Contentious information: Accounts of knowledge production, circulation and consumption in transitional Egypt

While the 2011 Egyptian Uprising renewed attention to revolutionary news platforms such as Al-Jazeera and Facebook, citizens continued to be understudied as active consumers of information. Yet citizens’ perceptions of their informational milieu and how they responded in consuming, processing, and interpreting facts offer crucial insight into the turbulent transition that followed the initial uprising. This study analyzes Egyptian citizens’ accounts of their information environment and practices amid socio-political change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 politically-engaged citizens from various political and professional backgrounds. Participants were asked to discuss the state of public discourse, the institutions responsible for the circulation of information, and their own practices to become informed, with on-going political controversies used as case studies. The findings are presented into two parts. The first part compiles responses regarding institutions (the state, broadcast media, and social media) which were found to be functionally interconnected and interdependent, forming Egypt’s information ecosystem. This ecosystem systematically rendered information elusive, equivocal, and unreliable, but also demonstrated the importance of official information, a tolerance for partisan news, and the complementary role of social media. The second part examines citizens’ practices (the characteristics of consumers, the types of sources they relied upon, and the tactics they employed to become informed) which constituted an information culture, the information ecosystem’s counterpart. This culture was characterized by skepticism, mistrust, ingenuity, bias, and elitism, with sources being conceived as individuals and classified according to their proximity and type of knowledge; and consumers employing tactics involving the parsing of subtexts and the juxtaposing of claims from multiple texts. The characteristics, sources, and tactics of consumers reflected an information culture influenced by and responding to socio-political conditions. Drawing on both the disciplines of media and information studies, this study offers a new approach for exploring the societal dimensions of information through the narratives of citizens on the production, circulation, and consumption of information in the context of dramatically shifting political and media landscapes. Besides advancing information practices research beyond traditional settings, the fieldwork was conducted in the weeks prior to the controversial overthrow of Egypt’s first elected president and therefore provides insights into a dramatic episode in the country’s transition

Moderating Islam in democratic openings: Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt is considered by many to be in a state of paralysis today due to the culmination of events succeeding the 2011 revolution while Tunisia is perceived as significantly more successful in its democratic achievements. Despite the fact that Tunisia sustained an interim government for three years that was dispersed due to varying degrees of discontent within the Tunisian population, its progression has been much greater than that of Egypt which had similar internal issues. This thesis seeks to determine the reasons behind the consequences of Islamists ascension to political power in both Egypt and Tunisia since the Arab Spring. Various factors in the transitional period of both nations, including their historical backgrounds, the military involvement, economies, civil society, and Islamist parties will be important in examining the fates of both transition processes. The reactions towards various obstacles faced during the past three years can all help to explain the paths taken by Tunisia and Egypt

Quantifying echo chamber effects in information spreading over political communication networks

Echo chambers in online social networks, in which users prefer to interact only with ideologically-aligned peers, are believed to facilitate misinformation spreading and contribute to radicalize political discourse. In this paper, we gauge the effects of echo chambers in information spreading phenomena over political communication networks. Mining 12 million Twitter messages, we reconstruct a network in which users interchange opinions related to the impeachment of the former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. We define a continuous {political position} parameter, independent of the network's structure, that allows to quantify the presence of echo chambers in the strongly connected component of the network, reflected in two well-separated communities of similar sizes with opposite views of the impeachment process. By means of simple spreading models, we show that the capability of users in propagating the content they produce, measured by the associated spreadability, strongly depends on their attitude. Users expressing pro-impeachment sentiments are capable to transmit information, on average, to a larger audience than users expressing anti-impeachment sentiments. Furthermore, the users' spreadability is correlated to the diversity, in terms of political position, of the audience reached. Our method can be exploited to identify the presence of echo chambers and their effects across different contexts and shed light upon the mechanisms allowing to break echo chambers.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary Information available as ancillary fil

Upravljanje mržnjom: strategije diskursa koje elitni članovi političke stranke AKP koriste na Twitteru kako bi opravdali povlačenje iz Istanbulske konvencije

