درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This article aims to redefine the concept of Thirdspace and make a trilateral relationship between the three concepts of real space, virtual space and the user. To do so, not only the concept of Thirdspace has to be redefined, but also a new understanding of virtual space as a relatively independent space is required. This three-sided relation requires a new understanding of the relationship between the body and virtual space. Special attention is paid to the role of the body in the relationship between the user and virtual space through a phenomenological approach. Borderline spaces– VR technology and video games such as Pokémon Go– which are resulted from the interpenetration of real and virtual spaces have been considered as the new edges of interaction between real and virtual spaces and they are on a constant rise. This article’s key question is if using the concept of Thirdspace, one could build a bridge on the theoretical gap between real and virtual spaces and better understand the confrontation of the user with real, virtual and borderline spaces as well as their lived experiences. The authors believe that the answers are positive. This understanding paves the way not only to help the users improve their life skills for today’s real-virtual world but also to manage the stresses caused by living in such surroundings.

The crucial role of cyberspace attracted the special attention of the governments in different countries, which consider it both as a challenge and an opportunity. One of the key policies and preventive measures adopted concerning the challenges posed by the cyberspace is it regulation. In fact, there are only a few states have not taken any steps in regulating their cyberspace. This paper seeks to demonstrate a set of policy proposals for the Islamic Republic of Iran through the study of three leading but different precedents in regulating the cyberspace, including the United States, the European Union, and China. This study employs a descriptive-analytical model, which recommends placing the main investment in and concentration on the final user, employing economic strategies, special attention to governmental and public institutions, prioritizing content removal over blocking, negotiating an agreement with foreign service providers, drafting a content rating system, and using international capacities for cooperation. Accordingly, the final policy proposals for the Islamic Republic of Iran would be decentralization, user-oriented decisions, prioritizing removal over blocking, and monitoring over filtering.

This paper focuses on the impact of cyberspace on religiosity in Iran through reviewing previous studies. The situation of religion in the age of the internet has always been a major matter of concern for Iranian scholars and policy makers. Accordingly, there have been many researchers who have addressed and approached this problem but there has been no comprehensive understanding of the impact of the internet on religiosity, as no comparative study has been conducted to date. This paper applies meta-analysis as the method for reviewing previous attempts while trying to gather all the data by classifying problems, methods, theoretical approaches and more importantly their results. The outcome of this study is to indicate the impact of cyberspace on religiosity and religious identity, apart from classifying and clarifying the status of religiosity in Iran. Having a stronger religious identity causes less online misbehaviors like searching and engaging in pornography. It also indicates using cyberspace for recreational purposes compared to using it for communication or gathering information etc. makes the users more likely to have a weaker religious identity.

Over the last decade, the retail industry has had a phenomenal growth. All figures show their success and efficiency and many studies have shown the role of customer reviews in encouraging ambivalent purchasers to buy items online. There have been numerous studies on why people read and trust these comments and taking for granted the important role of customer reviews in determining buying decision, this study endeavors to identify and explain the different factors involved in making a comment “useful.” We took an Iranian retail website and collected comments on perceived “usefulness” of each review. Our results showed that perceived level of usefulness was related to the word count of the comments, personal experience of the writer with the product, emotional description of the product, and mentioning the strength/weakness points of the product.

The current paper explores designing a web information retrieval system regarding the searching behavior of users in real and everyday life. Designing an information system that is closely linked to human behavior is equally important for providers and the end users. From an Information Science point of view, four approaches in designing information retrieval systems were identified as system-centered; user-centered; interactive and cognitive designs. However, there is a lack of research related to possible relationships between information behavior and information systems design to date. Traditionally, designers used human factors but not necessarily human behaviors while designing information systems. Therefore, there are few systems designed by information scientist aiming to regard or support the human information behavior. There are now new techniques and methodologies such as Contextual Design and Participatory Design to fill the gap. Implementing a behavioral approach to designing information systems are of interest and importance in terms of modern information technologies like social software, web 2.0, mobile phones and internet websites. New methodologies and research frameworks are proposed that place user location, attention and behavior as their main issues.

Islamophobia’s occurrence in any particular country has little do with the presence of Muslim; it is possible to be Islamophobic when there are virtually no Muslim around. This because the lack of Muslims is filled by the surplus of Islamophobic representations. This surplus of representations is now increasingly reliant on the internet. There are many studies reporting on Islamophobia on the internet, classifying the negative representations, the targeted acts of aggressive online behaviour (trolling) against Muslims. These studies are basically taxonomies, and they share this feature with general literature on Islamophobia, which is concerned with reporting instances of Islamophobia empirically with little time spent on its theorisation. Such an understanding of Islamophobia implies that it is simply dismissed as being a matter of prejudice, bias, and closed views. A Critical Muslim Studies understanding of Islamophobia developed initially in the collected volume Thinking Through Islamophobia (2010), and then subsequent publications shift the focus away positivism to decolonial discourse theory. Using decolonial discourse theory, this study will how online Islamophobia is not just a distortion of Islam, or hatred of Muslims but rather it main vectors for denying Muslim political consciousness.

This study examines the associations of internet information literacy with two variables: (1) the ability to work with technical aspects of the internet (internet skill), and (2) attitudes about the need for qualitative necessities in the development of e-services. A hierarchical regressions software analyzes data from a national sample of 2134 internet users. In this paper, internet literacy is considered as a literacy which has two-dimensional aspects including information literacy and skill literacy. In an articulation as this, many of the capabilities associated with the internet such as technical, critical, analytical, and structural factors are studied. In addition, abilities that lead users to make distinctions between useful, safe and healthy data and fake, hateful and unhealthy data are taken into account. The analysis shows that the internet information literacy is positively related to internet skills. It is also shown that more internet information literacy leads to more demands for e-services’ qualitative necessities (in the eight indicators of cheapness, availability, usability, quickness, security, integrity, reliability, and transparency). Furthermore, some sociodemographic characteristics (i.e. age, gender, education, income, and place of residence) are explicitly associated with internet skills. Strategy suggestions are concluded for policy making in the respective fields.

This paper aims to show the status of digital art in Iran and explain how the meaning of an artist has transformed in the digital age. The primary assumption of this paper is that the experience of digital art has again revived the collective experience in creating arts. Although, interactivity is considered to be the most important quality of digital art, their collective, collaborative and progressive qualities should as well be emphasized. These qualities have transformed all aspects of art. The present study focuses on the audience’s part in the foundation of producing art in new media art or digital art. Using Howard Becker’s idea of ‘the sociology of art’ we can show the process of change, that the notion of crowd production of art has undergone and almost reached its exact meaning. The current study is applying a qualitative approach using participation and interview techniques. The research was carried out during the Tehran Annual Digital Arts Exhibition (TADAX). The research data were obtained based on interviews with artists and participators in the four TADAX exhibitions from 2013 to 2016.