Walking through firewalls: Circumventing censorship of social media and online content in a networked authoritarian context

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buir.contributor.authorDal, Aysenur
buir.contributor.orcidDal, Aysenur|0000-0003-2868-0282
dc.citation.epage13en_US
dc.citation.issueNumber4en_US
dc.citation.spage1en_US
dc.citation.volumeNumber8en_US
dc.contributor.authorDal, Aysenur
dc.contributor.authorNisbet, Erik C.
dc.date.accessioned2023-02-28T06:36:02Z
dc.date.available2023-02-28T06:36:02Z
dc.date.issued2022-11-19
dc.departmentDepartment of Communication and Designen_US
dc.description.abstractThe early hopes of the internet as a technology of “liberation” have turned into a reinforcing spiral of control, innovation, resistance, and counter-innovation between authoritarian governments and those that seek to bypass censorship and digital repression. This spiral reflects that even the most robust censorship mechanisms are vulnerable to circumvention, which has become a key concept for illustrating the contemporary online communication experience of citizens. Yet, the scholarship examining the underlying motivations and what influences individuals to employ censorship circumvention technologies (CCTs) in authoritarian contexts remains underdeveloped. We present a theoretical model of how state-sponsored political identity and attitudes about media freedom influence motivated resistance to censorship in the case of using CCTs to access social media and other forms of online content in the networked authoritarian context of Iran. Employing a web-based survey of internet users (N = 807), we test this theoretical model across a range of censored online content types. Our findings show that regime ideology in Iran indirectly influences CCT use through biasing perceptions of media freedom and how people respond to it in the form of motivated resistance. We discuss theoretical and policy-related implications for resilience to censorship of social media and online content in networked authoritarian contexts. © The Author(s) 2022.en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/20563051221137738en_US
dc.identifier.issn20563051
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11693/111869
dc.language.isoEnglishen_US
dc.publisherSAGE Publications Ltden_US
dc.relation.isversionofhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20563051221137738en_US
dc.source.titleSocial Media and Societyen_US
dc.subjectCensorshipen_US
dc.subjectCircumvention toolsen_US
dc.subjectInternet freedomen_US
dc.subjectIranen_US
dc.subjectNetworked authoritarianismen_US
dc.titleWalking through firewalls: Circumventing censorship of social media and online content in a networked authoritarian contexten_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
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