The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Shaping the Arab Spring

Research Paper for POLI-340: Developing Areas Middle East

Author: Wesley Ellis Student Number: 260356363 Due Date: Thursday, November 24, 2011

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

Introduction
2011 is proving to be a very volatile year for the Arab world. The death of a single man in the dessert has sparked regime changes and protests that have authoritarian governments scrambling and in some cases failing to react in time. Here, the focus will be on four countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. At the time of writing, 3 have experienced regime changes, while Bahrain's elites have managed to remain in power. Egypt and Tunisia saw relatively non-violent and quick transitions. Libya on the other hand devolved into a civil war which lasted from February to October 2011. Bahrain witnessed massive protests and a Tahrir square style occupation of Pearl roundabout, but these protests were forcibly disbanded by the government.

ICTs and usage rates

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) refer to a wide range of technologies, not all of which are relevant. This paper's central concern is with cell phones, social media and satellite TV. Obviously the terms social media is a bit vague, but this choice of wording is intentional as the term is meant to effectively refer to a number of services. Here social media will refer to services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs. Usage restrictions exist for each of these technologies and these restrictions determine both the kind of message and the kind of user. There are important structural differences between a satellite TV show which is a one-to-many medium, SMS which is essentially one-to-one and Facebook which can facilitate many-to-many interactions. Any examination of the effects of these technologies assumes that citizens have access to them. The table below contain usage rates for cell phones, the Internet and Facebook for the countries being examined as well as Canada for comparison. Percentage of Percentage of population that population with uses the a cell phone Internet 129.0% 70.6% 86.1% 165.2% 104.6% 34.5% 79.2% 24.5% 5.4% 32.9% Percentage of population on Facebook 25.0% 49.7% 10.9% 4.8% 25.8% Percentage of Internet users on Facebook 72.4% 62.7% 44.3% 89.4% 78.2%

Country Bahrain Canada Egypt Libya Tunisia

Table 1: Cell phone, Internet and Facebook Usage in the Arab World. See Appendix 1 for source and derivation

Clearly cell phones have saturated the region, with some countries having more active cell phones than citizens. Meanwhile, Internet usage rates remain relatively low. Surprisingly high numbers of people have Facebook accounts, with only Egypt failing to beat the rate in Canada.

1|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363 Using Facebook as a proxy indicator, social media has comparatively low rates of usage amongst the general populations. This may be seen as an argument against any significant role for social media, but it is important to note good data does not yet exist for social media use amongst the crucial actors in the regime changes. Additionally, high profile users may have a disproportionate effect because they may reach a much larger global audience. Households (thousands) Bahrain Egypt Tunisia Percentage of TV Household Households (thousands) with a TV 130 127 97.7% 21560 20112 93.3% 2040 1887 92.5%

Table 2: TV penetration. Arab Media Report, 2010

Television is clearly ubiquitous with over 90% of households reporting that they own one in the 3 countries with available data. Therefore any impact that television has on individuals and societies should be especially broad. It seems clear enough that citizens do use the technologies in question which allows for the examination of their impact on politics. Technology has a long history of being used in revolutionary movements. During the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini produced and distributed tapes of sermons denouncing the Shah helping to grow dissent in the country. Interesting parallels can also be draw to the Cedar Revolution of 2005 in Lebanon. There protests occurred after the Lebanese Prime Minister was killed. Citizens demanded an investigation and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country. Protests mainly occurred in a central square of the course of several days. So the Arab Spring has a recent precedent in the region which may help to explain why events spread quickly; it was because they had seen it before. Television helped play an important role in mobilizing and helping protesters to articulate and communicate their demands to a large Lebanese audience.1 Below, each countrys protests are examined in order to determine what kind of impacts ICTs have had on the events.

