هادی صفری

The special features of cyberspace, such as universality, providing the possibility of anonymity and rapid changes, along with its great impact on individual and collective life, make its policymaking and regulation challenging. The security and resilience of cyberspace as one of the complex aspects of cyberspace policymaking and the intersection point of technical, security, cultural and social points of view has also been considered in upstream documents and Tadbir No. 15 of the document of the Islamic-Iranian model of progress is dedicated to the security and resilience of cyberspace and the need to use local knowledge and global partnerships in it. An issue that seems to have been left aside in many policies and practical decisions related to cyberspace in favor of a non-specialist security perspective. This article based on qualitative research methodology and analytical-descriptive research method, by examining some of the most important challenges of cyberspace and its security and resilience in Iran and comparison with similar global samples, tries to provide suggestions for policy regarding cyberspace in Iran. Staying away from the security discourse in everyday life issues, reducing criminalization, improving the conditions and attracting foreign companies in the field of cyberspace instead of repelling them, improving the economic and cultural conditions for the non-immigration of specialists in this field, leaving space for popular regulation of cyberspace away from governmental interventions and attention to upstream documents, including the Islamic-Iranian Model document, are the progress of some of the solutions and policy proposals presented in this article.

IntroductionIn recent decades, the advent of the Internet and social media platforms has had a profound influence on global interpersonal dynamics. This transformative process has given rise to a novel social life known as the network society, as conceptualized by Manuel Castells (2005). Within the network society, individuals can instantly access and disseminate information, enabling simultaneous communication across geographical boundaries. Consequently, the proliferation of large-scale online platforms has exerted substantial impacts on economic, social, political, and cultural domains.Among the existing platforms, Twitter focuses more on politics than other social media such as Instagram and Telegram. Twitter's inherent nature lends itself to users expressing concise and rapid opinions, particularly regarding public and political affairs. In Iran, this platform primarily serves as a hub for public and political activists. Furthermore, the prevalent practice of sharing tweets on more popular social media such as Telegram and Instagram often leads to the dissemination of media content flowing from Twitter. Beyond serving as a mere outlet for expressing diverse perspectives on events and political matters, Twitter fosters an environment that enables user interaction and influence concerning these events. The communication and reactions of users on this platform can have an impact on political opinions and even shape broader perspectives. PurposeWhile the number of Twitter users in Iran may be relatively low, with only 3% of people reported to be using Twitter according to a recent survey by the Iranian Student Opinion Center (ISPA) in June 2022n, the platform holds significant influence over politics in Iranian society. This is primarily due to the active participation of political and social activists who make up the majority of Twitter users in the country. Notably, both local and international media outlets, as well as political activists, heavily rely on Twitter for disseminating information and engaging in discussions. Furthermore, popular topics and discussions on Twitter often find their way to other platforms such as Telegram, Instagram, and even email, indirectly exposing a wider audience to Twitter's impact. Despite these observations, the relationship between Twitter and the political landscape in Iranian society has yet to be thoroughly investigated in a scientific and systematic manner, highlighting the need for further research in this area.Given the evolving political landscape in Iran, particularly in light of the significant events in October and November of 2022, it has become increasingly vital to explore the association between Twitter and the emergence and characteristics of these developments. Notably, Iran's political environment has long exhibited a stable feature of bipolarity, making it the focal point of this article. The primary objective of this research is to investigate the manifestation and perpetuation of these polarizations within the Persian-speaking user base on Twitter. By doing so, the study aims to shed light on how political polarization in Iran is mirrored and perpetuated within the Twitter sphere. MethodologyThis research employs a qualitative approach, utilizing participatory observation and case study methods. Purposeful sampling is employed to examine specific events that offer significant insights into the research topic. Data collection involves observation and data mining techniques. Initially, the researcher presents their observations on Twitter, while also independently analyzing unique situations aligned with the research question through data mining. To support the research objectives, a selection of noteworthy economic, political, social, cultural, and sports events in the years 1400 and 1401 are studied, as observed on Twitter, to validate and reinforce the findings from participatory observation. Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology is employed in this section. The importance of nodes is primarily measured using the PageRank centrality measure, with each node's size and tag size corresponding to its PageRank centrality. In the PageRank centrality measure, a node's significance is determined not only by the number of its connected nodes but also by the importance of these nodes. Node classification into distinct communities is achieved through Lovin's algorithm (Blondel et al., 2008). Graph visualization predominantly utilizes the Force Atlas 2 algorithm (Jacomy et al., 2014). Gephi software is employed for graph illustration and analysis purposes. FindingsThe findings of this research reveal the following: First, within the Twitter space, the presence of anonymous users, bots, and organized accounts is prominent, contributing to the propagation of computational propaganda.Second, likes and retweets by users have become tools for drawing boundaries and intensifying mistrust and polarization.Third, during periods of societal tension, Twitter users tend to silence opposing voices through blocking and unfollowing, creating further polarization and reinforcing echo chambers. This limits exposure to diverse and conflicting opinions, as social media, instead of being platforms for diverse voices, inadvertently contribute to the silencing of differing perspectives.Fourth, in this polarized environment, voices in the middle ground users have fewer opportunities to emerge, as they are subjected to negative labeling from both ends of the spectrum. The term "middleman" is frequently used to protest against individuals expressing differing opinions within the bipolar atmosphere of Twitter.Fifth, different views are disregarded by “checking” individuals' past records, as this checking has become a significant criterion for discerning right from wrong and a means to suppress diverse thoughts and voices.Sixth, Persian Twitter demonstrates a bipolar atmosphere across various topics. The pattern of polarization usually involves a minority pole and a majority pole. The majority pole encompasses diverse spectrums and groups, while the opposing spectrum to the Islamic Republic holds a louder and clearer voice, often leading to the marginalization of moderate perspectives.The research findings indicate a polarized atmosphere within the Twitter environment that hinders communication and dialogue between different groups. While this situation may reflect social and political conditions, Twitter algorithms, content suggestion mechanisms, and features like blocking, unfollowing, and muting have also played a role in shaping and intensifying polarization, effectively creating an echo chamber within the Twitter space. ConclusionObserving the Twitter platform prompts us to think about its essence. Twitter appears to possess a distinct character and nature characterized by blocking and unfollowing, condemnation of moderation as the "middleman," widespread online hate speech, and a polarized environment. This attribute can perhaps be attributed to Twitter's constraint of limited characters per tweet, setting it apart from social media like Facebook or Instagram. The findings reveal the prevalence of distrust, intolerance, insults, and aggression within political discussions on Twitter, hindering the cultivation of equitable dialogue. Within the Twitter space, the interplay of three factors—namely, the formation of "communities of like-minded individuals," the removal of dissenting perspectives through blocking and unfollowing to avoid the challenges of disagreement, and the existence of "filter bubbles"—has contributed to the creation of an echo chamber, amplifying polarization within the Twitter realm. One notable aspect of this bipolar environment is the inherent mistrust and escalation of verbal violence observed between opposing poles, even targeting individuals positioned among the bipolar factions. As this situation becomes more pervasive, users who do not align with either pole, forming a gray area, choose silence out of fear of isolation, consequently intensifying the spiral of silence. With the fading influence of the middle ground users, the cycle of bipolarity further deepens. NoveltyThe phenomenon of political polarization within the Twitter sphere has been extensively explored in various studies. However, the specific context of Iranian Twitter users remains largely uninvestigated, prompting this research to apply existing theories to the Iranian society. In conducting this study, unique characteristics observed within Persian Twitter were examined, shedding light on behaviors that have not been extensively studied in comparable research. One such behavior is the act of checking individuals' past and disregarding their current positions based on their previous opinions on a given topic. This particular behavior is distinct to the polarized Twitter environment within other communities.

