The Alchemy of Revolution: The Role of Social Networks and New Media in the Arab Spring (original) (raw)
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Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective, 2016
Research on media and contentious politics in the Arab world point to the vital role that social media played in the Arab Spring. For the purposes of this article, the Arab Spring is defined as a series of demonstrations and democratic uprisings-and in the cases of Libya, Syria, and Yemen armed rebel movements-that arose independently and spread across the Arab world from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, and Syria in 2010-2011 and beyond. This article advances the theoretical assumption that while not causing the Arab uprisings, New Media (defined here as all forms of digital communication technology including satellite television, cell phones, social networking, video-blogging, and citizen journalism platforms that allow broader dissemination and participation than traditional print or broadcast media) provided the technical infrastructure for these uprisings to develop, sustain, and intensify over relatively short periods. With this assumption at its focus, this paper digs out the political, economic, social, and cultural roots of the Arab Spring. It explores how Arabs' hunger for decentralized news and information paved the road for the organic growth of a new breed of Arab "citizen journalists." It describes how New Media technologies, which Larry Diamond (2012) of Stanford University calls "Liberation Technologies" have combined words and images on iPhones, Blackberries, laptops, and social media platforms and managed to turn previously underground oppositions in several Arab countries into Virtual Public Spheres. It explains how the socalled "Generation-in-Waiting" who could no longer wait and took to the streets in waves of demonstrations against police brutality, economic deprivation, corruption and dictatorship. It then examines how these Liberation Technologies helped to convert Arab subjects into engaged citizens. It assesses how these revolutionaries broke the government monopoly on traditional media and used New Media to mobilize, organize, and take to the streets. Furthermore, it explains how this enabled the Arab revolutionaries to "occupy" in a matter of days, not just the virtual cyber-space, but also the physical space including Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, Tahrir Square in Cairo, Pearl Square in Manama, and the University Quarter in Sanaa, which ultimately brought the fall of entrenched dictators
THE SPRING OF THE NETWORKED NATIONS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ARAB SPRING
This essay argues that social media played an important role in the Arab Spring and contributed to a change in the political culture of some of those countries that have gone through regime--change through 2011--2012. The article further posits that the contribution of social media was mainly instrumental, not causal, and that the main reasons behind the Arab Spring were problems generated by regional, local and global trends, affecting each country differently.
Explaining the role and impact of social media in the ‘Arab Spring’
Global Media Journal, 2012, 8(1):10-20.
The paper examines how the efforts of ordinary people in the Arab "street" to move away with compliance and toleration from authoritarian regimes, also allowed them, once the opportunity arose, to invest in and use social media to change politics "from below". This is not to argue that the social media were "responsible" for the uprisings. The uprisings were made by the people of the Arab countries, but the social media acted as a powerful accelerant facilitating the events in ways that were crucial. In particular, and with emphasis on Egypt, we examine: (a) the socioeconomic dynamics and human insecurity of the region and (b) the role of the social media prior and during the uprisings in empowering "social non-movements" and "leaderless networks", and igniting public mobilization, enabling civic engagement and journalism, as well as collaboration between activists at regional and global level.
The Role of Social Media Networks in the 2011 Arab Revolutions
TRSMNIT2011AR, 2012
INTRODUCTION With the rapid expansion and development of the internet, SMNs have started to emerge and serve as virtual public spheres, where people could discuss about any topic or issue they think is necessary and decisive at any time and place than ever before without the limits of geographical location. Starting from the February 1978’s first SMNs like [BBS], primarily hosted on personal computers’ modem. Only one person at a time could gain access to the BBS (Chapman, 2009). Online forums also played a large part in the evolution of modern SMNs. These were the really descendents of the BBS popular in the 1970s and 80s, but came with a more user-friendly interface, making them easier for non-technical visitors to use (Ibid). The early 2000s brought some huge development in social networking and social media (Ibid). This age produced social networks sites (SNS) like Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. From those listed above Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were the main platforms for the ‘Arab Uprisings’ that started on January 25, 2011 in Tunisia, after the Tunisian youth, Mohammed Boazizi’s act of self-immolation and the opening of the first revolutionary hashtag ‘#Sidibouzid’ on Twitter, implying his hometown- as a way of showing discontent with those so-called ‘repressive regimes’ of the Arab World - particularly his country Tunisia. This has had dramatic spread to other countries of the region like Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Morocco, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Algeria and so on, which was the main role played by SMNs to spread revolutionary ideas about the ‘introduction of democracy’ by the will of the people. Indeed, from Morocco to Bahrain, the world has witnessed the rise of an independent social media and steadily increasing citizen engagement on the Internet that is expected to attract 100 million Arab users by 2015. These social networks inform, mobilize, entertain, create communities, increase transparency, and seek to hold governments accountable. To peruse the Arab social media sites, blogs, online videos, and other digital platforms is to witness what is arguably the most dramatic and unprecedented improvement in freedom of expression, association, and access to information in contemporary Arab history (Ghannam, February 3, 2011, p. 4). "
The Role of Social Media in Arab Spring
Since the first wave of “Arab Spring” revolution swept across parts of the Middle East and Northern Africa more than a year ago, it has been increasingly debated whether – or how much – Social Media tools played an instrumental role in that. Some observers deemed these tools so effective for organizing protests and revolutions in the toppling of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt that the uprisings were described as Twitter / Facebook Revolutions. In an inevitable backlash, others have pointed out that revolutions happened long before computers were invented. Although the uprisings are far from over and the digital data is still flowing in million bytes, this paper will attempt to analyze how crucial a role Social Media and other digital communication technologies can play during a crisis by taking Arab Spring as a test case. From enabling people to disseminate information and organize events in an instant, to providing alternative press in authoritarian societies with little or no freedom of expression, it will argue that Social Media is qualitatively different from conventional media in empowering citizens and therefore its effects on shaping the course of a crisis are also qualitatively different. It will further argue that although each country’s circumstances are different and more research on the effects of online activism is needed, Social Media and digital technology likely played a crucial role in helping turn what had been undercurrents of dissent into open revolt in Arab world. It is not to say that these technologies are sufficient –or even necessary – to achieve political reform. Nevertheless, communication technologies deserve credit as a contributing factor in these democratic revolutions to the extent that Arab uprisings would not have happened at the speed and in the manner in which they did without Social Media.