Tunisia
The overthrow of the Ben-Ali regime in Tunisia began with the self-immolation of a man named Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid2. This provided the spark for protests that would eventually topple the government. Their main grievances had to do with failing economic conditions, rampant corruption
1

Lina Khatib, Television and Public Action in the Beirut Spring, in Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life, ed by Naomi Sakr (London: I.B.Tauris, 2007), pp. 28-43. 2 S. Cottle, Media and the Arab Uprisings of 2011: Research Notes, Sage Publications, 12 (2011), 647-659 <doi:10.1177/1464884911410017>.

2|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363 amongst the ruling elite, abuse at the hands of the security forces and demands for a more democratic system of governance. Sidi Bouzid is a relatively remote part of Tunisia, yet somehow protests spread from there across the entire country. A similar even had occurred in Monastir three months earlier but nothing came of it.3 What changed with Bouazizi was that his story was posted to Facebook, the only social networking sites not blocked by the regime.4 Bouazizi's story spread quickly and elements of the story were changed along the way. The initial popular belief was that he had he been a university graduate, which was not the case. But this lie which would probably have been quickly corrected by professional journalists allowed his story to resonate more strongly with young Tunisians and mobilize more people. Protests against the regime grew in size and intensity until January 14th when President Ben-Ali fled the country leaving a caretaker government in charge. A few days later that government was forced from power when protests did not abate. The Takriz, a digital network of political active Tunisians, were central in encouraging and spreading protests from rural communities to large urban centres.5 Their ability to do so was facilitated by ICTs, which were used to produce and disseminate videos and other materials. The group has been around since 1998 and most interaction is done online, not offline. Members of Takriz actually travelled to Sidi Bouzid to capture and broadcast the events there. The salient political fact here is that Takriz was able to exist and grow thanks to the Internet. Without it, opposition to the regime in Tunisia would have been much less coordinated and Mohammed Bouazizi might have remained just another dissatisfied youth in Tunisia. Furthermore citizens were only able to report events because of their access to cell phones and other technology capable of capturing images and video. Satellite TV penetration is extraordinarily high in Tunisia6 and this means that most citizens would have had access to news reports from networks like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya which aired extensive coverage of the protests. Significantly satellite broadcasts were not influenced by the Tunisian government, and so were able to broadcast unbiased reports of the protests.

Peter Beaumont, The Truth About Twitter, Facebook and the Uprisings in the Arab World, The Guardian, 2011 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya> [accessed 23 November 2011]. 4 Beaumont. 5 John Pollock, Streetbook, Technology Review, 2011 <https://www.technologyreview.com/web/38379/> [accessed 23 November 2011]. 6 DPC, ARAB MEDIA OUTLOOK 2009-2013 3rd Edition, 2010, pp. 44, 195-196.

3|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

Egypt
Egyptian bloggers had risen to the forefront of political activism in the lead up to the 2005 presidential elections.7 What is politically interesting about this group is that they were able to mobilize at all in a regime that exerted heavy control over political opposition. What Facebook created was a space for which citizens to express their political beliefs without interference from the state. Some of these discussions eventually led to the formation of citizen networks with political aims. The April 6th movement emerged from Facebook and staged protests as early as 2006. The nature of Facebook permitted any individual with the inclination to participate in this political movement. This allowed youth, who make up the majority of Facebook users in the region, to develop political aspirations and grant them a feeling of empowerment, a feeling many youth self-report as lacking8. On January 25th 2011, tens of thousands of Egyptians took part in a national protest against the Mubarak regime. Ironically, Egyptians were able to participate without missing school or work as the day was officially a holiday called "Police Day" designed to celebrate the police force9. Many of the calls for this protest were made by activists who had already been fighting the regime for some time. Individuals such as Wael Ghonim, who ran the "We are all Khaled Sa'id" Facebook group, called on supporters to participate. Many of these initial activists admit to having been inspired by events in Tunisia.10 Watching events unfolded next door via Satellite TV changed the political arithmetic for citizens for Egypt. The Ben-Ali regime resembled Mubarak's regime in many important ways. An individual's choice to partake or organize protests must be partially based on the cost of acting and the likelihood of success. Pre-2011, the likelihood of toppling the Mubarak regime would have seemed very low as there was no precedent. Furthermore, the cost of participating was high given the levels of repression employed by Egyptian security forces in responsive to anti-regime activity, such as the labour strikes of 2008.11 But when the Tunisian protesters brought down the government, the calculation shifted. Not only was there now a precedent, but the very nature of the medium through which some Egyptians experienced these event made it easier to imagine doing something similar at home. The readily available nature of firsthand accounts on satellite TV and on-line inspired many Egyptians because these stories felt much more personal.
7

