Objective: The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies, coupled with unintended socio-cultural transformations in societies shaped by globalization policies, has created a media-saturated milieu that compels us to develop appropriate models for understanding contemporary social change. This study aims to examine the role of media and virtual social networks in forming and expanding social non-movements in Iran. By distinguishing non-movements from conventional social movements, it offers a novel framework for analyzing media-driven social change.
Method: The study adopts a qualitative, exploratory-descriptive approach using grounded theory. The population comprises experts in sociology, media and communication, and political science; the sample includes seven academic experts and experienced managers selected through purposive non-probabilistic sampling.
Results: The expansion of the global Internet and contemporary ICT developments emerge as the most significant factors underlying the interdependence of new media and social non-movements.
Conclusions: The synthesis of causal, contextual, and intervening conditions reveals that the role of new media in the emergence of social non-movements-and, by extension, in cultural and social governance-has been progressively reinforced, a trajectory from which Iran is not exempt.