Cyberspace Serves Culture: Experiences from Iran During the COVID-19 Crisis

During the last two years, we have witnessed incredible advancement in the growth of research on E-culture. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, this advancement was not only a Eurocentric development but could also be seen in non-European countries like Iran, which has accelerated rapidly towards digitalization. This paper is the first attempt to present a comprehensive review of Iranian digital cultural initiatives during the quarantine period of the COVID-19 outbreak (March 2020 to May 2020). This study uses VOSviewer software to analyze the digitalization trend in Iran from a thematic and geographic perspective. The results reveal that there was a significant ascending trend in the number of launched digital cultural projects in Tehran province during the quarantine period. Based on the data sourced from the General Directorate of Islamic Culture and Guidance of Tehran province, 30 digital projects with a socio-cultural scope were identified. This result is in line with the development of digital capabilities in the country. A key finding was the dominance of research related to social media platforms,as highlighted by the high number of digital cultural activities that were launched through Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram. This has clear implications for the improvement of E-culture in the country and the development of this domain by recognition of its social, economic, and environmental values. Moreover, the majority of cultural activities revolved around virtual festivals celebrating Iran's intangible cultural heritage, including prominent events like Nowruz (the Persian New Year). This has revealed the dominant role of cultural heritage in the progress of digitalization. These results enabled us to provide an initial framework of digital tendencies in Iran that could potentially contribute to E-culture promotion through the development of new digital tools and formats.