words

The study’s analysis of interviews with a limited number of young Iranian informants showed that social meanings and norms of self-presentation on Facebook are defined to a large degree in terms of gender. There appeared to be no specific definition of what is right and what is wrong to do on the platform in terms of self-presentation, but every act finds a specific meaning when gender of the users is considered. Gender played an important role in how informants presented themselves and interacted with one another on Facebook and even within the group discussion.

The analysis of interviews showed that social and everyday means of using Facebook seem to be more important, controversial, and debatable than the political ones. However, it depends on what one means by politics, and how one defines political acts on Facebook. If one means leading to direct political changes through the acts on Facebook, that might not happen. This is because in many ways, male informants at least appeared comfortable with maintaining the status quo, especially in terms of gender issues, social control, and women’s responsibility for family reputation through one’s acts on Facebook. However, if one defines political acts in terms of any type of resistance toward the existing rules, codes, and guidelines, the informants are doing some sort of resistance. Strategic self-presentation was a form of resistance used to enable the users to get some sort of control through the medium of Facebook over their own self-presentation while dealing with existing expectations. However, it is worth noting that resistance was not shown particularly in relation to the Islamic Republic rules and norms, but rather to the existing norms of family reputation and gender issues within the socioculture situation of Iran. Strategies were helpful for the female informants to keep up with the norms and rules of reputation, while also fulfilling their own needs, for instance, wearing clothes according to their own preferences as well as using Facebook itself, despite it being illegal.

The informants’ attitudes and self-presentational acts didn’t seem directed toward any social or political movements, instead they sought “individual autonomy rather than political freedom” (Khosravi, 2008, p. 128). Their reflections and sentiments on their own as well as others’ self- presentation within the group provided a refreshing contradiction to how both transnational and Iranian state media depict them and their lives. However, the lack of observation of any clear-cut political acts in this study could be challenged due to the self-selection of the informants. The possibility of having politically active informants has decreased in this study, as political activists might be reluctant to present their political actions within a group of semistrangers or even participate in these types of studies.

According to the informants, the use of Facebook for political acts seems to be limited to specific periods of time in which Facebook users may want to present their political views, but everyday, social and cultural reasons for using Facebook seem to be predominant and permanent. It is worth mentioning that the use of Facebook itself is considered illegal and is a form of cultural crime (Khosravi, 2003, p. 42). let alone direct political acts on it.

The primary aim of this study was to grasp how young Iranians reflect on their own self-presentation on Facebook. Interviews were initially planned to be conducted with 11 young Facebook users. Even though the data gathering strategy was based on a friendship network and a mutual trust between the informants and the researcher, and they were assured that they would remain anonymous, 5 informants who originally accepted didn’t attend on the day of the interview; 2 of them didn’t answer when contacted by telephone, 1 claimed that they were busy, and 2 said that they were concerned about attending the interview. The study nevertheless continued with 6 remaining informants in attendance.

The use of strategies appeared to be an important part of their self-presentation, especially for female informants. The strategies used varied from the use of privacy-control tools, through the use of private groups in which they could address particular audiences, to the use of different accounts for different purposes. The informants appeared to be adept at performing differently while being on stage before different audiences simultaneously. The informants used different strategies for different audiences and knew how to play the game. However, this might not be the case only for Iranian Facebook users, as it can be practiced to varying degrees all over the world.

The analysis of focus group interviews and interaction between the informants within the context of Iranian society showed some themes to be important such as reputation, social control, and gender issues (Moghadam, 2003). Facebook, as a nonymous platform in which people are in contact with their already-made social ties, didn’t seem to be as liberating from the existing norms and rules within society compared with older ways of using the Internet where people could enjoy being completely anonymous and experience different selves simultaneously. Facebook in this study showed that it is a stage on which to be observed but this stage becomes restricted with the involvement of close social ties in the context of social control within Iranian society. Accordingly, it seemed that it is no longer conceivable to draw clear lines between back and front stage concerning how people present themselves on Facebook, as one can play between different stages and go back and forth between them simultaneously. Strategies were therefore used to link different stages and give some sort of control to the informants over self-presentational impressions. The informants seemed to draw a clear line between the way they presented themselves before their family members/family relatives, friends, and newly met people. With family relatives, they were more concerned and cautious about how they presented themselves, while they felt more comfortable before their friends and newly met people. Accordingly, the closer the social ties, the more concern was experienced regarding how they are perceived and which types of impressions are made. Strategies used and informants’ approaches toward them were very gendered, though. Women seemed to need to use strategies to be able to enjoy relative freedom: being fair to their own personal need to be connected through Facebook and at the same time taking responsibility for the family’s reputation need. The use of strategies seemed both natural and automatic, and also challenging and ironic. Challenging and ironic because they weren’t intentionally using Facebook to conform to the existing social norms within society, but were conforming indirectly.

Self-presentational claims were different in isolation, compared with when they were analyzed in relation to each other. Analysis of the profile information alone without considering people’s reflections on their own as well as others’ acts could be misleading, because what informants said about themselves seemed to be slightly different than how they reflected upon others’ reflections, as well as how they expected others to present themselves. For instance, even though male informants claimed that they are modern and open-minded, their expectations from women and their self-presentation on Facebook were in line with the existing traditional values of the patriarchal society in which different aspects of acts and experiences are biased based on gender and are expressed as social control under the shadow of family reputation. In other words, male informants’ front and backstage seemed to be different. Thus, the traditional norms and meanings were reinforced by males through their acts and claims. Facebook community meanings and norms appeared to force them to appear modern and open-minded. However, the larger society’s norms and social meanings seemed to be in contradiction with the platform’s meanings and norms.

Self-presentation as a dynamic and interactive phenomenon, which is constantly constructed socially and in relation to others cannot be analyzed in a one-sided way without considering in which contexts it is performed. Therefore, it is important to use methods that keep track of both self-presentation as well as interaction, as they complete each other and each self-presentation is basically made to initiate an interaction.

Both male and female informants in this study were engaged in the process of reproducing the social norms and meanings of the Iranian society. However, that was slightly different for men and women. While male informants were reproducing the norms and codes of the society (such as reputation, social control, and gender issues) in a natural way, women were more forced to do that, due to having to take responsibility for their own as well as family reputation. However, in many ways, female informants appeared to be more resisting toward the contemporary norms and rules within the society compared with men.

The result of this qualitative study is about a very limited number of informants and their reflections on their own presentation of self on Facebook. It is not representative and cannot be generalized to all Iranian Facebook users, nor Iranian culture, codes, and norms. Instead, this study had an inductive approach, within the social context of focus groups to understanding self-presentation on Facebook and how it is negotiated within the sociocultural, political situation of the Iranian society in which they live and use Facebook.

The study’s analysis confirmed that self-presentation is an interactive phenomenon and is constantly constructed in the society and in relation to others. However, a larger number of users may be needed to strengthen and pursue further the findings of the study. Other qualitative studies could include a wider range of people from different cities and sociocultural backgrounds. Other qualitative studies could explore for instance how one individual manages to fulfill one’s own personal needs which are contradictory to family and community expectations and needs, while preserving the reputation being socially acceptable within the society.