Small Media, Big Revolution | Book Review

Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution
By Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ali Mohammadi

I spent some time this past weekend reading this book, much to my delight. Aside from the romantic views of revolution (going so far as dedicating the book to "daughters of the revolution") and the simple readability of the book, I found the small media aspect very useful in a number of ways. I will try to outline why I feel it is so useful now. This isn't a full review of the book, but rather incomplete bits that I find useful for my own purposes.

First, the authors don't spend much time dwelling on trying to define small media, resorting to examples rather than definitions. They describe the uses of cassette tapes, pamphlets, and xeroxing, as the media used to spread the revolutionary word around.

A quick tour of theory brings the reader up-to-speed quite quickly, discussing Appandurai's scapes - ethnoscape, mediascape etc. - deterritorialization from Deleuze and Guattari, and Bourdieu's retraditionalization as an aspect of colonial experience. The authors discuss "traditional traditionalism" as previously the only choice for people. When a colonial power comes in and imposes their traditions on the occupied people, the reassertion of the traditional traditions becomes a choice a form of resistance.

An interesting point brought up in the introduction, "The originality of the Iranian revolution resides neither in its 'tradition' nor in its 'modern' character, but in the interaction of the two." p.xx, Introduction.

Most interesting to me and my work is the persepctive of revolution as an act of communication. In one of my graduate courses, we learned about examining everything from multiple perspectives, and how this can open new ways to communicate and new ways to solve problems. "All revolutions are also communicative processes." p. 19, Chapter Two. For me, this is the largest contribution of the book to the larger study of media and social change.

For my research specifically, it is most interesting to examine what small media is and what it was effective in the Iranian revolution. Needing to be "emancipatory" p. 21, but also creating a space for discussion under a repressive regime is a key element of the power of small media. Speeches were recorded, ideas copied and these small media spread through social networks.

Now, the book was published in 1994, before the Internet Revolution. For my research, it is almost as simple as replacing 'cassette tape' with 'viral videos' or 'xeroxed pamphlet' with 'blog.'

"Small media created a political "public sphere." Channels of participation, extending preexisting cultural networks and communicative patterns and become the vehicles of an oppositional discourse that was able to mobilize a mass movement." p. xx, Introduction.

"Media are frequently part of the structures/power of the authoritarian states in the the Third World, yet also the tools of resistance against those states." P. 3, Chapter One.

Are we seeing the new small media in blogs? The ability to extend cultural networks and communicative patterns in Facebook, Myspace, and other networks? Is there hope for blogs, Facebook groups, and more people joining the public sphere to join a mass movement?

I'd like to think so.