David Wolman, The Facebook Revolution - Egypts Social-networking Underground Is Rattling the Regime and Dreaming of Democracy. Who Has Time for SuperPokes?, Wired. 16, No. 11, 2008, p. 212 <http://search.proquest.com/docview/274329855> [accessed 22 November 2011]. 8 Albrecht Hofheinz, The Internet in the Arab World: Playground for Political Liberalization, International Politics and Society, 3 (2005), 7896 <http://www.fes.de/ipg/IPG3_2005/07HOFHEINZ.PDF> [accessed 21 November 2011]. 9 Mona El-Ghobashy, The Praxis of the Egyptian Revolution, Middle East Research and Information Project, MER258 (2011) <http://www.merip.org/mer/mer258/praxis-egyptian-revolution> [accessed 24 November 2011]. 10 Pollock. 11 El-Ghobashy.

4|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363 The occupations of Tahrir square are some of the more pivotal moments in the uprising. They allowed a critical mass of Egyptians to participate in the demonstrations which forced Mubarak out of power. Protesters were able to mislead the regime by posting incorrect times and locations for protests and then at the last minute sending out mass SMS messages to alert protesters of the plan change. ICTs here played a crucial role in allowing protesters to congregate and in foiling the regime's attempts at dispersing the crowd before it assembled. 12 The street battles from January 25th to January 28th between protesters and riot police demonstrated to a large number of Egyptians that the police force didn't have the power to contain them. Once the police forces' power had been neutralized the downfall of the regime was inevitable as it had no way to dissuade the protesters.13 But why did so many people show up to Tahrir square? Some of this motivation came from videos circulating at the time depicting the brutality of the police forces and the bravery of people in the face of tactics designed to disband protesters.14 Egypt provides an interesting test case for theories about ICT influence because for 5 days Internet access and cell phone service was shut off.15 If ICTs were absolutely essential to the mobilization of protesters then the protests should have ended. Clearly this is not what happened as some of the largest gatherings in Tahrir and other Egyptian cities occurred during this 5 day period. Instead, the Internet and cell phones seem to have a larger effect on nurturing actors before events begin to unfold. Once protests reach a critical mass, ICTs become much less important. Another interesting feature of these protests was that was little sectarian tension. Part of the reason for this was that these disparate opposition groups had begun to cooperate in their defiance of the regime. This cooperation occurred not only in face to face meetings, but increasingly online as well.16 The convergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, labour unions, leftist parties and other anti-Mubarak groups in opposing the regime was both striking and crucial to the success of the demonstrations.

Libya
The regime change in Libya was much less of a revolution than a civil war. Protests against Qaddafi began in Benghazi after witnessing the departure of both Mubarak and Ben-Ali. Demonstrations also occurred in other parts of Libya. Unfortunately the country quickly dissolved into a civil war, with the Eastern part of the country coming immediately under rebel control and the rest of the country under
12 13

El-Ghobashy. El-Ghobashy. 14 Mustafa Fathi, , - YouTube, 2011 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWr6MypZ-JU> [accessed 23 November 2011]. 15 Al-Jazeera, Timeline: Egypts Revolution, Al-Jazeera, 2011 <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.html> [accessed 24 November 2011]. 16 MARYAM ISHAN, The Hopeful Network, Foreign Policy, 2011 <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/07/the_hopeful_network> [accessed 23 November 2011].

