No matter which day I chose to talk about my media use after the election coup in Iran. I can not be far from my laptop. When I was in Iran, internet was the only possibility to find out the true news about the protests because all sorts of media were being controlled by the government. It was difficult to reach to the websites due to filtering and low speed of internet and therefore it was more time consuming. I noted my media use here in Finland for a week between 19 of December and 26 of December. I woke up by a telephone call in about 3 AM and a friend of mine from Iran told me that Montazei, the spiritual father of the Green Movement, passed away. Sorrows became nonsense when you were losing your own friend each day in streets. I just woke up and sat in front of my laptop and wrote an essay.
Almost 16 hours per day I was using internet for different purposes in that week. Using social media, like twitter and Facebook;I was posting the news of the street, the demonstrations and analysis of the events there. I was negotiating with friends on the interpretation of the events to find the best strategy. It was the calendar of each day: Waking up at eight, sitting in front of laptop at half past eight, reading the news and analysis of last night that take about two hours, following twits of the day and posting best of them on my own account in parallel to other works, writing my own analysis and essay about the event of the day, posting them on my own blog, sending the link of my posts on social medias and also to important online daily newspapers, analysis of the feedback of the readers, being tired of politics in all afternoons, finding some good clips and musics, sharing them with friends on Facebook, translating a new poem and posting it to my poetical website, coming back to politics and being tired until the sleep comes. Eating and drinking was the only possibilities that makes me to be far away from internet. My mobile rings few, just for my friends in Europe and sometimes for important news from my country, Iran. Mostly I have my calls on skype, and I use skype to call my friends and family in Iran. I watch important news TV channels on Internet. I translate poetry on my laptop, I rarely use papers, It is just my own poems that force me to use papers. I watch movies on my computer, I listen music there. In that week I just left the house two times to buy some foods. No friends I met, No where I went.
There are many difference in the nature of each media in internet. Facebook is a full traffic highway. You have to be fast and read quickly, and to response quickly when you are protesting.
Many friends are reading you, therefore you have to response to many and you have to comment on many. TV channels are relaxing, you can listen to them when you are eating and you have not to answer, you are alone. Youtube is funny, you find your favorite clips there, first you listen and enjoy and the you try to share your discovery with your friends. Translating poetry is my joy, I like to find the best words, the best poem related to my own feeling and also to the events of my country, I can be calm because I can do something creative in the heart of traffic. So, it is relaxing and it brings a kind of self-confidence that you are not losing yourself in the traffic of the events and news. For choosing a poem, I used four times internet and three times the anthologies I have in print. The end of my media diary was a stressing day, I knew that tomorrow there will be a demonstration and the government will be so violent. Yes, I was right, 38 have died, two of my friends and 1100 have been arrested. It is a kind of responsibility to humanity for me to use my own possibilities in order to help my people; Alas, now this is possible just by internet.
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Looking at the situation from outside, it is really hard to understand what is actually happening in your country and what kind of things you have to go through every day. Thinking what it might feel like to loose friends or relatives in war is so strange, it is almost unreal. Even though almost every nation has background of war, reality of the war is too much for awareness. I don´t want to think about it, is the first thing that comes in my mind. Sad to say, I suppose I´m not the only one thinking that way. Maybe that is also part of the reasons nothing ever changes. I´m probably naïve now, but I truly hope things would get better soon in your country.
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