Linesch 1 Sarah Linesch Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric, Section 13 Dr.

Erin Dietel-McLaughlin 15 November 2013 A Democratic Social Media The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 has often been referred to as a Twitter Revolution due to the use of social media to organize protests and distribute information around the world. While it is apparent that social media was used extensively during this time, many people debate whether social media truly had a meaningful effect on the revolution, if it has any meaningful effect at all. The Arab region is one of the most repressive areas in the world, but the introduction of the Internet allowed the Egyptian people to discuss political and social issues in a sphere free from government restraints. Social media allowed Egyptians to participate as politically active citizens online, since the repressive nature of the Mubarak regime did not allow for this freedom offline. This increased freedom allowed the Egyptian people to experience true democracy online, which eventually led to the formation of an opposition movement and a revolution, and resulted in the resignation of authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak. Social media facilitated the revolution by creating an online democratic atmosphere in an efficient and low cost way because it united a wide variety of people and allowed them to express their views with others online, free from discrimination and punishment. The authoritative nature of the government under President Mubarak limited Egyptian political freedom and hindered democracy throughout the country. President Mubarak gained power in 1981 and his thirty year administration was plagued with government corruption,

Linesch 2 political repression and economic problems (Longtime). The Egyptian government is run on a dominant party system in which the National Democratic Party, the main government party, controls a majority of the power, while smaller parties did not have any significant power. Throughout his regime President Mubarak enforced the Emergency Law, which gave the government the ability to arrest and detain people indefinitely without charging them. This law drastically increased police brutality towards citizens and banned any non-governmental political activity, such as protesting and non-governmental political organizations, in order to prevent an uprising of the people against the government (el-Nawawy 74). High unemployment rates among the youth, the rising cost of living and inflation increased poverty and frustration levels of the Egyptian citizens; however, due to the dominant party system, the people had no means of improving their current situation (Lim 233). Without a strong political presence or a reliable, non-biased media system to help voice their concerns, Egyptian citizens needed a way to inform the world of their countrys problems, and the Internet proved to be the perfect tool because unlike the streets and courthouses, the online atmosphere was not restricted. The introduction of the Internet into Egypt diversified the media by exposing the people to differing viewpoints and political positions, which in turn created a desire for democracy among the Egyptian people. Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East and therefore acts as an important news source for other, smaller countries, but the press was highly restricted under the Mubarak administration. Up until 1990, the Egyptian government controlled all media in order to keep people uninformed and unable to participate in the political process (el-Nawawy 5). Journalists were censored and avoided criticizing the government and Mubarak administration because of the strict punishments and fines that could be given to them (elNawawy 77). Their audience depended on them to relay information as accurately as possible,

Linesch 3 since the audience was not usually able to witness events firsthand, so media has the power to influence public opinion drastically (Hamdy 196-197). Once the Internet was introduced to the region, Egyptians were exposed to outside media not controlled by the government and were able to experience true democracy for the first time and express their political views in a more diverse online setting. The earliest evidence of online activism in Egypt was the Kefaya Movement in 2005, the first anti-Mubarak movement that largely influenced the Egyptian blogosphere. Prior to 2005 there were forty bloggers in Egypt, but after 2005 this number jumped to four hundred, and then up to eighteen hundred in 2006. Although the Kefaya Movement died out a year later, the Egyptian blogging environment continued to grow (Lim 236-239). With a growing political blog atmosphere, Egypt experienced a more increased online democracy because more and more people began to participate in online political discussion. Naila Hamdy and Ehab H. Gomaa write that, It was within this relatively freer media environment that the voice of Egypts activists grew louder (Hamdy 196). Through the use of social media, citizens could observe the corruption and problems that the existed in the government in an atmosphere free of government interference. Two scholars from the Journal of Communication, Naila Hamdy and Ehab H. Gomaa, conducted a study which compared how different media sources in Egypt portrayed the revolution from the period of January 25 through February 12, 2011. The study concluded that the state-controlled newspaper sources focused on the conflict that protesters created, whereas social media sources focused on the corruption of the government and the suffering of Egyptian citizens. Statistics show that 60% of the statecontrolled newspapers spoke of the countries problems in terms of a conspiracy and 15% spoke of the problems as chaos. This differed drastically from the 70% of the social media posts that spoke of the problems as revolutionary and the 15% that spoke of the problems as protests

