Hashtagging Resistance: Media, Authority, and Women's Subjectivity in Post-Mahsa Iran

This paper explores the intersections of media, authority, and women's subjectivity in post-Mahsa Iran through Lacanian psychoanalysis. We examine digital activism on X (formerly Twitter) following Mahsa Amini's death in 2022, focusing on how women resist state-imposed hijab laws by deploying hashtags as tools of symbolic disruption. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyze 20 hijab-related hashtags from 2018 to 2023 to reveal how these campaigns express resistance and shape psychological subjectification. Our findings underscore women's resistance as both a site of subjectivity and political agency, illustrating how digital activism fosters feminist identity, symbolic defiance, and subject formation under authoritarian rule.

Authors: Arash Beidollahkhani and Mahdiyeh Ghorashi 

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