Image-encounters with the techno-mediated other: Regarding post-election Iran on Youtube

In June 2009 large-scale public demonstrations on the streets of Tehran followed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial claiming of victory in the Republic’s most recent election. As the scale of the unrest rapidly escalated, foreign journalists were expelled from the country and unprecedented numbers of Iranian journalists were imprisoned (Sreberny and Khiabany 176). Observers outside of Iran learned of the events as Iranians on the streets embraced image production and distribution as a central component of their protest. Evading the attempts of the regime to control media coverage of the post-election violence, Iranians uploaded rough footage, still images, and blog entries, seeking to make real their experiences for the international community. A stream of citizen-produced footage of mass demonstrations, beatings and deaths was relayed to the world at large via Internet-based social networking channels and mobile phones. This paper takes a series of images from the mediated turmoil in Iran as a prism through which to consider the problem of what it is that such images make real for distant observers.