31,022 research outputs found
Youth Activism and Public Space in Egypt
Examines youth activists' use of virtual and physical public spaces before, during, and after the January 25 Revolution. Profiles three organizations and analyzes the power and limitations of social media to spur civic action, as well as the role of art
Identity crisis: how ideological and rhetorical failures cost Egyptians their revolution
Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2019The Egyptian uprising, which began on January 25, 2011, and ended on February 11, 2011, culminated in the ending of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign as dictator. After free elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood ascended to power in the country, they were ousted in a military coup d'eÌtat only one year after their ascension to power and were replaced by former military general Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. The symptoms which led the country to rise up against Mubarak continue to exist under el-Sisi today, indicating that no revolution really took place. This paper answers the question, "why did the revolution fail?", offering a rhetorical reason for the revolution's failure. The uprisings, which were billed as decentralized, offer unique opportunities for analysis of rhetorical strategy. This paper uses the reconstitutive-discourse model, a critical model which examines a rhetor's reconstitution of their audience's character, to examine the rhetoric of three different parties in the revolution. First, it examines the rhetoric of all protestors irrespective of source via Twitter and on the ground protestors; next it looks at the rhetoric of Wael Ghonim, who is credited with instigating the uprisings, and Mohammed ElBaradei, an influential figure who became interim vice-president in the aftermath of the uprisings. The study found that first, the uprisings were not really decentralized and indeed has leaders. Further, rhetorical failures on the part of its leaders caused the uprisings to fail in their goal of democratic revolution
Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval
Social media represent powerful tools of mass communication and information
diffusion. They played a pivotal role during recent social uprisings and
political mobilizations across the world. Here we present a study of the Gezi
Park movement in Turkey through the lens of Twitter. We analyze over 2.3
million tweets produced during the 25 days of protest occurred between May and
June 2013. We first characterize the spatio-temporal nature of the conversation
about the Gezi Park demonstrations, showing that similarity in trends of
discussion mirrors geographic cues. We then describe the characteristics of the
users involved in this conversation and what roles they played. We study how
roles and individual influence evolved during the period of the upheaval. This
analysis reveals that the conversation becomes more democratic as events
unfold, with a redistribution of influence over time in the user population. We
conclude by observing how the online and offline worlds are tightly
intertwined, showing that exogenous events, such as political speeches or
police actions, affect social media conversations and trigger changes in
individual behavior.Comment: Best Paper Award at ACM Web Science 201
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Transnational NGOs between Popular Uprising and Authoritarian Regime: Developments in Egypt
Scholars differentiate the concepts of internationalism and transnationalism. While the first refers to the connectivity between macro institutions such as states, multinational corporations and other institutionalized actors within and beyond national boundaries, the second term emphasizes public movements, organizations and communities engaged in de-territorialized socioâcultural, political and economic activities. This paper focuses on the role of transnational NGOs (TNGOs) in recent developments in Egypt. The current scholarly debate on the soâcalled âArab springâ considers the mobilization of disempowered youth, intense media-tech application and sustained international pressure as crucial to ousting authoritarian regimes in North Africa. Delineating the role of TNGOs complements such findings. TNGO activities and responses to the Egyptian uprising in 2011 and to the ensuing coup in 2013 reveal the capability of such organizations to balance civic transformational oriented mobilizations with state centred institutional considerations. Furthermore though TNGOs cannot directly change the current political stalemate in Egypt, the power elite might misinterpret the changing and sometimes contradictory positions of these organizations and might eventually encourage the return to authoritarianism. After introductory remarks on the background of the uprising, the paper proceeds to theoretical discussion of transnational engagement followed by recent historical and current empirical developments
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Exploring the democratic potential of online social networking: The scope and limitations of e-participation
Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Information Systems.The availability and promise of social networking technologies with their perceived open philosophy has increasingly inspired citizens around the world to participate in political activity on the Web. Recent examples range from opposing public policies, such as government funding cuts, to organizing revolutionary social movements, such as those in the Middle East and North Africa. Although online spaces create remarkable opportunities for various forms of political action, there are concerns over the power of existing institutions to control and even censor such interaction spaces. The objective of this article is to draw together different insights on the online engagement phenomenon, highlighting both its potential and limitations as a mechanism for fostering democratic debate and influencing policy making. We examine recent examples from Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Finally, we summarize the implications of our work and outline directions for further research
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