Social media and protest mobilization: evidence from the Tunisian revolution

This article explores how social media acted as a catalyst for protest mobilization during the Tunisian revolution in late 2010 and early 2011. Using evidence from protests we argue that social media acted as an important resource for popular mobilization against the Ben Ali regime. Drawing on insights from “resource mobilization theory”, we show that social media (1) allowed a “digital elite” to break the national media blackout through brokering information for mainstream media; (2) provided a basis for intergroup collaboration for a large “cycle of protest”; (3) reported event magnitudes that raised the perception of success for potential free riders, and (4) provided additional “emotional mobilization” through depicting the worst atrocities associated with the regime’s response to the protests. These findings are based on background talks with Tunisian bloggers and digital activists and a revealed preference survey conducted among a sample of Tunisian internet users (February–May 2012)

New media and conflict after the Arab spring

Sean Aday ..

Public journalism and the power of the press: Exploring the framesetting effects of the news

An experimental design was used to test the “framesetting” effects of different news formats, and to provide a quantitative test of the influence of civic journalism on audience attitudes. Framesetting is posited as a new theory bridging agenda setting and framing research. It occurs when audiences not only ascribe importance to an issue covered prominently in the press, but simultaneously adopt the media frame of that issue. In this study, 199 adults from the general population were randomly assigned to five conditions: two conventional journalism conditions employing an “objectivist” frame, two civic journalism conditions employing an “advocacy frame”, and a control condition. Participants read stories about crime for a week and then filled out a questionnaire. Results show that advocacy-framed stories had a greater framesetting effect than did objectivist-framed stories, which had a minimal framesetting effect. Those in the advocacy conditions were statistically more likely to rank crime as the most important topic facing the country and their community, constructed fewer arguments when asked to name causes and solutions for crime, and were more likely to volunteer solutions consistent with the stories they read. Those in the objectivist conditions were more likely than control participants—but less likely than advocacy participants—to rate crime the most important problem. They were not different from control in terms of the number of causes and solutions offered, or in terms of the types of causes and solutions they recommended. In addition, those who read advocacy-framed stories were more likely to offer favorable opinions of the city they read about and its crime problem than were those who read objectivist and control stories. Minimal effects were found in terms of increasing civic capital in advocacy audiences. A cognitive-based model for explaining the framesetting effect is proposed

Public journalism and the power of the press: Exploring the framesetting effects of the news

An experimental design was used to test the “framesetting” effects of different news formats, and to provide a quantitative test of the influence of civic journalism on audience attitudes. Framesetting is posited as a new theory bridging agenda setting and framing research. It occurs when audiences not only ascribe importance to an issue covered prominently in the press, but simultaneously adopt the media frame of that issue. In this study, 199 adults from the general population were randomly assigned to five conditions: two conventional journalism conditions employing an “objectivist” frame, two civic journalism conditions employing an “advocacy frame”, and a control condition. Participants read stories about crime for a week and then filled out a questionnaire. Results show that advocacy-framed stories had a greater framesetting effect than did objectivist-framed stories, which had a minimal framesetting effect. Those in the advocacy conditions were statistically more likely to rank crime as the most important topic facing the country and their community, constructed fewer arguments when asked to name causes and solutions for crime, and were more likely to volunteer solutions consistent with the stories they read. Those in the objectivist conditions were more likely than control participants—but less likely than advocacy participants—to rate crime the most important problem. They were not different from control in terms of the number of causes and solutions offered, or in terms of the types of causes and solutions they recommended. In addition, those who read advocacy-framed stories were more likely to offer favorable opinions of the city they read about and its crime problem than were those who read objectivist and control stories. Minimal effects were found in terms of increasing civic capital in advocacy audiences. A cognitive-based model for explaining the framesetting effect is proposed

Syria in the Arab Spring: The integration of Syria’s conflict with the Arab uprisings, 2011–2013

How did Syria’s conflict interact with the broader wave of regional protest known as the Arab Spring? This article uses a unique, complete Twitter dataset of tweets including the word “Syria” in English or Arabic to empirically test how Syria’s conflict was discussed online. The analysis shows a high level of interaction between Syria and other Arab countries through 2011. Other Arab countries experiencing popular protests (“Arab Spring countries”) were referenced far more often in 2011 than were Syria’s immediate neighbors, while keyword analysis shows the framing of the conflict in terms of Syria’s “regime” aligned the conflict with other Arab uprisings. In 2012–2013 this changed sharply, with significantly fewer mentions of other Arab countries, particularly Arab Spring countries, more fundraising and political appeals across the Gulf, and growing Islamization. These findings offer one of the first empirical demonstrations of the integration and disintegration of a unified Arab discourse from 2011 to 2013, with significant implications for theories of the diffusion of protest and ideas

Syria’s socially mediated civil war

Introduction: In this report from the USIP PeaceTech Initiative, a team of scholars from George Washington University and American University analyze the role of social media in Syria\u27s civil war. The report focuses primarily on group dynamics, activist organizations\u27 use of online media, and the relationship between new and traditional media. It draws on a public conference held in Washington, D.C., in September 2012 with Syrian activists, Western journalists, and policy analysts, as well as on a private workshop held in April 2013 at Stanford University with academic researchers and leading research scientists from top technology firms. It presents novel empirical research on Twitter conversations about Syria that demonstrates important new findings about differences across Arabic and English users, and about the emergence of distinct, insular clusters of discourse. This report is part of the ongoing Blogs and Bullets project led by USIP\u27s PeaceTech Initiative, in partnership with George Washington University\u27s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. It builds on two other reports, published in 2010 and 2012: "Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics" and "Blogs and Bullets II: New Media and Conflict After the Arab Spring.