A couple follow-up notes : Egypt and Social Media
Very interesting interview this morning on Democracy Now with journalist Ahmed Shokr on the goings-on in Egypt. He explains that much of the impetus behind the first stages of this demonstrated was initiatedby a number of young, activist students and facilitated through their uses of a facebook group. The events in Tunisia also communicated the urgency of a call to action both to this group as well as the larger population. Quickly, this movement seems to have re-mediated away from this specific group toward a more heterogeneous mix of identities and communities: From the Islamic Brotherhood to reformist Mohammed El-Baradei (former Nobel Peace Laureate and Chief of IAEA) to other oppositional leaders. The identity therefore of the larger movement is heterogeneous, much moreso than seen to be the case in the recent Iranian Green Revolution. It thus becomes unclear, particularly as tools of internet mobilization are disabled, who truly leads this protest or movement, again complicating the critiques from Malcolm Gladwell last October of the need for successful political movements to have clear leadership.
What’s interesting about this is the zeitgeist or slipstream around which these events occur including:. 1. Geographic proximity and cultural similarity: With a neighboring country (Tunisia) recently revolting, Egypt, a very demographically different country, sees now as the time for a larger revolt, 2. The lack of clarity around what governing forms will or won’t emerge even if the movement is successful. Will the end-game look like what occurred in the Iranian 1979 Revolution, of an uneasy alliance between leftists and Islamists, turning into an authoritarian theocracy? Specifically, the lack of identity and ideology other than opposition to the status quo makes this Egyptian set of events very interesting, and 3. Organization and Mobilization outside of Social Media: Clearly, fans have tended to overdetermine the impact of social media on all forms of participation and mobilization. It now looks like mosques, institutions, and other ‘older’ points of references have become critical points of information sharing, and social coordination, though right now it remains unclear how coordinated what we see actually is.
Keeping tuned!
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What about Al-Jazeera? That mattered way more than any other medium. How do we KNOW “one FB group” started it all? That’s way too simple. Opposition groups and parties have been active for decades. The parties themselves did the protest organizing, according to both BBC and Al-Jazeera English reports.
Paying too much attention to social media blinds us to the complexity of the events. Beware of techno-narcissism.
hi Siva, Similar critique of your point: How do you KNOW that Al Jazeera mattered the most? See my earlier blog post on the important roles I believe AJ has played. Trying to say one is more important than another is pointless and faulty. After analyzing lots of journalistic/other information, it looks like what we have occurring here is an important combination of social and technical elements and agents, one of which are student uses of social media. Techno-narcissism is a faulty straw man negation of this point. To say that social media mattered with an important group at an important stage of the recent demonstrations is not techno-narcissistic. I am trying to push back against the argument that social media have if anything a peripheral role in complementing these emergent groups. I mentioned that these oppositional movements have aligned, and certainly it’s important not to get into a chicken or egg issue. Other organizations and social groups can work to complement these.
Ramesh – I enjoyed reading this post. Democracy Now! is providing excellent coverage and (as usual) providing varying points of view. I thought Amy’s interview with Mostafa Omar (yesterday?) was particularly striking, though it lasted for all of 5 mins.
But I have to question the “interestingness” of the 3 points you bring up – they’re interesting, yes, but they’re not particularly unexpected or novel. Countries in the same region revolting, lack of clarity, and conventional points of interest serving as critical points of coordination aren’t really surprising.
I don’t know that discussion of social media is centered on overstating its impact. I’d say the present revolt is providing a way for us to realize that real-time information exchange is complimentary to “on the ground” action. The efficiency and speed of services like Twitter work to foster participation, but I doubt many claim that social media are the linchpin for this movement or any other. Social media can play a complementary role in times of civil unrest. And regarding Gladwell – he created a strawman in that New Yorker article – the situation is much more complex than he makes it out to be. I don’t think any of us know, or can yet theorize about, how the use of social media plays into the situation in Egypt or elsewhere.
Indeed Sarah – I think noteworthy is a better term than surprising. I much appreciate your thoughts!
Definitely appreciating your observations regarding the heterogeneity of the demonstrators. When a group of people appear in the street to protest, it is a mistake to assume that they share motivations, goals, experiences, or allegiances. Plus, it seems that the phenomenon of a multi-day protest necessarily involves constantly mutating purposes and participation.
Perhaps the young people on FB contributed to a set of circumstances that enabled long-standing groups to finally become visible. My guess is that rapid feedback is a critical component to the success of these actions. SMS blasts and Facebook updates provide rapid feedback — but so does seeing footage on TV, hearing coverage on the radio, or talking to someone who has just traveled from across town. My guess is that in multi-day events, all of these media contribute to a powerful feedback loop in which the outcome of one act provides the impetus for the next.
A challenge for those of us on the outside is to capture an accurate portrait of the diverse media environment with which individual protesters are making sense of their role in the larger movement. When the cell towers go down, how do face-to-face networks interface with the people sitting in apartments next to a landline? If a TV is on in a public place, what do the people watching it walk away with? How does information jump around among isolated groups of people in confusing protest environment?
Great insights Kevin, thanks. I also think investigating the allegiances of the protesters and their diverse interests/incentives should be a big part of this inquiry.
Another model for how Egypt could play out is Indonesia – many Indonesians in the social media space are commenting how the activities in Egypt remind them of the 1998 protests that led to the Reformasi, or reformation, of the government there.
The revolution there was heterogeneous, including voices from pro-democracy university students to moderate Muslim groups to more extreme fundamentalist factions, with the key vision for Indonesia’s future being one without Suharto at the helm.
The reconstitution of the government after the Reformasi period was full of stops & starts, with a former Suharto official taking reign and making quick reforms prior to elections, star of the opposition Megawati failing in a leadership role, and other short-lived leaders, prior to the current 5-plus-year run with Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, who has managed to bring stability in democracy, increased transparency to the government, and a continued, although always contested, commitment to a pluralist society.
Whether Egypt will follow an Indonesian or an Iranian model, or forge a completely new way to rebuild after the chaos of revolution remains to be seen, but it’s key to look beyond the Iranian experience for Egyptian futures.
Thanks for this Anita. It’s a great precedent to look at!