Under the AKP rule, Turkey has increasingly become a populist authoritarian regime. Since the day it came to power, the AKP has promoted itself as a servant of the Turkish people. Recent studies have shown that populism under the AKP era has become a dominant political strategy. Scholars have researched it as a discourse, a communicative approach appealing to the people and a way of mobilizing the masses. However, these explanations of the AKP era populism still maintain their demonstrativeness; this phenomenon needs to be reviewed using a new, holistic approach. Therefore, this study problematizes the AKP era populism as a dispositive and tries to understand it through a holistic approach. To test this hypothesis empirically, the study focuses on the decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention as the case study. It investigates how AKP elites justified the decision on Twitter throughout March 2021. In this context, the study focuses on AKP elites’ and pro-AKP trolls’ tweets and applies multiple methods in the process. First, the tweets of AKP elites were analyzed via the discourse-historical approach. Then, in order to understand how these tweets reflect on pro-AKP hashtag campaigns, #GüçlüKadınGüçlüTürkiye and #Morardınızmı tags were scrutinized thematically. The results have shown social media to be the most crucial technology for Dava to simplify the complex social issues and introduce a polarized mentality into daily life. Dava has significantly enriched the economy of enmity and vice versa, and has turned politics into governance – which is only possible through spreading the feelings of hatred.Pod vladavinom Stranke pravde i razvitka (AKP) Turska je poprimila gotovo sve odlike populističkog autoritarnog režima. Od dana kada je stupila na vlast, AKP se promovirala kao sluga turskog naroda. Nedavne studije pokazale su kako je populizam u doba AKP-a postao dominantna politička strategija. Znanstvenici ga istražuju kao diskurs, komunikacijski pristup koji apelira na narod i strategiju za mobilizaciju masa. Međutim, ova objašnjenja populizma u doba AKP-a još uvijek su prilično demonstrativna; ovaj fenomen treba istražiti s pomoću novog, holističkog pristupa. Stoga ova studija problematizira populizam u doba AKP-a kao dispozitiv i pokušava ga razumjeti kroz holistički pristup. Kako bi se ova hipoteza provjerila empirijski, studija se usredotočuje na odluku o povlačenju iz Istanbulske konvencije. Istražuje kako su elite AKP-a opravdale odluku na Twitteru tijekom ožujka 2021. U tom kontekstu studija se usredotočuje na tvitove elita AKP-a i trolova koji zagovaraju AKP te primjenjuje više metoda u tom procesu. Kao prvo, tvitovi elita AKP-a analizirani su diskursno-povijesnim pristupom. Zatim, kako bi se razumjelo kako se ovi tvitovi odražavaju na hashtag kampanje koje zagovaraju AKP, oznake #GüçlüKadınGüçlüTürkiye i #Morardınızmı temeljito su ispitane. Rezultati su pokazali da su društveni mediji najvažnija tehnologija za Davu kad je u pitanju pojednostavljenje složenih društvenih pitanja i uvođenje polariziranog mentaliteta u svakodnevni život. Dava je značajno pridonijela promociji neprijateljstva (koje joj ide u prilog), a politiku je pretvorila u vladavinu – što je moguće samo kroz širenje osjećaja mržnje

ISLAM, SMOS, AND THE ARAB SPRING: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The self-immolation of Mohammed Bouzaizi, a Tunisian fruit vendor, in the front of the Sidi Bouzid regional council ignited the most widespread demonstrations the Middle East has ever witnessed. During the months that followed demonstrators demanded an end to corrupt regimes through both peaceful and vio lent means. In Morocco, swift constitutional action suppressed protests. In Egypt, 18 days of protests led to the removal of President Hosni Mubarak and the National Democratic Party; the Party\u27s office was soon replaced by a military regime. The protest events of 2011 and 2012 will continue to challenge Western perceptions of the Middle East. The demonstrations forced journalists and scholars to get past images of the Cold War mujahedeen, terrorist organizations, and the Iranian nuclear program. During the initial months of what some refer to as \u27the Arab Spring,\u27 reporters paraded around the idea that the Middle East was suddenly looking for a liberal democratic solution. They painted portraits of secular protestors trying to remove corrupt tyrants. Such portraits are misleading partial truths. Religion and social movements continue to be closely intertwined, in the Middle East as elsewhere. Devout Muslims across the Middle East are finding new ways to carry their beliefs, rituals, and practices over into social movement groups. The popular mobilization in the recent Arab Spring is an excellent opportunity to explore these new ways. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between contemporary Islam and social movement mobilization. How is Islam being carried over into every function of a social movement organization? A new generation of protestors has emerged in the Middle East, but one thing is for certain: one fruit vendor\u27s self-immolation, the fall of oppressive dictators, and over a year of demonstrations does not unravel the intimate relationship between Islam and the millions of devout Muslims living in the Middle East