Linesch 4 (Hamdy 202). These results highlight the drastic difference in reporting techniques between the state-controlled newspapers and social media. Without the introduction of the Internet, the revolution would not have occurred because the Egyptian citizens would have only been exposed to media that maintained a negative perception on the revolution, and therefore would have discouraged citizens from supporting the revolution. In Egypt, opinions differing from those of the government were not encouraged, so this new online sphere that allowed Egyptians to participate in the political process, enabled them to express their opinions free of restraint and punishment. Social media created a more democratic atmosphere by allowing a wide variety of people to participate in the political process, regardless of political preference or demographics. The Internet is able to create a more democratic environment because markers of gender, race, and class are less obvious in an online environment (Janack 2005, quoted in el-Nawawy 29). Anyone is able to express their views online and discuss them with others without fear of discrimination because of the egalitarian nature of the Internet. In the Egyptian political environment, only the ideas of the dominant party mattered because the smaller parties did not have significant power, but online everyone had an equal say in what he or she believed. In particular, Egypts youth took advantage of this increased political power because of the limited rights that they possessed in the political process. Ranging from ages 15 to 29, Egyptian youth made up one-third of the countrys population which created huge pressure on the job market and resulted in a 25% unemployment rate (Lim 235). Due to the lack of power that the youth possessed, they could not solve their problems through political participation in the government, so they took their frustrations online where there were no restrictions. Many scholars argue that the impact of social media on the revolution was negligible because internet access in Egypt only

Linesch 5 reached 30% of the country. However, youth made up 78% of the people with Internet access and who contributed the most to the formation and growth of the opposition movement (Lim 235). Young people formed an opposition movement through an online medium uninfluenced by the government, and then used the tools of social media to spread the movement around Egypt and the world. Social media pave[ed] the way for democratization offline, by introducing a virtual democratic atmosphere and then urging people to protest for democracy in the real world (el-Nawawy 6). The youth used social media to promote online democracy by providing an atmosphere where citizens with common views could unite and form an opposition movement. Many scholars believe that social media was not effective in Egypt, and that the revolution would have occurred regardless if social media was used or not. Marko Papic and Sean Noonan argue that in order for a revolution to succeed, it requires organization, funding, and mass appeal. Papic and Noonan argue that social media is not useful for the organization of a revolution because strong leadership is not established. The internet is networked and not unified, so it is possible for different groups to split off and for new groups to form (Papic). With many different groups each sharing their own ideas online, it can be difficult to bring everyone together under one single movement. Although this argument is certainly plausible, this was not the case for the social media situation in Egypt. The Egyptians were not unified under the oppressive government and therefore social media served as a unifying tool. This is most prevalently seen through the creation of the Facebook page We Are Khaled Said. Khaled Said was a young Egyptian man who was beaten to death by police after he posted a YouTube video of Egyptian police distributing confiscated marijuana amongst themselves. The page, created by a Google executive named Wael Ghonim, showed photos of Khaled Saids beaten face and described how the attack

Linesch 6 was covered up by false police reports. The page attracted about 500,000 members and unified the Egyptian people by giving a face to the revolution (Crovitz). Merlyna Lim writes that injustices that provoke shared resentment and anger are often necessary to overcome barriers of fear and trigger actual participation in collective action (242). Through this Facebook page, Khaled Said became a martyr for the revolution and motivated the Egyptian people to fight for an end to the violence that the Mubarak regime inflicted. Citizens are more likely to participate in revolution if they are unionized with people who share the same views as they do, so social media serves as a tool that connects people with common views and gives them power to distribute their common message. The freedom offered by social media allowed the opposition movement to distribute its message and information rapidly around the world, therefore creating mass appeal. Papic and Noonan agree that mass appeal is created through social media, but they argue that it does not motivate people to want to participate in the movement because they can just follow the events online instead of actually participating. The Facebook page We are Khalid Said called for a protest in Tahir Square, Cairo on January 25, and 50,000 people confirmed online that they would be attending. On the first day of the protest, 80,000 people showed up in Tahir Square and the protest began to grow larger as it continued (Lim 243). The opposition succeeded in creating mass appeal, both online and offline, which helped lead to the success of the revolution. Papic and Noonan also suggest that social media is a weak tool for mobilization because the government can easily interfere and shut it down (Papic). The Egyptian government shut down internet and 3G access from January 28 to February 2, 2011, but this did not stop the revolution from occurring. Instead, the Egyptian protestors printed out poster and pamphlets, and passed them out on the streets to everyone walking by (Timeline). Gordon Crovitz argues that

