New media, in general, and social media, in particular, have played an important role in the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt which shook the region. The use of new media to organize protests, mobilize support and instigate change has not only shaken an ingrained culture of control and censorship, but has also redefined the relationship between media and politics in a region that has long subsided under authoritarianism. Understanding the political role new media acquired requires moving away from a media-centric approach. Important as they may be, media are more of a contributing factor than a decisive force. In this sense, the Tunisian revolution is not a new media revolution; rather, it is a revolution in the age of new media. What media did is redefine the terms of civic engagement, giving an articulation to a new consciousness, a new momentum and a new drive for change. What this proposition means is that the insistent question is no longer how media engender political change but how media complicates our understanding of the entangled socio-political dynamics of the contemporary Arab world. Such formulations brings us face to face with a set of interrelated questions the paper will attempt to address: (1) How do we theorize the relationship between media and politics outside the traditional role media plays in democratic states, as in the case in the West, and authoritarian states, as is the case in the Arab world? (2) How do we understand the role of media outside the confines of the political register strictu sensu? (3) How media, in general, and new media, in particular, are shaking off and loosening rigid structures and how that is reconfiguring existing dynamics? And finally (4) How to reinstate media dynamics within broad but evolving socio-cultural and political dynamics? ?

The popular uprisings against long-standing regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have resulted in the toppling of the Tunisian president Ben Ali, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and the Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi. Other regimes in the region including Jordan, Yemen and Syria have been forced to make socio-political concessions and reforms. At the time of writing, the regime of Bahrain, Syria and Yemen are responding to ongoing peaceful protests with lethal force. These uprisings have generated a huge amount of discussion concerning the potential of social media to impact upon political reform and regime change. The toppling of the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt has even been referred to as ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook revolutions’. A process of diffusing ideas about political change evolved into social movements for freedom and democracy. Using diffusion theory and social movement theory, this paper examines the impact of the Tunisian revolution on the corresponding movements for freedom and democracy in Egypt, and subsequently, Egypt's impact on other countries in the region. Our research is based on analysis of social media including blogs, facebook, twitter, and comments on mass media sources posted by online activists in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria. In its examination of the lessons Egyptian online activists learnt from those in Tunisia and subsequently taught to others in the region this paper will focus on the transmission of ideas concerning freedom, democracy, Islamism, national unity, the use of nonviolence, and the reactions of Western political leaders. It argues that while a high level of identification between the social movements in the various countries selected for analysis is present, the extent to which ideas are adopted and are successful depends on domestic as well as broader geopolitical contexts.

When the Tunisian people started their uprising using social media against Bin Ali and forced him to step down, most observers could see that this was not just another protest by the Arab street highlighting the deteriorating socio-economic conditions and unemployment among the youth. The Tunisian uprising was a popular cry for freedom and dignity that could soon engulf the entire region, including the largest Arab nation in the region: Egypt. The ruling elite and the government-controlled national media in Egypt affirmed that Egypt was not Tunisia. Indeed, Egypt is not Tunisia. In the 30 years of the quasi-military dictatorship, Hosni Mubarak’s regime had given the people a Faustian choice– stability through the regime or the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood. The government had ensured that the Egyptian society was divided along class and religious lines. The public space was colonized by the regime. The public sphere and civil society were shuttered by Amn Al-dawla (state security police) and the balatagis (thugs) on the streets. The purpose of this paper is to understand and explain the emergence of a public sphere and the articulation of a new Egyptian identity. We argue that the Egyptian revolution, catalyzed by the social media, was possible because the young men and women succeeded in reclaiming the public space from the apparatuses of the post-colonial state (Amn Al-dawla and balatagis). There was a contest between the protesters and the regime over the meaning of Egyptian identity and what it means to be an Egyptian . The protesters were able to redefine the Egyptian public sphere and redraw its contour. Through a semiotic and discourse analysis of the repertoires of protest, the symbols, the slogans and the images at Tahrir Square and on social media sites, we hope to show how the youth-led massive social mobilization redefined and reconstructed the civil society and the Egyptian national political community (identity).

Young Egyptian women were at the forefront of the youth cyberactivist movement in Egypt that successfully helped oust President Mubarak after 30 years in power. They were among the citizen journalists whose blogs became leading news sources; the Muslim Sisters who carved out a space to articulate their selves; and the girls who just wanted to express themselves. Based on virtual and ‘physical’ ethnography, participant observation, and content analysis conducted since 2006, this paper explores how articulations of gender through cyberactivism and citizen journalism helped reconstruct the public sphere, reconfigure political power and reconstitute public awareness. In 2005, cyberactivism emerged as the dominant form of political protest and helped reconstruct gender in the public sphere. Sexual harassment was never talked about in public, covered by the media or addressed by the authorities. And women had few opportunities to speak in public and be heard. Yet through blogs and then social media a group of girls bound by little more than virtual bits and bytes created an awareness campaign that grew from a group of stories about women in Egypt to an annual event across the region. This paper examines women’s experiences and constructions of gender online by examining key episodes of contention by and about women, including the 2005 and 2006 Eid el-Fitr attacks on women, the online women’s awareness campaign Kulna Leila, activism by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the April 6 movement.

This paper is part of a broader project examining the discourses surrounding and mechanisms of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement against the Israeli occupation. Drawing on data collected through several dozen in-depth participant interviews and content analysis of movement publications (newsletters, email updates, websites, etc), the paper explores the mechanisms through which the BDS movement operates. After providing an overview of social movement theory, theories of nonviolent resistance, and discourse theory as they relate to the goals and operation of social change groups, the paper discusses three cases of activist groups that have organized using tactics of boycott, divestment, and sanctions in the wake of the 2005 call by Palestinian civil society groups for international civil society to engage in BDS against Israel’s occupation. In particular, the paper traces out how the activists in three cases of focus seek to effect change using BDS tactics and the extent to which these mechanisms have an impact on local, regional, or international actors or policies related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Comparing between the cases of focus, the paper explores the extent to which BDS activists operate as a movement rather than individual autonomous groups, and assesses how its mechanisms of change differ from other areas of activism related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the concluding sections, the paper provides an initial analysis of the mechanisms of this movement and reflects on why it has been viewed as threatening by influential Israeli think tanks and political actors.