5|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363 Qaddafi. There were isolated pockets of resistance in Misurata and in the Nafuzzah mountains. The rebels managed to successfully overthrow Qaddafi, but not without significant fighting and loss of life. The NATO intervention had a profound impact on the outcome of the civil war. Qaddafi's forces were unable to retake Misurata because NATO bombed the column en route, disabling this initial thrust, and forcing battles to be fought in cities. The UN and NATO were quick to take action against Libya partly because Qaddafi's regime had very few international allies, but another reason was the international pressure in response to reports of atrocities being committed by Qaddafis forces. Reporting of these events occurred primarily through social media services as professional journalists were banned from Libya.17 The crimes were serious enough to warrant the attention of the ICC. Shortly afterwards, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1973 authorizing the use of force in preventing more harm from coming to civilians. The role played here by ICTs was to publicize events would have otherwise remained hidden. The impact of ICTs on Libyans has been quite limited otherwise. Libya has the lowest number of Internet users of any country considered in this paper. Cell phones may have helped organize rebels but have had relatively little impact politically. The absence of ICTs in assisting this regime transition does not mean that ICTs do not have an impact ever. Instead, regime changes can and do occur without ICTs.

Bahrain
Bahrain has not experienced a regime change despite a series of large popular protests beginning on February 14th. Interestingly, these protests were just as publicized as the ones in Egypt and Tunisia but little international pressure was exerted in favour of the protesters. The Bahraini government posted images on Facebook requesting help in identifying people in photographs from the demonstrations. Some citizens responded positively, providing names and other information.18 Clearly, regimes are capable of co-opting social media for their own purposes. This should not be surprising given all previous forms of communications have also been co-opted. Bahrain demonstrates how even in a country where citizens have access to the same tools that helped topple other regime, they may not be able to affect political change. Regimes may be prevent mobilization from occurring through a variety of techniques such as rentierism or playing up political divisions. In other words, the presences of ICTs is not a sufficient condition to cause a regime to collapse.

17 18

Cottle, 647-659. Al-Jazeera, Shouting in the Dark, Al-Jazeera, 2011 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaTKDMYOBOU> [accessed 23 November 2011].

6|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

General Analysis
Text-messaging has been used extensively in the Arab Spring but its effect is quite limited and has not caused political changes directly. As a tool it helps individuals to communicate and coordinate which can have some impact, but this impact is indirect. From a political science perspective, the interesting change is that cell phones provide a ubiquitous image and video capture device. Anyone armed with a cell phone can document and transmit footage of any event. This ability is crucial to the large impact that the Internet and social media have had. Without camera-phones, the only actors capable of documenting events are professional journalists whose coverage may be lacking especially in dynamic situations such as the protests of the Arab Spring. The technology also helps to include citizens who are watching events unfold as they are seeing video and images captured by other regular citizens. This effect helps to mobilize individuals who begin to feel like they too can take part in the protests and have a political voice. The ubiquity of capture devices has also meant that traditional reporting becomes much richer. AlJazeera has made extensive use of non-journalistic recordings and images in their reporting of the Arab Spring. The effect has been that world audience feel much more connected with the protesters. Satellite TV has had more subtle and varying effects. First of all, regional broadcasts by non-state actors has meant that citizens across the region are able to witness any major events without substantial biases from their domestic government. Although, it would be foolhardy to assume the Al-Jazeera is not influenced by the Qatari government or that Al-Arabiya doesn't respect the wishes of the Saudi government. What does happen is that the Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan and Bahraini (to a lesser extent given its GCC membership) governments are unable to significantly influence those broadcasts. As such, citizens are exposed to information that domestic governments may have wished to censor. Granted, Egyptian state TV is still quite influential, but it is not the only voice that Egyptians hear. The ultimate effect is that the regimes actions are now constrained because they must work within the realties that these broadcasts create instead of fashioning their own. Secondly, Satellite TV helps to create the echo-chamber of the Middle East. This is because it goes a long way to sustaining a common Arab identity amongst citizens of different countries. This shared identity is partly responsible for the contagious nature of the uprisings. Events were close to home and those actors shared identities. If the effects of satellite television are complex, then the impacts of social media and the Internet are even more complicated. Immediate influences include the ability for any citizens to post, share and discuss any information or data that they wish. This is important because it creates a space for individuals to express and develop political viewpoints unhindered by regimes. All four countries lacked offline spaces to do this so Facebook, forums and blogs have helped foster political consciousness amongst Arab citizens. Importantly, this argument does not state that the Internet is required for the development of political

