Lim, M. (2017) Digital Media and Malaysia’s Electoral Reform Movement (original) (raw)
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Talk about a revolution-social media and the MENA uprisings
This article examines the role played by social media in the popular uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). When discussing their role, it is important to note the wider research context on social media and political participation and to be aware of any ideological and normative interventions. A number of key questions are asked about the role played by social media in the uprisings. First is the importance of context when assessing the role and impact of social media with global reach. Second is the extent to which 'old' media in the guise of print and broadcast journalism have been displaced or downgraded as forums for public talk. Third is the variable use and significance of different information and communication technologies and formats. The fourth issue concerns the demeanor of activists and audience, while the fifth focuses on the effects of social media on the conduct of the uprisings and, insofar as this can be ascertained, on their outcomes.
Social Media Activism in the Arab Uprising
A version of this paper was presented at the First West Asian Studies National Convention, Centre for West Asian Studies, JNU on 14 November 2014. The goal of this paper is to place the role that new social media has played in achieving collective action using the early events of the Arab uprisings and the experiences of Egypt and Tunisia as particular references. Almost four years since the uprisings began, their disrupted momentum has challenged the oft hypothesized and heavily mediatized season of unified Arab awakening. The political economy of communications differed across the affected region making it evident that these countries were in different stages of social, economic, political and digital development. This informs why different regimes were more or less vulnerable to opposition (including cyberactivism) and why the structure of opposition, in turn, varied. Though resisting techno-optimist narratives, the paper seeks to explain the communicative and connective power of social media in the Arab context as well as its disruptive potential in discourse-shaping. In setting up the stage for street protests, the use of ICT’s by Arab activists most crucially aimed at revealing an accurate picture of their respective societies, not just within but also to a broader international audience. Rather than support the cohesive neoliberal success stories quoted in the international media, the respective online Arab publics cast film onto the reality of everyday economic and political repression. Moreover, Arab cyberactivists created virtual forums for citizen journalism through enabling ordinary citizens to question regime legitimacy and record instances of governmental brutality, corruption and violations of human rights. This allowed for the continued exchange of civic discourse, deliberation and articulation, enhancing the region’s social capital and contributing to the growth of a tentative virtual civil society. The liberating role of cyberspace in overcoming gender, class and geographical barriers is, however, tempered in the final analysis by the contradictory impact of networked technologies – in terms of the quality of content generated and by whom as well as the capacity of regimes and traditional political actors to monitor, control and manipulate online communication (“Tyrants can tweet too”). Further, in the persisting debate between those on the optimist and pessimist sides of networked technology communication, an underlying tension is that while leaderless network structures can mobilize and even unite a disparate coalition of protestors around issue- specific demands such as “The people want the fall of the regime”, they are ineffective at articulating nuanced demands in the subsequent negotiation processes. Cyberactors are also reluctant to participate in the political processes of party building and institutional organization. In other words, digital storytelling supersedes the political communiqué and expressive protest- politics tends to depoliticize the impact of cyberactivism.
Social Media as a Tool for Political Change: The Uprising in Iran (2009) and Egypt (2011)
2017
The 2009 Iranian uprising and the 2011 Egyptian uprising were widely publicized and closely followed by the global community. Social media became central to the way each uprising was experienced, and social media made a major contribution to the way the revolutions were explained to the outside world. Scholars and journalists have praised the role of social media in these two situations; Evgeny Morozov referred to it as a “liberator of authoritarian regimes,” and arguing that “democracy is just a tweet away.” The uprisings were the result of a decade of social and political unrest and discontent among populations that were dissatisfied with their current regimes. In both cases, the effects of social media were undeniable catalyzing anger into protest over an authoritarian regime. Although it cannot be said that social media were the sole cause of these uprisings, social media did play a major role in bringing to the forefront a revolution that had been festering in the background fo...
