(Social) Media Check: #iranelection

"There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran," wrote Golnaz Esfandiari in a recent piece for Foreign Policy. With just over a year having passed since the contentious Iranian elections, the senior correspondent from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty charged that Twitter's much-hyped role in Iran's post-election demonstrations were vastly overblown and consisted principally of Iranian expats and other westerners tweeting amongst themselves. Estafandiari's article provided a challenging and much-needed counterpoint to the frenzied Twitter boosterism that occurred during the period following the 2009 election protests. From the endless rehashes of reports on the U.S. State department's request that Twitter delay scheduled downtime to the opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor suggesting considering Twitter and its creators be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize, the western media seemed delirious in its praise of the inevitability democratizing power of Twitter and other social media.

Not to say that Twitter and other social media technologies didn't play a significant role in the demonstrations and protests that rocked Tehran and other parts of Iran following the elections. They were certainly instrumental in getting information out of the country at a time when foreign journalists were being expelled and traditional media outlets were shuttered. And the immediacy with which the story travelled the globe would not have been possible had it not been for Twitter. Esfandiari doesn't deny this role but rather argues that western media perceptions of Twitter's relevance were somewhat outsized. "Good old-fashioned word of mouth was by far the most influential medium used to shape the postelection opposition activity," she writes, "Twitter was definitely not a major communications tool for activists on the ground in Iran."

It is here that perhaps the most important lesson can be learned. Twitter and other social media technologies need to be seen first and foremost as communications tools and not an end in and of themselves. Given the rapid pace of change and the exciting and seemingly limitless range of possibilities that they present, this can be easy to overlook, particularly as social media becomes increasingly integrated into daily organizational operations and we struggle to keep abreast of the rising tide of social media trends and technologies. It is essential that we remain cognizant of the limitations as well as the benefits of the social media tools at our disposal, so that we can better understand not just where we can reach, but also where we can't.