7|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363 consciousness. Instead the Internet provided an additional space for this to occur and can help dissidents mature faster. In addition to creating an open space, social networking sites like Facebook have structural features that promote participation and mobilization. When a user interacts with a story, or a call to protest or a video it is because somebody they know has shared it with them. This is crucial because it is predicated upon there being a connection with the other person which frames the item in a personal context facilitating participation. Furthermore, users can quite easily view the reactions of other individuals to the item in question. This can help to build the sense that one is part of a group which can have more impact if it acts than any one individual. Finally, sharing the item with more friends means messages can propagate quickly across a social graph. Combining these structural features results in social networking becoming a very important source of political mobilization especially given than few other outlets for such views to be expressed exist. The effect is further compounded amongst youth who report that they feel disconnected from traditional state-sponsored avenues of participation. Malcolm Gladwell argues that social media will not play a significant role in regime changes.19 His premise is that coordinated movements where individuals experience strong ties to other participants are the only movements to cause large scale change. Social networks excel at promoting and maintaining weak ties, which provide insufficient motivation for participating in the kind of dangerous activities necessary to bring about change. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the effects that social networks have on strong tie networks. Many dissident groups used social networks to coordinate their activities. It also fails to address the fact that a weak tie can be viewed as the infant stage of strong tie and that by existing in spaces that invite interaction, individuals that may have otherwise not been a part of a movement can become involved. Internet connectivity has allowed for opposition groups to become better connected and integrated in the global landscape. This connection has meant that groups can cooperate and be supported by organizations outside the country in question. Technical training was provided by several Western NGOs to political activists in Egypt which helped them to organize demonstrations. Clearly the facilitation of cross-border communication can have a profound effect on the shape that activists groups adopt. In terms of the Arab Spring, peaceful opposition techniques were learnt from Gene Sharp author of the From dictatorship to democracy: A conceptual framework for liberation. 20 The integration of activists into a broader context is an important effect of the Internet.

19

Malcolm Gladwell, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, The New Yorker, 2010 <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell> [accessed 23 November 2011]. 20 Ruaridh Arrow, Gene Sharp: Author of the Nonviolent Revolution Rulebook, BBC News, 2011 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12522848> [accessed 24 November 2011].

8|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

Conclusion
First, the mere presence of ICTs in a country will not guarantee that political opposition will emerge. The cases of the UAE and Qatar which have very high rates of ICT penetration have experienced very little new opposition in 2011. Second, the use of ICTs by protests does not guarantee that they will be successful. Bahrain clearly demonstrates that regimes can take actions to keep themselves in power. Finally, it would be wrong to assume that presence and usage of ICTs are a necessary condition for regime change. The case of Libya demonstrates that individuals can overthrow a regime without using lots of technology and historic revolutionary movements further drive home this point. This does not meant that ICTs have had no effects on the causes and events of the Arab Spring. Cell phones have allowed unprecedented reporting of events. Satellite TV has provided a way to deliver relatively unbiased accounts of what is going on in both domestically and regionally. The Internet and social media have played important roles in facilitating the mobilization of citizens in both Egypt and Tunisia. Opposition groups have been able to develop and their actions have been shaped by the communication they have had with the outside world. Ultimately, the primary impact of ICTs has been to facilitate and inspire action against the regime. In acting as a conduit, ICTs have shaped the way in which actors respond. Further investigation into the precise nature of these effects is required. It would be important to see whether the relatively flat nature of social networks has influenced protesters demands for democracy or whether ICTs can help to bring about greater transparency. Regardless ICTs have made their mark on the Arab Spring and will continue to do so in the coming years.