Sharing resources and facilities, leveraging each other's experiences, and enabling interdisciplinary research are the benefits of co-authorship. The aim of this study was to investigate the co-authorship status of the scientific productions by Afghan researchers to plan the expansion of collaboration and employment of these researchers in migration destination countries, especially Iran.

This quantitative study examined 2732 articles indexed in Scopus with at least one Afghan author from the beginning of indexing in Scopus to September 2021. Statistical methods and analysis of the co-authorship network were used to analyze the data, via Python 3 language and VOSviewer 1.6.17 and Gephi 0.9.2.

The most scientific outputs of Afghan researchers are devoted to the writings of the medical field with 40.41%. The next scientific fields with a large difference are social sciences (15.67%), biological sciences (11.16%), and engineering (10.94%), respectively. The co-authorship network of Afghan researchers and their colleagues consisted of 13,379 nodes (researchers) and 2,511,879 weighted edges (co-author relationships). Afghan researchers collaborated most frequently with researchers from the United States. Iran, despite its geographic and cultural proximity, ranks fourth among its colleagues. America is followed by England and India.

Co-authorship varies among researchers in different scientific fields. The median number of authors of each article in dentistry, biochemistry and other majors close to medicine and basic sciences was about three times that of theoretical majors such as social sciences, arts and humanities.

The present study analyses the status of researchers in the field of Persian Literature with a scientometric approach based on the articles of Persian journals in the field of Persian Literature and tries to determine the importance and influence of each of the authors and research institutions in the field of Iranian academic Persian Literature, provided the possibility of evaluating the previous scientific policies of the country in this field. In this research, first, the trend of the rise and fall of the number of articles and co-authorship patterns over time has been investigated and researchers with the largest number of articles have been identified. In the following, after the formation of the co-authorship network, the relationships and importance of authors in this field have been investigated. Observations indicate that the number of articles has grown greatly since the 2000. According to the present research, despite the increase in the number of three-person articles, the collaboration of two authors in writing articles is still considered the most common pattern of co-authorship. According to the results of this study, the scientific centre of Tarbiat Modares University and Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies and the scientific centre of the University of Isfahan are the most influential research centres in terms of publishing scientific articles in the field of Persian literature in Iran.

Researches that lead to a fundamental understanding of the research subject and do not have a specific practical purpose are called fundamental researches. Various aspects of these studies have been the subject of research by researchers from Iran and the world. More knowledge of Iranian researchers about Iran's special conditions and its effect on basic researches as well as their influence on the country's scientific policy makers makes it necessary to examine their opinions for a better understanding of the policy making process of basic science and researches in Iran.In the present work, an attempt was made to draw a map of these researches and various viewpoints by examining Persian and English articles and books of Iranian authors about fundamental researches as well as relevant higher law and documents. Various researches have been carried out in the fields of the nature of basic researches, public policies towards them, the investigation of the status of these researches with scientometric criteria and sociological and historical aspects.In general, it seems that despite the lack of practical success in proper policy making in the field of basic sciences and research, there is a theoretical consensus in the current state of basic sciences, policy methods and the need for government support among researchers. According to researchers, the main problem in Iran is the gap between policy making and implementation.

