Political Sociology
Rohollah Eslami; Malihe Tabei
Abstract
IntroductionDue to being separated from their families and being exposed to new ideas, university students always follow a kind of idealism in political thought and action, which has fostered the formation of student movements in Iran, with student journals being the crystallization of various political ...
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IntroductionDue to being separated from their families and being exposed to new ideas, university students always follow a kind of idealism in political thought and action, which has fostered the formation of student movements in Iran, with student journals being the crystallization of various political opinions within the university. During 2011–2020 in Iran, the approach to the political changed due to the expansion of the Internet and social networks as well as the generational change, leading to new ideas and views. In this respect, this article aims to examine the evolution of representation and of the political among the university students as manifested in their changing attitudes, concerns, and the issues they wrote about. Analyzing the content of the student journals published at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad during 2016–2020, the present research tries to answer the key question of how the political and power relations were represented and evolved in the student journals.Theoretical frameworkPower is related to technology, so any change in technology can bring about changes in the approach to the state and political institutions as well as in the interpretation and crystallization of power. Technology has been one of the main variables in the evolution of human societies to the degree that a technological revolution can be mapped throughout history. Both mechanical technology and information technology have considerably influenced the sphere of politics, leading to two forms of political crystallization. The present article relied on a model derived from the theory of the information age, in which the political is considered as a variable of technology and is transformed from the official, institutional politics to the everyday politics—that is, the transformation from the Hobbesian conception of power and the political (as in Leviathan) into the Foucauldian disciplinary power and resistance.Research methodologyThis research used the method of content analysis, which offers the techniques to analyze the content of themes, sentences, and press material for different purposes. Content analysis is the categorization of elements of a text in different boxes in such a way that the value of the elements arranged in each box defines the entire text. As a documented method, content analysis uses a quantitative or qualitative method or a mixed method in order to analyze the content of texts, images, documents, editorials, etc., and reveal the visible and hidden messages therein, thus offering new insights. Content analysis has a high level of validity and reliability since the researcher cannot involve personal tendencies in the research—given the availability of the research topic (i.e., documents).FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of universities led to a decline in the number of issues, and thus the pages, of the journals published. The present research studied a total of 15000 pages of student journals by applying content analysis to the text and image. The categories and concepts were coded, and the categories as well their subcategories were classified under two general indicators: sociocultural and economic–political. The findings are summarized below.The political as mechanical, institutional, and hard power:The relevant concepts crystalize the age of mechanical technologies, reflecting the students’ concerns about the institutional issues, the state, and the nation. In other words, the journals reflected the society’s concern about the state, law, elections, or citizenship rights as the vocabulary representing the modern mechanical-cum-technological age.The political as informational, everyday, and soft powerConcerning the sociocultural indicators, the most frequent issues in the journals were gender, the environment, and the students’ demands. Theoretically speaking, they can be associated with the information age characterized by the focus on art, the environment, women, and everyday life as the instances of informational-cum-technological age observed frequently in the student journals. This indicates a departure from the official and governmental politics towards the emphasis on power relations in knowledge, architecture, art, and almost every aspect of everyday life. Such a change of attitude is seen as the transformation of the political from mechanical and governmental mechanisms into quantum and informational mechanisms that are expanding.ConclusionIn the decade of the information age and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fading of ideologies, the expansion of information technology, and generational changes, the view of politics and its mechanical representation was completely transformed into a quantum and informational representation, with politics manifesting itself as everyday life. The student journals also reflected the change and evolution in the attitudes towards the political. The new generation of students no longer has organizational and institutional demands and reform and revolutionary mechanisms against the government structure. What is evident in the journals is the representation of power as an everyday entity manifested in the demands related to art, the environment, gender, and spaces as well as the request for a better life. The power seems to have moved from the artificial form crystallized in bureaucratic institutions towards the power diffused in everyday life. This change of perspective is evident in the journals led by the students who represent the new generation.The news, analyses, and writings in the student journals have tangibly moved from political-cum-ideological frameworks towards the everyday life. The conception of politics as the governmental entity with the organizational and bureaucratic structure was transformed into an inclusive conception of power crystallized in everyday life. The previous serious debates used to frame students as critics of power, as intellectuals denying the status quo, and as equipped with the weapon of political parties to get them to oppose politicians. However, in light of the recent changes, the students act as rational and activist citizens, who demand everyday life and happiness. The political is no longer restricted to the government, but diffused in every aspect of life. In a sense, the crystallization of the political has evolved from the mechanical conception of power or macropower to everyday power or micropower.