9|Page

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

Appendix 1:
Derivation of Table 1 data. Source is the CIA World Fact book and Facebook. Facebook Country Population 2011 est Moblie Phone Users 2010 Internet Users 2009 Users Bahrain 1,214,705 1,567,000 419,500 303,860 Canada 34,030,589 24,037,000 26,960,000 16,908,380 Egypt 82,079,636 70,661,000 20,136,000 8,929,740 Libya 6,597,960 10,900,000 353,900 316,460 Tunisia 10,629,186 11,114,000 3,500,000 2,738,180 CIA World Factbook Source Facebook

Country Bahrain Canada Egypt Libya Tunisia

Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of population with a population that is population on Internet users on cell phone an internet user Facebook Facebook 129.0% 34.5% 25.0% 72.4% 70.6% 79.2% 49.7% 62.7% 86.1% 24.5% 10.9% 44.3% 165.2% 5.4% 4.8% 89.4% 104.6% 32.9% 25.8% 78.2%

10 | P a g e

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

Bibliography
Al-Jazeera. (2011a). Shouting in the Dark. Al-Jazeera. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaTKDMYOBOU Al-Jazeera. (2011b). Timeline: Egypts revolution. Al-Jazeera. Retrieved November 24, 2011, from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.html Amrani, I. E. (2011). Twitter, Wikileaks and Tunisia. The Arabist. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/1/15/twitter-wikileaks-and-tunisia.html Andemariam, B. (2011). The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted: Why the Mobile Phone is Still Critical to Reaching the Masses in the Middle East. TechChange. Antwerp, A. V. (2011). Democracy Promotion in the Middle East. Project on Middle East Political Science. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from www.pomeps.org/2011/01/11/democracypromotion-in-the-middle-east/ Arrow, R. (2011). Gene Sharp: Author of the nonviolent revolution rulebook. BBC News. Retrieved November 24, 2011, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east12522848 Attia, A. M., Aziz, N., Friedman, B., & Elhusseiny, M. F. (2011). Commentary: The impact of social networking tools on political change in Egypts Revolution 2.0. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 10, 369-374. doi:10.1016/j.elerap.2011.05.003 Bayat, A. (2011). Paradoxes of Arab Refo-lutions. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/786/paradoxes-of-arab-refo-lutions Beaumont, P. (2011). The truth about Twitter, Facebook and the uprisings in the Arab world. The Guardian. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya Ben-Hamida, M. (2011). Facebook, From a Blessing to a Curse? tunisiaLIVE.net. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/09/25/facebook-from-ablessing-to-a-curse/ Brownlee, J., & Stacher, J. (2011). Early Observations on Post-Mubarak Egypt. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1919/earlyobservations-on-post-mubarak-egypt Burris, G. (2011). Lawrence of E-rabia: Facebook and the New Arab Revolt. Jadaliyya.

11 | P a g e

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

Cottle, S. (2011). Media and the Arab uprisings of 2011: Research notes. Sage Publications, 12(5), 647-659. doi:10.1177/1464884911410017 DPC. (2010). ARAB MEDIA OUTLOOK 2009-2013 3rd Edition (pp. 44, 195-196). Dajani, R. (2011). The Arab Spring offers hope but no quick fix. Nature, 477(7362), 7. doi:10.1038/477007a Dixon, M. (2011). An Arab spring. Review of African Political Economy, 38(128), 309-316. doi:10.1080/03056244.2011.582766 El-Ghobashy, M. (2011). The Praxis of the Egyptian Revolution. Middle East Research and Information Project, MER258. Retrieved from http://www.merip.org/mer/mer258/praxisegyptian-revolution El-Husseiny, M. (2011). The Maspero Crime: Accounts Against the Counter-Revolutions Power, Media, and Religion. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3022/the-maspero-crime_accounts-against-thecounter-rev El-Mahdi, R. (2011). Orientalising the Egyptian Uprising. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1214/orientalising-the-egyptianuprising Elagati, M. (2011). The Arab Spring: Common Roots, Common Challenges. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/2240/the-arabspring_common-roots-common-challenges Elizabeth Dickinson. (2011). The First WikiLeaks Revolution? | WikiLeaked. Foreign Policy. Retrieved November 8, 2011, from http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/13/wikileaks_and_the_tunisia_protests Fathi, M. (2011). . - YouTube. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWr6MypZ-JU Freudenstein, R. (2011). The Arab Spring: whats in it for us? European View, 10(1), 67-72. doi:10.1007/s12290-011-0172-4 Ghannam, B. J. (2011). Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011. Journalism. Ghonim, W. (2011a). Egypt activist Wael Ghonim tells TV station: I am no hero. The Guardian. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from