U.S. Religious Landscape on Twitter

Religiosity is a powerful force shaping human societies, affecting domains as diverse as economic growth or the ability to cope with illness. As more religious leaders and organizations as well as believers start using social networking sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), online activities become important extensions to traditional religious rituals and practices. However, there has been lack of research on religiosity in online social networks. This paper takes a step toward the understanding of several important aspects of religiosity on Twitter, based on the analysis of more than 250k U.S. users who self-declared their religions/belief, including Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Specifically, (i) we examine the correlation of geographic distribution of religious people between Twitter and offline surveys. (ii) We analyze users' tweets and networks to identify discriminative features of each religious group, and explore supervised methods to identify believers of different religions. (iii) We study the linkage preference of different religious groups, and observe a strong preference of Twitter users connecting to others sharing the same religion.Comment: 10 page

Online social media in the Syria conflict: encompassing the extremes and the in-betweens

The Syria conflict has been described as the most socially mediated in history, with online social media playing a particularly important role. At the same time, the ever-changing landscape of the conflict leads to difficulties in applying analytical approaches taken by other studies of online political activism. Therefore, in this paper, we use an approach that does not require strong prior assumptions or the proposal of an advance hypothesis to analyze Twitter and YouTube activity of a range of protagonists to the conflict, in an attempt to reveal additional insights into the relationships between them. By means of a network representation that combines multiple data views, we uncover communities of accounts falling into four categories that broadly reflect the situation on the ground in Syria. A detailed analysis of selected communities within the anti-regime categories is provided, focusing on their central actors, preferred online platforms, and activity surrounding “real world” events. Our findings indicate that social media activity in Syria is considerably more convoluted than reported in many other studies of online political activism, suggesting that alternative analytical approaches can play an important role in this type of scenario

The Dimensionality Of Political Ideology In The Arab World Comparing The Structure Of Political Attitudes On Political Parties’ And Mass Publics’ Levels In Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, And Morocco

This dissertation explores the structure of political attitudes on the political parties’, as well as mass public levels in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. I present the dimensionality, nature and structuration of political ideologies in these countries. In doing so, I describe the determinants, constituents, and components constructing parties’ and citizens’ political maps that are constantly competing for electoral, as well as actual, relevance within all societal domains. This work provides the first systematic empirical analysis of party systems in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. It explores three basic characteristics of the party system in each case: the number of relevant parties, level of ideological polarization and the degree of parties’ institutionalization. The dissertation begins with analyzing political parties’ policy positions obtained from a content analysis of their manifestos. The content analysis measure parties’ political preferences on thirty political issues distributed on seven policy domains: foreign relations, democracy, economy, religion, culture, welfare and social groups while party politics literature in the Arab World is increasingly attempting to identify the most relevant political conflicts in the region, the empirical investigation of parties’ policy preferences in the region is non-existent. I provide evidence that political parties’ attitudes structure, political ideology, is organized on two dimensions: an economic, as well as a cultural one. The extent to which the economy should be regulated and whether Islam should play an active role in organizing politics and society constitute the main conflicts constructing the attitudes structure of Arab political parties in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. Next, I analyze the attitudes structures of mass publics in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco to compare these to their political parties’ counterparts. Using the Sixth Wave of the World Values Survey, 2010-2014, the dissertation concludes that mass publics’ attitudes structures in these four Arab nations are differ from their parties’ equivalents’. Ordinary citizens in the Arab World seem to structure their attitudes according to four dimensions: Welfare, Religion, Economy and Culture. Despite the extensive literature arguing that political elites and actors, mainly political parties, influence the structure of attitudes on the mass level, this dissertation presents evidence that contradicts such an assessment. This result indicates that elite political preferences may prove irrelevant in shaping mass publics political ideologies in certain contexts such as the Arab World. It also corroborates the assumption suggesting that political parties compete on a different ideological space than citizens. The attitudes structure on the mass level is shown to be more complex than that on the parties’ level. Finally, I present an in-depth analysis of Algerian, Egyptian, and Jordanian and Moroccan party systems. The evidence indicates that party systems’ number of relevant actors, level of ideological polarization and the degree of institutionalization differ across countries. Morocco reflects the most stable system with few stable parties, medium level of ideological polarization and parties’ with strong organizations and deep roots in society. On the other hand, Jordan exhibits the weakest party system with a single relevant mass party, absent ideological polarization and weak parties. Algeria and Egypt withered similar political histories producing party systems with a strong state backed party and few strong opposition actors, high ideological polarization between Islamists and liberals and few highly institutionalized parties