The role of social media in the Arab uprisings – past and present
Social media in the Arab world before the recent revolutions had been described as marginal, alternative and elitist, and their impact minimal because of the low penetration rates of the internet. The 2011 events across the Arab world have brought ‘social media’ to the forefront, with many crediting Facebook, weblogs and Twitter with facilitating the revolutions that have taken place. Yet we have not fully understood the role of social media during the recent events and the convergence of social media with not only mainstream media but also with actual street demonstrations. Moreover, the role and significance of social media during recent events across the Arab world has varied greatly. What are the cultural, technical and political variables that are conducive to using social media for mobilization? How have citizens and states used social media during the uprising and beyond? How do we research social media movements in the Arab world? A total of six articles in this issue aim to answer these questions. Eaton’s article investigates the use of internet activism in Egypt during the 2011 events. In detail, the article outlines how social media were used by Egyptian internet activists to increase mobility on the ground, starting from the Facebook campaign ‘We Are All Khaled Said’ and leading to the ousting of Mubarak. Gerbaudo’s article, on the ‘kill switch’ as a ‘suicide switch’, focuses on one critical event during the 2011 uprising in Egypt: the internet blackout imposed by Mubarak’s regime during the first days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its effect on mobilization. Using empirical research conducted with online activists, the article reflects on the highly complex and ambivalent relation between offline collective action and social media. Ben Moussa’s article takes a step back and examines the strengths and limitations of various theoretical approaches to researching collective action in the Arab world. Critical of the common pitfalls of technological, social and cultural determinism, the author suggests a multidisciplinary approach that draws on social movement theory, radical democracy theory and alternative media theory to study Muslim-majority societies. Marc Owen Jones turns our attention to a country largely ignored by the mainstream media, Bahrain. His 10-month virtual ethnographic study, conducted during the uprising in 2011, examines how the Bahraini regime used social media in a number of different ways to suppress both online and offline dissent. Such methods included naming and shaming, offline intelligence gathering and passive observation. This is followed by the insights of an academic and practitioner into the use of social media during the Syrian uprising, which continues two years after the initial revolt in 2011. Harkin’s article explores the changing media ecology in Syria since the uprising and focuses on how Syrian society is constructing alternative ways of disseminating information. The article by prominent blogger Hussein Ghrer is a sober examination of the role of social media during the uprising in Syria. It highlights the importance of cultural, social and political factors that affect how and why people use internet tools. It contrasts the use of social media in Syria with social media use in Tunisia and Egypt, reminding us again of the importance of context. Unfortunately Ghrer was arrested on 16 February 2012, two days after submitting his first draft to WPCC. Online journalist, and friend of Ghrer, Maurice Aaek, comments on the article a year later, in February 2013.
Revolution 2.0? The Role of Digital Media in Political Mobilisation and Protest
Global Trends 2013. Peace - Development - Environment
Since the 1990s, the rapid diffusion of new electronic communications ("new media") and technological advancements in this field have changed the role of these media in society. This trend also impacts on the opportunities for political mobilisation and protest. Unlike the traditional mass communications, with newspapers and TV as lead media, the use of the Internet via computers and mobile phones facilitates individualised mass communication, allowing user-generated content to be shared with a virtual community. In this way, users can bypass governments and the mainstream media, in their established roles as conceptual, commercial and organisational gate-keepers and agenda-setters, and use the World Wide Web to transcend the local and, indeed, the national public spheres. With reference inter alia to the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East, this article demonstrates that the opportunities afforded by the digital media, especially new social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, etc., should, nonetheless, not be overestimated, and that besides having a potentially democratising and emancipatory effect, these new media harbour a number of risks and potential for misuse.
Arab Media & Society , 2012
There is no doubt that social media has played, and are still playing, a crucial role in the calls for political change that have swept the Arab region. However, their role as catalysts for political change and mobilizers for political action must be contextualized within the broader political and social structure in each country, with all their respective complexities and unique qualities. Therefore, in comparing and contrasting the role of cyberactivism in the Egyptian revolution and in the Syrian uprising, one year since they began, it is important to compare and contrast the underlying nuanced social, political and communication structures unique to each country, as well as the different roles of their various political actors and the types of online and offline communication strategies they deployed.