The Role of YouTube Social Media in Soft War A Case Study of the Events of the Tenth Presidential Elections

Today, social media play a very important role in the political and social events of different countries and cultures and their impact on the events following the 2009 presidential elections in Iran is undeniable. Therefore, the importance of the function of these media made us conduct the present research work and disclose some aspects of this issue. To examine the issue more deeply, a sample of 362 videos from the YouTube content was selected through the simple random sampling method and analyzed. The technique utilized in this research is the dimension technique along with the description method of the calculated ratios of the dimensions. The process of analysis was based on four soft war variables (delegitimization of the ruling political system, disuniting the community, securitizing the political and social space and development of conflicting norms) and 16 dimensions, which began after validating the research instrument through pre-test and coding, collecting and categorizing the data based on 16 dimensions and verifying its reliability. Data analysis began by calculating the frequency of the ratio of the dimensions and using Chi-Square to find out any possibly existing priority among the dimensions, it was concluded that some dimensions had higher frequency than others.