The present work tries to clearly explain the existing duality regarding the concept of scientific authority ("marjiyat") among politicians and policy researchers in the field of science policy by reviewing the existing articles and research works and specifying the characteristics of each of the opposite points of view to make science policy avoid policy divergence caused by verbal similarity.Historically, scientific authority, along with political authority, has been considered one of the dimensions of the authority of the infallible imams. After the statements of the Supreme Leader in 2006 with the students and professors of Imam Sadegh University, the concept of scientific authority entered the vocabulary of Iran's science policy and attracted the attention of researchers. In the following years, attention has been paid to the discussion of scientific authority in the academic environment of Iran, and in addition to the publication of various articles, the spring 2018 special issue of the Iranian Journal of Culture and Health Promotion has also been dedicated to this subject. Most of the existing research has been focused on the statements of the Supreme Leader and high-level policy documents about scientific authority and has considered this concept separate from similar concepts in the global/ English research literature of science policy. Researchers have also dealt with the relationship of scientific authority with soft power and national authority and modeling the methods of achieving scientific authority.The review of the available articles shows that there is no comprehensive intersubjective definition of scientific authority among Iranian politicians and policy researchers. The existence of multiple and incompatible definitions and the need to achieve a specific definition of scientific authority have been the concern of some researchers, but the duality of introspection and extroversion, as the root of the inconsistency of definitions, has not been investigated in any of the previous articles.In this research, a systematic review of the available articles was used based on the NoorMags index. Articles that included the term "scientific marjiyat" in their title, abstract, or keywords were examined in this research. Furthermore, the special issue of "Iranian Journal of Culture and Health Promotion" for scientific authority and the articles of the Islamic-Iranian Model of Progress Conference were used as additional sources. The scope of the research was limited to published Persian sources about scientific authority; because scientific authority, in the common policy sense in Iran, is a concept invented locally, and similar concepts in the global research literature cannot represent what and why the concept of scientific authority is.In the next stage, after sifting the articles twice, a thematic analysis of the articles was used to extract the main themes raised in them to define and explain the nature of scientific authority. The main themes were divided into two categories, inwards and outwards, and an attempt was made to explain the nature of each of these two categories and to introduce examples of important sources written based on each perspective.: After sifting the articles, 36 articles were reviewed. Most of them were written in the years 2016 and later, and in the first decade after the topic of scientific authority was raised, this issue was not seriously studied by researchers. After reviewing the articles, 20 main themes were found about what scientific authority: the status of the country, universities, researchers, articles and scientific journals in global rankings; relying on useful science and practical effectiveness; problem-oriention and community needs; scientific independence of the country and freedom from scientific captivity; being global reference point; Islamic orientation and adherence to religious thinking; transforming Persian into an international scientific language; theorizing and expanding the boundaries of science; existence of the complete chain of technology and innovation; global science production pole; self-esteem; historical perspective to scientific authority; global access to scientific products; leadership and non-passive approach in science production; scientific authority and unquestionability of scientific statements; attracting talented people; appropriate research budget in the field of science and technology; becoming a global model of science production; fame as a scientific reference and social image management; and authoring scientific reference books at the global level. These categories can be classified into two groups: inwards and outwards. Outward-looking themes emphasize the definition of the position of scientific authority based on a country's scientific connections with others and the country's position in international scientific communities, and they give importance to international rankings and global scientific communities. On the contrary, inward-looking themes focus on the internal aspects of scientific authority and follow the production of useful science and its use. Some researchers, due to not paying attention to this conceptual duality, have suffered contradictions in their opinions and internal confusion in their writings.Despite the extensive use of an inward-looking point of view by many politicians and political researchers, this point of view is incompatible with the traditional definitions of authority and in practice, it does not provide a proper explanation of scientific authority. "Marja" in the literal meaning and its historical usage means the place of reference. By accepting this definition, marjiyat cannot exist without referents, and scientific reference is defined concerning others and, as a result, in the domain of international scientific communities. The inward-looking perspective does not provide any self-sufficient evaluation criterion. The usefulness, practicality, and impact of science in practice should also be measured in comparison with other countries and based on global rankings of innovation, economic development, etc. Furthermore, in the current situation, the transformation of Persian language into the international language of science does not seem close.Politicians and policymakers should determine their operational definition of scientific authority based on one of the two perspectives presented before making any policy decision and using any type of political tool to improve the state of scientific authority in the country, and their expectations and evaluation criteria should also be based on the selected point of view. Based on what has been said, they have to use an outward-looking perspective in order to have a realistic analysis of scientific authority.