12 | P a g e

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/feb/08/egypt-activist-wael-ghonim-googlevideo Ghonim, W. (2011b). Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution. TED. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution.html Giglio, M. (2011). How Wael Ghonim Sparked Egypts Uprising. The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/02/13/thefacebook-freedom-fighter.html Gladwell, M. (2010). Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted. The New Yorker. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell HIrschkind, C. (2011). From the Blogosphere to the Street: The Role of Social Media in the Egyptian Uprising. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/599/from-the-blogosphere-to-the-street_the-roleof-soc Hofheinz, A. (2005). The Internet in the Arab world: Playground for political liberalization. International Politics and Society, 3, 7896. Retrieved from http://www.fes.de/ipg/IPG3_2005/07HOFHEINZ.PDF ISHAN, M. (2011). The Hopeful Network. Foreign Policy. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/07/the_hopeful_network Khalidi, R. (2011). Preliminary Historical Observations on the Arab Revolutions of 2011. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/970/preliminary-historical-observations-on-thearab-re Khatib, L. (2007). Television and Public Action in the Beirut Spring. In Naomi Sakr (Ed.), Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (pp. 28-43). London: I.B.Tauris. Kravets, D. (2011). Whats Fueling Mideast Protests? Its More Than Twitter. Wired. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/social-mediaoppression/ Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2011). The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. But It Will Be Tweeted. Freakonomics Blog. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/07/the-revolution-will-not-be-televised-but-it-will-betweeted/

13 | P a g e

Wesley Ellis - 260356363

MEIER, P. P. (2011). DO LIBERATION TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE THE BALANCE OF POWER BETWEEN REPRESSIVE STATES AND CIVIL SOCIETY? Pollock, J. (2011). Streetbook. technology review. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from https://www.technologyreview.com/web/38379/ Pontin, J. (2011). What Actually Happened. technology review. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from https://www.technologyreview.com/article/38343/ ROGER COHEN. (2011). Facebook and Arab Dignity - NYTimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved November 8, 2011, from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/opinion/25ihtedcohen25.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=facebook revolution&st=cse Sakr, N. (2007). Arab media and political renewal: community, legitimacy and public life (p. 208). I.B.Tauris. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=3Ld4bMpS6ZEC&pgis=1 Schielke, S. (2011). Youll Be Late for the Revolution! An Anthropologists Diary of the Egyptian Revolution. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/580/youll-be-late-for-the-revolution-ananthropologist Schwedler, J., Stacher, J., & Yadav, S. P. (2011). Three Powerfully Wrong --and Wrongly Powerful--- American Narratives about the Arab Spring. Jadaliyya. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1826/three-powerfully-wrong_andwrongly-powerful_americ Ulrichsen, K. C., Held, D., & Brahimi, A. (2011). The Arab 1989? openDemocracy. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from http://www.opendemocracy.net/kristian-coates-ulrichsendavid-held-alia-brahimi/arab-1989 Wolman, D. (2008). The Facebook Revolution - Egypts social-networking underground is rattling the regime and dreaming of democracy. Who has time for SuperPokes? Wired. 16, no. 11. Retrieved November 22, 2011, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/274329855 York, J. C. (2011). Beyond Streetbook. technology review. Retrieved November 23, 2011, from https://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/27145/

14 | P a g e