Blog Post #7

For my research paper, I will focus exclusively on the digital legacy of the Arab Spring movement in the countries of North Africa, more specifically Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. My selection bias here is clear, and I attribute it to the fact that these three countries, despite the difficulties they are undergoing subsequent to the uprisings, are relatively stable compared to the remaining Arab countries. Spearheaded by a tech-savvy generation of millennials, the political developments they have incurred have not – yet – resulted in sectarian strife, civil war or state disintegration. In addition, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco are all countries that have early on encouraged the mass adoption of mobile and digital technology. Their demographics – young, diverse, educated, cosmopolitan – present the perfect ingredients for a study of the effect of social media on youth’s political engagement.

Introduction:

-Youth, modernity, education and female participation in the workforce: three factors that differentiate Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco from remaining Arab countries.

-Brief history of the democratization of the Internet for North African consumers.

-Adoption of mobile technology by most organizations in the early 2000s, including civil society.

Tunisia:

-Tunisian blogosphere was active prior to the Jasmine Revolution of 2011: feminist activists, free speech advocates and hackers facing government censors.

-After Bouazizi’s self-immolation and revelations of government corruption, Facebook and Twitter mobilization was key in galvanizing support in the streets.

-Role of local cybercafes for young Tunisians who didn’t own mobile devices.

-After ouster of Ben Ali, civil society used digital media to keep government in check through rating of their performance online. Example: Al Bawsala

Egypt:

-Review of active online political movements prior to the Khaled Said campaign (2003-2010).

-Egyptian Revolution of 2011 was one of the rare moments in which Islamists and Seculars worked together for a common purpose. Social media credited with unifying their messages for the downfall of the regime.

-After the 2013 military coup and the crackdown on Islamists, social media in Egypt became a catalyst of division and discord among protesters. Example: Rabaa campaign

-Forced back into clandestine existence, Egyptian young activists are taking on awareness raising and education of the public via podcasts, Youtube channels…

Morocco:

-NGOs and civil society organizations have used blogs and social media before 2011 to raise awareness about social issues. Women’s rights, gay rights, child abuse, corruption…

-Inspired by the Tunisian revolution, the protest movement in Morocco did not lead to regime change. The flexibility of the regime and its tech-savvy operatives helped it capture the momentum of the protests and propose constitutional amendments.

-Despite conceding to the regime, civil society in the country is still vigilant and exposes government abuse online whenever necessary, forcing it to change course. Example: Danielgate.

Conclusion:

Judging the legacy of the Arab Spring in North Africa within five years may be misguided. The same social and technological forces that drove the first wave of protests are still there, albeit less pronounced. Nothing says that they will go away, and opponents of reform in these countries are aware of that.

Blog Post #6

In Revolution 2.0, Wael Ghoneim provides a personal account of how he was able to harness the mobilizing power of social media in the service of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. What started with a Facebook group in solidarity with Khaled Said – a young Egyptian tortured to death by Egyptian police – quickly matured into a fully fledged social movement online and in streets. Behind his computer as a Google employee, Ghoneim was careful to anonymously spearhead the online organization of the revolution. Organization here was key. Ghoneim did not just update his Facebook groups and status regularly, but made sure to measure the response to them, seize on that to identify likely allies and opponents, and survey attitudes around the growing protests. It worked. As related in Kirkpatrick & Sanger’s New York Times coverage of the Egyptian revolution, Facebook was instrumental as a communications tool not only among Egypt’s youth, but between them and their counterparts in Tunisia, who were the first ones to successfully topple their dictator.

A similarly powerful mobilizing effect was related by Zeinep Tufekci, but on a more global scale, putting the spotlight on Egypt and the Arab uprisings as a whole. When Egyptian activist Mona Eltahawy sneakily tweeted that she was held at the Egyptian Interior Ministry, Tufekci saw no better solution than to make the world aware of her arrest. The ensuing Twitter campaign capitalized on Mona’s high profile in activist circles, her American citizenship and status as an international writer. Just like Ghoneim, Tufekci did not just Tweet about Mona’s arrest. Her campaign #freemona was based on spotting like-minded, sympathetic Twitter users who had enough power on public opinion inside and outside Egypt. The range of stakeholders tapped was wide enough to not miss any chances, and included activists, news outlets, lawyers and even the US State Department. The resulting pressure worked. Within 24 hours, Mona was released by a regime that still takes its international image seriously.

