Did digital media really "cause" the Arab Spring, or is it an important factor of the story behind what might become democracy's fourth wave? An unlikely network of citizens used digital media to start a cascade of social protest that ultimately toppled four of the world's most entrenched dictators. Howard and Hussain find that the complex causal recipe includes several economic, political and cultural factors, but that digital media is consistently one of the most important sufficient and necessary conditions for explaining both the fragility of regimes and the success of social movements. This book looks at not only the unexpected evolution of events during the Arab Spring, but the deeper history of creative digital activism throughout the region.
What is the role of social media on fundamental change in Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa? Online Arab Spring responds to this question, considering five countries: Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, and Tunisia, along with additional examples. The book asks why the penetration rate for social media differs in different countries: are psychological and social factors at play? Each chapter considers national identity, the legitimacy crisis, social capital, information and media literacy, and socialization. Religious attitudes are introduced as a key factor in social media, with Arabic countries in the Middle East and North Africa being characterized by Islamic trends. The insight gained will be helpful for analysing online social media effects internationally, and predicting future movements in a social context. provides innovative interdisciplinary research, incorporating media studies, cultural aspects, identity and psychology presents a detailed study of factors such as national heritage, cultural homogeneity, belief system and consumer ethnocentrism focuses on religious attitudes in the context of online media
In this book, NPR social media chief Andy Carvin - hailed by The Guardian as 'the man who tweets revolutions' - offers a first hand recap of the Arab Spring. Part memoir, part history, the book includes intimate stories of the revolutionaries who fought for freedom on the streets and across the internet - stories that might have never been told before the days of social media.
The Arab Spring unleashed forces of liberation and social justice that swept across North Africa and the Middle East with unprecedented speed, ferocity, and excitement. Although the future of the democratic uprisings against oppressive authoritarian regimes remains uncertain in many places, the revolutionary wave that started in Tunisia in December 2010 has transformed how the world sees Arab peoples and politics. Bringing together the knowledge of activists, scholars, journalists, and policy experts uniquely attuned to the pulse of the region, Dispatches from the Arab Spring offers an urgent and engaged analysis of a remarkable ongoing world-historical event that is widely misinterpreted in the West. Tracing the flows of protest, resistance, and counterrevolution in every one of the countries affected by this epochal change—from Morocco to Iraq and Syria to Sudan—the contributors provide ground-level reports and new ways of teaching about and understanding the Middle East in general, and contextualizing the social upheavals and political transitions that defined the Arab Spring in particular. Rejecting outdated and invalid (yet highly influential) paradigms to analyze the region—from depictions of the “Arab street” as a mindless, reactive mob to the belief that Arab culture was “unfit” for democratic politics—this book offers fresh insights into the region’s dynamics, drawing from social history, political geography, cultural creativity, and global power politics. Dispatches from the Arab Spring is an unparalleled introduction to the changing Middle East and offers the most comprehensive and accurate account to date of the uprisings that profoundly reshaped North Africa and the Middle East. Contributors: Sheila Carapico, U of Richmond; Nouri Gana, UCLA; Toufic Haddad; Adam Hanieh, SOAS/U of London; Toby C. Jones, Rutgers U; Anjali Kamat; Khalid Medani, McGill U; Merouan Mekouar; Maya Mikdashi, NYU; Paulo Gabriel Hilu Pinto, U Federal Fluminense, Brazil; Jillian Schwedler, Hunter College, CUNY; Ahmad Shokr; Susan Slyomovics, UCLA; Haifa Zangana.
The former Google executive and political activist tells the story of the Egyptian revolution he helped ignite through the power of social media. In the summer of 2010, thirty-year-old Google executive Wael Ghonim anonymously launched a Facebook page to protest the death of an Egyptian man at the hands of security forces. The page’s following expanded quickly and moved from online protests to a nonconfrontational movement. On January 25, 2011, Tahrir Square resounded with calls for change. Yet just as the revolution began in earnest, Ghonim was captured and held for twelve days of brutal interrogation. After he was released, he gave a tearful speech on national television, and the protests grew more intense. Four days later, the president of Egypt was gone. In this riveting story, Ghonim takes us inside the movement and shares the keys to unleashing the power of crowds in the age of social networking. “A gripping chronicle of how a fear-frozen society finally topples its oppressors with the help of social media.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Revolution 2.0 excels in chronicling the roiling tension in the months before the uprising, the careful organization required and the momentum it unleashed.” —NPR.org
The unrests, riots, revolutions, and civil wars throughout the Arab Spring have undoubtedly initiated a series of chain reactions on Arab and African soil. The research in this book analyzes the use of the Internet and social media platforms in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria, in order to clarify the relevance to the Arab Spring uprisings. (Series: Internet Economics / Internetokonomie - Vol. 8)
Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of liberation'' versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.
"Following the Arab Spring, the use of social media has become instrumental in organising activist movements and spreading political dissent in the Middle East. New online behaviours have transformed traditional communication channels, enabling young people of all backgrounds to feel politically empowered. But now that spring has turned to winter, what are the long-term implications of internet activism in the region? Social Media in the Arab World provides a unique insight into the role of online communications as a force for change in the Gulf States. Featuring examples as diverse as neo-patrimonial politics in Saudi Arabia and the ways an online presence affects the status of women in Kuwait, the chapters examine shifts in the political, social and religious identities of citizens as a result of increased digital activism. With contributions from a variety of inter-disciplinary experts, this wide-ranging study examines the consequences of changing power dynamics brought about by popular social media. In doing so, this book offers an original perspective on the long-term implications of internet usage in the Arab world and is essential reading for students and researchers working across the region."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
Social Media and the Politics of Reportage explores the journalistic challenges, issues and opportunities that have risen as a result of social media increasingly being used as a form of crisis reporting within the field of global journalism, with a focus on the protests during the 'Arab Spring'.
How social media is giving rise to a chaotic new form of politics As people spend increasing proportions of their daily lives using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, they are being invited to support myriad political causes by sharing, liking, endorsing, or downloading. Chain reactions caused by these tiny acts of participation form a growing part of collective action today, from neighborhood campaigns to global political movements. Political Turbulence reveals that, in fact, most attempts at collective action online do not succeed, but some give rise to huge mobilizations—even revolutions. Drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events, this book shows how mobilizations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable, and often unsustainable. To better understand this unruly new force in the political world, the authors use experiments that test how social media influence citizens deciding whether or not to participate. They show how different personality types react to social influences and identify which types of people are willing to participate at an early stage in a mobilization when there are few supporters or signals of viability. The authors argue that pluralism is the model of democracy that is emerging in the social media age—not the ordered, organized vision of early pluralists, but a chaotic, turbulent form of politics. This book demonstrates how data science and experimentation with social data can provide a methodological toolkit for understanding, shaping, and perhaps even predicting the outcomes of this democratic turbulence.