Linesch 7 revolutions have always been social and involved media, and mentions how Thomas Paines pamphlet Common Sense is often credited with starting the American Revolution. Social media is a new form of online media, but nonetheless still involves the same principles that Common Sense hoped to accomplish back in 1776 (Crovitz). The revolution began in order to urge citizens to protest for democracy in a country that did not allow citizens to be politically active. Protestors printed out online posts and distributed on the streets, to ensure that every citizen was aware of government problems, regardless of if they had internet access or not (elNawawy 39). Therefore, the revolution was carried out offline, and social media unionized people by introducing democracy online. Social media succeeded as a method of promoting democracy because it unionized people in a fast and cost efficient way. Since most of the planning and distributing of information occurred online through Facebook and Twitter, the cost of the revolution was significantly lowered because the opposition movement did not need to pay in order to distribute its message to the world. Social media usage among the youth was high, with Facebook being the second most visited site in Egypt, behind Google, in December 2010 (Lim 235). Facebook brought people together, such as the case of the We are Khalid Said page, while Twitter relayed information to the protestors and the outside world. Scholars at Northwestern University conducted a study of the use of Twitter during the period of January 25 through February 11, 2011 to determine the highest trending topics on Twitter that related to Egypt. The study found that the words egypt, cairo, hosni_mubarak, and tahir were the highest trending topics that related to Egypt during this time (Choudhary 77). The study related these trending topics to other trending topics from around the world and concluded that the topics relating to Egypt got more action tweeting, retweeting and mentionsthan any other trending topics at the time. The study also

Linesch 8 concluded that most of these tweets related to negative sentiments about the repressive Egyptian government (80). This study shows that Twitter was used extensively during this time to relay information, both inside and outside of Egypt, and that many of the tweets expressed anger about the injustices that occurred in Egypt at the time. Through the use of Twitter, the opposition movement spread its message rapidly around the world, therefore thrusting Egypt into the spotlight and creating worldwide support. The effective use of social media in Egypt helped bring democracy to the country by uniting the Egyptians and providing an online atmosphere where they could share their concerns in order to rally for change. Social media was effective in Egypt as a democratizing tool because, while the Egyptian political environment did not give citizens the right to political participation, Egyptian citizens could participate in the political process online through social media. This united the people under one opposition movement with the main goal of implementing political change throughout the country. By increasing democracy online, the Egyptian citizens achieved democracy offline when President Hosni Mubarak agreed to resign as president and handed power over to the military on January 11, 2011 (Timeline). The success of social media as a democratizing tool in Egypt serves as a model for the rest of the world to show the power that social media can have. As long as restrictive, corrupt governments exist in the world, social media will serve as a useful tool to help democratize these countries. Social media is a tool that is used to create online democratic environments, but it is important to remember that it is not the sole force behind the revolution. Social media is best used as a tool for enhancing and empowering real-world action, and therefore must be combined with offline protesting tactics in order for a revolution to succeed (Raynes-Goldie & Walker, 2008, p. 161, quoted in el-Nawawy 208). By using social media to increase online democracy, and then protesting on the streets for

Linesch 9 offline democracy, the Egyptian citizens succeeded ousting the authoritarian President and bringing real-world democracy to Egypt.

Linesch 10 Works Cited

Choudhary, Alok, et al. "Social Media Evolution of the Egyptian Revolution." Communications of the ACM 55.5 (2012): 74-80. Print.

Crovitz, Gordon L. (2011, Feb 14). Information age: Egypt's revolution by social media. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/851447978?accountid=12874 El-Nawawy, Mohammed, and Sahar Khamis. Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement, and Citizen Journalism. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Print.

Hamdy, Naila and Gomaa, Ehab H. "Framing the Egyptian Uprising in Arabic Language Newspapers and Social Media. (Report)." Journal of communication 62.2 (2012): 195. Print.

Lim, Merlyna. Clicks, Cabs, and Coffee Houses: Social Media and Oppositional Movements in Egypt, 2004-2011. Journal of Communication 62.2 (2012): 1-23. Wiley Online Library. John Wiley and Sons, 23 Feb. 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.

Longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak sentenced to life in prison. 2013. The History Channel website. Nov 9 2013, 4:14. http://www.history.com/this-day-inhistory/longtime-egyptian-leader-hosni-mubarak-sentenced-to-life-in-prison. Papic, Marko, and Sean Noonan. Social Media as a Tool for Protest. Stratfor. Stratfor, 3 Feb. 2011. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.

Linesch 11 Timeline: Egypts Revolution Middle East Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera, 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.