As highlighted by Basem Fathy in his article for the Middle East Institute, online media in the Arab Spring ought to be viewed as a tool that facilitated the channeling of long held grievances. It is not that Facebook and Twitter suddenly made Arab youth aware of the necessity for change. What these tools did was empower already existing political and social movements to effectively communicate, coordinate and take action in the streets. When all your opponents have a place – no matter how virtual – to plan and act, divide and conquer does not fare well as a strategy.

My personal story with the Arab Spring is one of disillusionment. Because I participated in it, wholeheartedly. Here we were, young millennials as politically engaged as it gets. We followed Wael Ghoneim’s and Mona Eltahawy’s calling, armed with our blogs, our smartphones and passions to document and expose instances of government abuse. But that kind of mobilization did not materialize into proper political engagement. The youth of the Arab Spring thought they were politically engaged, but in fact they were not. The new information age tactics were useful insofar as they helped oust dictators. They were – and still are – good for one-strike civil disobedience. But civil disobedience does not amount to much without follow-up. Enrollment in political parties. Running candidates for public office. Campaigning around precise issues other than “down with the regime.” Our attention span was short, for many of us went back home after the regimes gave concessions, leaving a void to be filled with Islamists, people who were trained in politics way before the Arab uprisings began. Traditional political institutions still matter. My guess is that they won’t stop mattering in the future, no matter how powerful social media can be in mobilizing dissent.

Blog Post #5

In Barack Obama: Organizing for America 2.0, Pisksorki & Winig (2009) analyze how Barack Obama’s election campaign utilized digital media to mobilize volunteers. Early on in Obama’s first bid for the Presidency, his team seized on the rapid spread of social networking to organize a grassroots movement of campaigners. The authors mention the example of my.barackobama.com, which was extensively used to create and sustain community organizers, bring up issues faced by campaigners, fact-check the campaign’s coverage by mainstream media and coordinate operations. Spearheaded by David Hughes, Obama’s digital operation early on in the campaign constituted the foundations of his primary campaign, despite the technical issues it faced at its onset. Pisksorki & Winig (2009) explain: “Hugh and his team spent the balance of 2007 refining MyBO. Though the tools were state-of-the-art for a political campaign, they were not as robust as those found on popular social networking sites.” Capitalizing on the already established presence of voters in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MySpace and LinkedIn, Obama For America generated brand awareness for its candidate online. But that was only half the story.

The ground operation built by Barack Obama’s campaign team in 2008 was a significant contributor to his election as well. In a detailed account for The Huffington Post, Zack Exley explains how Obama’s Get Out The Vote strategy differed radically from traditional modes of electioneering. Through empowering local community organizers to build their own teams, the Obama campaign ensured maximum involvement in canvassing, voter registration and phone banks. Exley notes: “In 2004, it was unusual for volunteers to have persistent roles and responsibilities— both at the Kerry campaign and the independent field operation Americans Coming Together. That is the norm for electoral organizing campaigns, and perhaps organizing in general these days. In contrast, the Obama neighborhood team members are organizers themselves, sometimes working more or less as staff alongside the young FOs.” The enthusiasm between these two styles of campaigning appears to have made a difference. Obama’s Get Out The Vote strategy ensured maximum impact at the grassroots level.

Given the current developments of Presidential politics in the United States, it is fair to ask whether a well-organized, coordinated online campaigning strategy is even necessary these days. Armed with his unfiltered personality, now President Elect Donald Trump broke all the conventional rules of a media campaign. Through making the headlines every time with angry, racist, misogynistic, chauvinistic or populist rants, he made sure traditional and press media do the job of outreach for him by constant coverage. The candidate’s brand was thus well-established: a maverick outsider who does not play by the rules and pledges to make America great again. The personality cult Donald Trump nurtured was evident in the spontaneous outpouring of support in his rallies. He knew what his supporters wanted to hear, and he gave them just that. A podium and a Twitter account. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton’s well-organized online campaign and ground operation was not as successful. Quickly, her campaign turned into a referendum on a her opponent, giving his unholy message even more coverage.

