What online strategies are the four presidential candidates using in the lead-up to Friday’s election?
Facebook is used by reformist candidates, Mehdi Karoubi and Mir Hussein Mousavi, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters use YouTube and have published dozens of films. The former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rezai, uses the internet the least. There were two especially interesting online events: Mousavi’s supporters launched internet TV for the first time and Mohmmad Khatami, the former president who backs Mousavi’s candidacy, directly answered questions asked by bloggers. Gholamhoessien Karbaschi, Karoubi’s top adviser, twittered and revealed that their copies of their reformist journal, Etemad Meli, were collected by authorities because of accusing Ahmadinejad of a financial scandal. YouTube played a key role overall in this election as a vibrant medium of expression. Are the candidate’s online strategies reaching Iran’s general public or just the more web-savvy citizens, and how do you think this will impact their success? According to Iranian statistics arou
