The Iran Media Program (http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en) announces two new reports that might be of interest to AoIRists: *Whither Blogestan: Evaluating Shifts in Persian Cyberspace: http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/research/download/1607 Between 2002 and 2010, the Persian blogosphere exploded in size and became the topic of numerous reports, essays, videos and books. However, global interest in this emerging trend seemed to decrease during the second presidential mandate of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This report is aimed at providing an answer to whether Blogestan itself has faded in size, activity and influence, since 2009. The report includes an audience survey of Persian blog readers, a web crawling analysis of the Iranian blogosphere, and a series of interviews with 20 influential bloggers living inside and outside of Iran. *Liking Facebook in Tehran:Social Networking in Iran: http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/research/download/1609 This report, based on an online survey of Iranian Facebook users, contributes to a small but growing body of scholarship on social and new media use in Iran. Our findings offer new insights into the Iranian Facebook ecosystem, including patterns of Facebook usage among Iranians, why and how Iranians are using Facebook, what types of content they are sharing, as well as perceptions of privacy and security associated with using Facebook. In addition, the survey addresses the key question of whether Facebook is being used as a tool for political engagement and civic activism among Iranian internet users, as initial assessments suggested. AoIRists might also be interested in these other publications from the IMP: *Citation Filtered: Iran's Censorship of Wikipedia: http://cgcsblog.asc.upenn.edu/2013/11/07/citation-filtered/ Using proxy servers in Iran, researchers scanned 800,000 Persian language Wikipedia articles. Every blocked article was identified and blocked pages were divided into ten categories to determine the type of content to which state censors are most adverse. The report is accompanied by an infographicdetailing blocking mechanisms and types of filtered content. *Internet Censorship in Iran: An infographic: http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/sites/default/files/research/pdf/1363180689... This infographic illustrates the constellation of bodies currently involved in internet censorship in Iran. It attempts to show the complexity of Iran's internet governance system by mapping the relationship between the different policy-making and enforcement bodies involved in internet censorship and filtering, spotlighting four new bodies-the Supreme Council on Cyberspace, the Committee Charged with Determining Offensive Content, the Cyber Army, and the Cyber Police-that have emerged since 2009 as key institutions responsible for controlling the flow of online communications, both within Iran and betweenIranians and the global cybersphere. *Finding a way - How Iranians reach for news and information: http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/research/pdffile/990 This study details the results of an online questionnaire among young, metropolitan, educated and technologically savvy Iranians, and was aimed at illustrating the extent to which these youth employ new media for political purposes over a year after the contested Iranian elections and during the Tunisia, Egypt and Libya uprisings. The prevalence of Internet use, online activities, and speed of access was assessed, as was the use of and engagement with certain platforms such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The surveys also examined the use of circumvention tools as well as the extent to which Iraniansthink citizens can be empowered through the use of new media. *Dimming the Internet: Detecting Throttling as a Mechanism of Censorship in Iran: http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.4361 In the days immediately following the contested June 2009 Presidential election, Iranians attempting to reach news content and social media platforms were subject to unprecedented levels of the degradation, blocking and jamming of communications channels. Rather than shut down networks, which would draw attention and controversy, the government was rumored to have slowed connection speeds to rates that would render the Internet nearly unusable, especially for the consumption and distribution of multimedia content. Since, political upheavals elsewhere have been associated with headlines such as "High usage slows down Internet in Bahrain" and "Syrian Internet slows during Friday protests once again," with further rumors linking poor connectivity with political instability in Myanmar and Tibet. For governments threatened by public expression, the throttling of Internet connectivity appears to be an increasingly preferred and less detectable method of stifling the free flow of information. In order to assess this perceived trend and begin to create systems of accountability and transparency on such practices, we attempt to outline an initial strategy for utilizing a ubiquitous set of network measurements as a monitoring service, then apply such methodology to shed light on the recent history of censorship in Iran. *The Hidden Internet of Iran: Private Address Allocations on a National Network: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.6398 While funding agencies have provided substantial support for the developers and vendors of services that facilitate the unfettered flow of information through the Internet, little consolidated knowledge exists on the basic communications network infrastructure of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the absence of open access and public data, rumors and fear have reigned supreme. During provisional research on the country's censorship regime, we found initial indicators that telecommunications entities in Iran allowed private addresses to route domestically, whether intentionally or unintentionally, creating a hidden network only reachable within the country. Moreover, records such as DNS entries lend evidence of a 'dual stack' approach, wherein servers are assigned a domestic IP addresses, in addition to a global one. Despite the clear political implications of the claim we put forward, particularly in light of rampant speculation regarding the mandate of Article 46 of the 'Fifth Five Year Development Plan' to establish a "national information network," we refrain from hypothesizing the purpose of this structure. In order to solicit critical feedback for future research, we outline our initial findings and attempt to demonstrate that the matter under contention is a nation-wide phenomenon that warrants broader attention. Laura Schwartz-Henderson Research Project Manager Center For Global Communication Studies Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania 215-898-9727