We live in strange times indeed.

Blog Post #4

In Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (2009), Clay Shirky (2009) chastises the traditional newspaper industry for failing to embrace the new reality of news reporting. Shirky is particularly critical of newspapers’ perceived eagerness to make their readers adapt to their constraints, and not the other way around. In this regard, he identifies two types of reactions to a changing media landscape (which he sees as nothing short of a revolution): pragmatists who “do no more than describe the world around them,” and radicals who “imagine fabulous alternative futures.” Shirky’s opinion is that radicals have taken over newspapers’ reaction to the increased use of digital media. It is not that newspapers are blind to the revolutionizing forces that affected the production, distribution and consumption of news. It is that they are wishful thinkers hoping to somehow circumvent it. But to Sherky, this revolution is unavoidable. It cannot be dodged. Shirky makes the comparison with how the printing press led to a paradigm shift in the dissemination of information, ultimately weakening the informational power of the church. The same scrutiny of newspapers’ reaction to the digital age is displayed by Dave Winer (2010) in his blog post Reading from News Execs. He writes: “Here’s how I visualize how they’re doing it. Imagine a box made of cardboard. It’s big, but it’s light. Pick the box up and move it from one place to another. When it gets to the new spot, it’s still a big cardboard box. It still can contain the same stuff as the box did when it was in the old place.”

 

But newspapers are not really passive to the challenges posed by what Shirky has dubbed The Groundswell. If The New York Time’s 2014 innovation report is any indication, press professionals are acutely aware of the dangers that social media poses to their business model. Nor is this a new challenge for print media. Already in the 1990s, the increased use of the Internet threatened to shake up the way newspapers operated. The collaborative feature of social networking was not even the issue then. It was just the fact that press distribution would be altered by people’s ability to access information online. In 1995, Newsweek ran a cover story by Clifford Stoll named Why the Web Won’t Be Nirvana. Laughable today by any measure, but it only shows how the press’s reactions to new technology have evolved from dismissal to introspection.

 

Shirky (2009) does not really provide any suggestions on how newspapers can adapt to social media and other new forms of information sharing. He forecasts radical, ground-breaking, revolutionary changes that will render newspapers irrelevant. He himself admits he cannot describe what these changes look like: “We don’t know who the Aldus Manutius of the current age is. […] Any experiment, though, designed to provide new models for journalism is going to be an improvement…” One cannot help but notice that Shirky relishes the downfall of newspapers as an archaic institution. Set aside business model considerations. Are we to welcome the disappearance of institutions that are supposed to take on the monumental responsibility of delivering the truth? Just because each one of us can do it by themselves?

 

I happen to agree with Dean Starkman’s skepticism of the future-of-news (FON) school of thought (partly embodied by Shirky himself). If Shirky is so concerned about the future of journalism, then clearly his description of news as a “commodity” does not help. The economic implication is that in the age of Facebook and Twitter, news has become cheap. But those seeking information about the world value it at varying degrees based on context, relevance, urgency and trustworthiness. Surely not everyone with a broadband can cover all of these constraints. Professional journalists are trained to. They are supposed to. When I look at Donald Trump’s Twitter account, I am only reinforced in my conviction that newspapers must be sustained, not rendered obsolete. There is nothing to celebrate about the disappearance of structures initially meant to keep power in check.

Blog Post #3

Wikipedia User Name: Zouhair1988

Wikipedia User Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zouhair1988/sandbox/Zouhair_Mazouz

Wikipedia Article Assessed: Arab Spring

The article strikes me as fairly comprehensive. It traces back the socio-economic and political causes of the Arab uprisings for the region as a whole, then delves into individual countries to assess the stage at which they are now. I appreciated the use of graphics in that regard. The 22 countries of the Middle East & North Africa are all mentioned in a table that mentions the number of casualties, the duration of the protests, detailed outcomes and even a color code for the political situation nowadays (from dark blue for government overthrown to red for war). Aside from the facts, the different opinions and perspectives on the Arab Spring are evenly referenced. One section I would add is the fate of Arab Spring activists who survived the uprisings.