2015
Social media networks were at the centre of the dramatic events in 2011 events widely referred to as 'the Arab Spring' uprising or revolution. This thesis investigates the role of social media networks (such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) in facilitating political mobilisation and the creation of a new Arab public sphere. The thesis asks whether the Arab Spring revolutions would have even happened in the absence of social media networks. The analysis will focus specifically on Egypt and how these networks acted as a catalyst and tool for mobilisation and how they shifted the balance of power between civilian activists and the authoritarian regime in the uprisings that occurred in 2011, 2012 and 2013. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………….1 ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………............2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………………….3 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………………...5 CHAPTER 1: THE EGYPTIAN UPRISINGS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS ………………………………………………………………………………………..13 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The seeds of the Egyptian uprisings 1.3 Facebook political activism in Egypt 1.4 Networks of outrage and hope 1.5 The strength of weak ties 1.6 Networks of antagonism and hate 1.7 Conclusion CHAPTER 2: THE NETWORK SOCIETY THESIS AND THE EMERGENCE OF NEW ARAB PUBLIC SPHERE………………………………………………………………………………….28 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The dawn of the Arab networked society 2.3 Dimensions of the network society 2.4 The democratic nature of the Arab public sphere 2.5 Communication power in the networked society 2.6 Networks vs. the state 2.7 Networks vs. networks 2.8 The state vs. networks 2.9 Conclusion CHAPTER 3: THE POWER OF EXTERNAL ACTORS…………………………………….. 51 3.2.2 Nawaa activism 3.2.3 WikiLeaks and the new Arab public sphere 3.2.4 WikiLeaks revolutions, truthful or fallacy? 3.3 The role of Aljazeera 3.3.1 The power making news network 3.3.2 Aljazeera vs. the military regime 3.3.3 The Aljazeera effect 3.4 Hacktivism and the Arab Spring uprisings 3.4.1 Acting together: Anonymous and Telcomix 3.4.2 Operation Egypt 3.5 Conclusion CHAPTER 4: INFORMATION WITHIN A REVOLUTION: THE ROLE OF WEB 2.0 PLATFORMS…………………………………………………………………………… 80 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The impact of web 2.0 on the Egyptian uprisings 4.3 Phase one: outrage and hope 4.4 Phase two: instability and distrust 4.5 Phase three: disinformation and criticism 4.6 Phase four: antagonism and hate 4.7 Facebook pages 4.8 Facebook data 4.9 Facebook networks of the pro-military and pro-Ikhwan groups 4.10 Facebook media networks involved with social media and key players in the conflict 4.11 Facebook trends used by the two parties 4.12 The clashing of networks 4.13 Twitter feeds 4.14 YouTube pages 4.15 Conclusion CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………………….. 127 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….. …133 14 CHAPTER 1 THE EGYPTIAN UPRISINGS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS
Social Media & the Arab Spring: How communication technology shapes socio-political change
Orient: German Journal for Politics, Economics and Culture of the Middle East, 2016
Although social media was not insignificant, we need to take a wider view examining the interac- tion between interpersonal communication, social media, and satellite TV to understand how the Arab Spring was documented and witnessed by local and global audiences, and how the protests were mobilised. Social media was a clearly important catalyst for the uprisings, but it may also ex- plain why the Arab Spring failed in the medium-term: Multimedia and multi-platform communica- tion environments, which facilitated the rapid diffusion of information, are good at supporting the kind of loose coordination necessary for defenestrating one system of authority. But they are not (yet) good at supporting the kind of deep and sustained coordination that designing and support- ing new political authority requires.
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.
The Revolutionary Role of the New Media: the Arab Spring Experience
The Arab revolutions or “Arab Spring” that have taking place in some Middle Eastern countries since the end of 2010, have highlighted the significant role of modern information-communication technologies include mobile phones and internet-based applications such as email, blogs, forums, social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter) and voice over internet programs such as Skype, as well as self- broadcasting sites such as Youtoube. This study is a descriptive one which tries to observe how new media outlets were used to achieve the goals of the popular upraise in the Arab world. The data and information are collected through observational analysis of selected websites, blog, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts of activist or political groups from Tunisia and Egypt. The theoretical basis of this study is the theory of cybersociety or the second media age thesis which differentiate between communication through the broad broadcast media and the interactive communication through internet