This is a serious subject, and so are the sources used in it. The 317 sources referenced are a varied assemblage of American, European, Arab, conservative, liberal, academic and journalistic articles. The same could be said of the Further Reading section. I do not believe the nature of the topic leaves any room for the use of questionable sources.

In terms of neutrality, I could not spot an instance of the authors advancing their opinion on the Arab Spring. What they rather do is showcase the different opinions in media and academia to the reader. Perhaps the one exception here is the mention of minor protests occurring “even in Saudi Arabia.” This is quite a suggestive statement, and what it tells me is that its author did not expect uprisings to occur in the kingdom. Being the closed and oppressive society that it is, Saudi Arabia is – if anything – prone to more tension, not less. I would not have used “even” here.

In my opinion, the article’s language is rather simple. Having read some of the literature referenced, I noticed that the article summarizes it in less sophisticated terms. This has the potential of making it accessible to a large audience not necessarily well versed in Arab politics.

After examining the requirements of Wikipedia’s Manual of Style, one can also easily recognize them in this article. The lead summarizes the broader aspects of the uprisings. The subtopics are clearly outlined in the table of contents, which offers the reader the possibility to directly jump into any subtopic they choose. Each of the subtopics also references related Wikipedia articles. Despite its length, the article does not seem overwhelming. The subtopics, although many, are appropriate for this entry.

As for the pictures, they are relevant and do not disturb the reading. Each of the photographs here is linked to a particular country. I would change the French Revolution painting used to point to “Revolutions” as a category. It’s safe to say that the Arab Spring is now its own brand of revolution.

 

 

 

Blog Post #2

In Chapter 5 of their book Connected, Christakis & Fowler (2009) analyze how the mobilizing and participatory potential of social media has affected human interactions. The authors argue that contrary to suspicious forecasts, virtual reality has not invalidated traditional interactions between human beings. If anything, it has reinforced and sustained them. Furthermore, it has taken them to a new level. Christakis & Fowler (2009) mention the example of World of Warcraft and Second Life, virtual platforms where real life social interactions are replicated and maintained on a regular basis. The same human impulses of conflict, belonging, jealousy, bias and ambition often kick in for these platforms’ users. Such replication also took place with the advent of social networking tools like MySpace and Facebook, which expanded users’ capability to form networks. The novelty of these tools, however, rests in the fact that online users are now also able to restrict themselves to groups they identify with. This is not necessarily a good thing. Christakis & Fowler (2009) note: “These sites provide to delusional individuals the potent, reassuring, and calming experience that we all crave: being understood by others. For once, these people can find many others who provide reassurance that they are not crazy.” (p.283) The concern that online social networks may be used to confirm existing biases – instead of inform their users – was also highlighted in Eli Pariser’s TED Talk Beware Online Filter Bubbles. Pariser (2011) warns that customizing news feeds and search results to a user’s behavior online can have the damaging effect of preventing them from seeking alternative content. There is after all a reason why my Facebook feed and Google results would look different than the ones of an ideological opponent – say, an Arab Islamist. We have different filter bubbles.

Despite having read Jonathan Stray’s Are We Stuck in Filter Bubbles? Here Are Give Potential Paths Out, I cannot bring myself to agree with the notion that the solution to filter bubbles is to design more algorithms around users’ preferences. Especially when it comes to news coverage. As a millennial who grew up with social media, I have personally come to see the horrifying polarization of the political landscape – in the United States and in my beloved Middle East. This is partly due to the fact that consumers of news are implicitly encouraged to pursue information that validates their inherent biases. Not only that, they are fully enabled to produce news coverage on their own through blog posts, Facebook status updates, Tweets and so on. This used to be the job of qualified, trained professionals. Call me old school, but I would rather tune in to BBC or PBS than trust my Facebook feed with the news links it displays on my screen every morning. My Facebook feed knows my biases well. Too well, actually. News editors (at least in organizations known for integrity) don’t, and I do not want them to. There is something horrifying about the idea of citizens willingly shielding themselves from viewpoints they disagree with.

Nor do I agree that policing social media is the answer to extreme bias on social networks. In this respect, Jeffrey Rosen’s article in The New Republic offers an insightful account of what tech giants are faced with when they try to accommodate all sorts of sensitivities from individuals and institutions alike. Unless free speech constitutes what is commonly known as a “clear and present danger,” it should not be restricted. Because this is very much a slippery slope. If Google, Facebook and Twitter yield to the pressures of groups and states to shut down content, there is a danger that they will become tools for different factions to enforce whatever they believe is the truth. Notwithstanding filter bubbles, I am certain that this is not what these platforms were designed for. Blame my bias for net neutrality on the fact that I grew up in an oppressive society – just like most people in the world today. If even social media – that very thing that gave us a voice – shuts us down, we will have lost one of the greatest tools of free expression known to exist. The right to free speech is sacred. The right to be offended is not.

Media, Politics, and Power in the Digital Age: Blog Post #1

In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky (2009) lays out the many ways in which “Web 2.0” (O’Reilly, 2005) has modified the way people around the world organize. The word “organize” is key here. To Shirky, the fact that anyone can own a connected device is not just a technological revolution, but a social one. When it became a participatory tool, the Internet ushered a paradigm shift in the way information flows in society, and ultimately in the way society itself operates. Shirky mentions the lived experience of Ivanna, a New Yorker who enlists the help of Evan, a tech-savvy friend of hers. After knowing who stole the phone, Evan is able to disseminate the identity of the thief with devastating effectiveness. Next thing you know, thousands of people on the web are absorbed into Evan’s passionate pursuit of the device. The NYPD is pressured to react, and finally recovers Ivanna’s phone. Shirky (2009) identifies the three steps through which Evan and his online followers were able to affect change: sharing, collaboration, then collective action. Humans are social creatures that need to organize for better cooperation. Usually, such cooperation involves operational costs, some of which are too expensive to pursue. What the “Web 2.0” revolution did was to render some of these costs so minimal that traditional organizations gave up on them altogether. For example, the 2004 Tsunami created a dilemma for news organizations: why should they spend money sending photographers on the ground when locals with digital devices were documenting the damages and posting them online? 

Perhaps the most interesting point in Here Comes Everybody is how “Web 2.0” not only constituted new competition for traditional media (newspapers, magazines, TV…) but completely changed the rules of the reporting game. Tasked with delivering the news to citizens, traditional media outlets were once a powerful interest group. They looked down on the rest of the citizenry from an ivory tower, deciding what was worth reporting on and what wasn’t. In doing so, they were equipped with an army of trained professionals: journalists, reporters and editors. The title alone inspired deference from news consumers. Shirky (2009) lays out how the rise of blogging blurred the line between journalists and talking heads. The online community – not some professional elite – suddenly decided on what deserved the public’s attention. It does not matter how “serious” or “silly” a subject is. Anyone online now has a chance to view it, judge it and eventually act on it.

As a journalist who likes to think he was properly mentored into the fundamentals of the profession, I have mixed feelings about this.

My interest in journalism began in 2011, right around the time young Tunisians went out to the street to overthrow a dictator. I joined www.freearabs.com, a magazine dedicated to covering the Arab Spring. In parallel, I also maintained a blog in which I aired my (very political) opinions about the Middle East to the public. My editor back then was supportive. He did not see those two functions as mutually exclusive. If anything, he encouraged my vicarious back-and-forth from journalism to blogging. My day job consisted of doing investigative work, developing contacts, checking their stories with other contacts and aggregating my findings in custom-made form. In my free time, I publicly endorsed the revolutionary spirit of the uprisings. It wasn’t long before the latter turned into a nightmare in Syria, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. I still had to cover those failures. But all of a sudden, I was that guy: the blogger who enthusiastically embraced a failing experiment. Contacts stopped answering my requests for interviews. They did not want to be seen talking to me for fear of getting in trouble. My journalistic integrity was not the issue. My blogging was. After all, it was reckless millennials on social media who had caused that mess. And so they were viewed with suspicion by society at large – including people their age. Today, young Arabs still get their news online. But even online, many would rather read Aljazeera, Al Arabia or BBC Arabic than a blog. Capitalizing on the momentum of the Arab Spring, these news organizations now have a fully-fledged social media presence of their own. Their output is shared on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, with distinctive hashtags. It appears traditional media isn’t that traditional after all.

 

 

First blog post

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.