various authors (Ghannam, 2011a, 2011b; Khamis & Vaughn, 2011; Castells, 2012; Khamis et al, 2012). In response, a number of academics have attempted to explore the role social media played in the emergence and evolution of the uprisings. Lotan et al (2011) argued that a positive correlation between the volume of Twitter usage on the one hand and major events on the other hand, was evidence that Twitter usage had played a role in starting and sustaining these uprisings. However the position of Lotan et al (2011) is challenged by Fuchs (2013) who argues that this type of analysis does not offer specific evidence that Twitter was used to successfully mobilise users to participate in the street protests. Nor does Fuchs (ibid) believe that the analysis of authors such as Lotan et al (2011) offer specific evidence of Twitter’s actual role in street activism. Instead, Fuchs (2013, p.180) believes:
‘It is therefore likely that much of Twitter’s prominence in relation to the ‘Arab Spring’ arose from individuals in the West tweeting and retweeting, which may have helped to raise global awareness, but cannot be considered to have caused a revolution.’
In other words, Fuchs (2013) believes the increased volume of tweets at the time of the major events of the uprising stems mostly from higher levels of tweeting and retweeting (especially in Western countries) rather than from the mobilising and
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organising/planning of the activists and users. Although Fuchs (2013) (see previous section) is critical of social media as a public sphere and believes that the Egyptian uprising was caused by factors other than social media, he does accept that social media was an effective communicational/organisational tool for activists and normal users. He writes:
‘The Egyptian revolution was a revolution against capitalism’s multidimensional injustices, in which social media were used as a tool of information and organization, but were not the cause of the revolution.’ (Fuchs, 2013, p. 203)
In addition, Lynch (2015) highlights the positive role that Facebook and Twitter played in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings as organisational tools for activism and as tools for spreading information on the uprisings. Root (2012) also examined the role of Facebook during the Egyptian Uprising, with particular focus on the influential Facebook page of ‘We are all Khalid Said’. From this analysis, he states:
‘Facebook does have the necessary components of becoming a place for considered debate and a virtual public sphere, but that users' inexperience with the platform has severely limited this capability.’ (Root, 2012, in Introduction)
Root (2012) made the interesting argument that Facebook was indeed a public sphere where detailed arguments took place, adding that obstacles to Facebook’s effectiveness as a public sphere tended to come from the inexperience of the users themselves. Similar to Root (ibid), Singh and Thakur (2013) asserted that the Internet and social media were instrumental in acting as a successful public sphere during the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. They write:
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‘The Internet is seen as helping marginalized groups- those groups excluded from the mainstream public sphere-develop their own deliberative forum, link-up and subsequently contest dominant meaning and practices…. earlier forms of mass communication limited action and discouraged active political participation and deliberative dialogue within public sphere’ (Singh and Thakur, 2013, p.39).
Singh and Thakur (2013) explain that the Internet/social media provided marginalised groups (including the Tunisian and Egyptian activists who had been censored by the regimes in their efforts to end free, open coverage in the mainstream media) with a public sphere where they could widely communicate their ideas and challenge the regime. Singh and Thakur (2013) also point out that the Internet/social media greatly assisted such groups in this way by providing them with a two-way communications tool whereas the mainstream mass media was a limited one-way communication where consumers received information with little opportunity to generate their own communication through the medium. The authors also explain that Tunisian and Egyptian activists were able to effectively utilise Facebook and Twitter because of ‘their many-to-many communication capabilities and the speed with which information can be transferred and spread’ (Singh and Thakur, 2013, p. 41).
Salanova (2012) is another writer who argues that social media was an effective public sphere during the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, and that it helped to start the uprisings as well as helping to sustain them:
‘Social media has allowed citizens to be part of a social networking exercise and to engage in a public sphere that would have otherwise been unreachable
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to them due to severe repression. In Tunisia and Egypt, social media helped protests start and expand thanks to their ability to coordinate and disseminate information quickly’ (Salanova, 2012, p.3)
Faced with regime oppression, authoritarianism and control or censorship of mainstream media, Salanova (2012) says that social media provided the Tunisian and Egyptian people with a public sphere where they could challenge the dominant narrative of the regimes. Social media also granted the people (particularly the activists) a tool for planning and organising, with the added advantage that it had the capability of spreading information rapidly. Salanova (ibid) also states that ‘citizen journalism’ provided the mainstream media, most notably the international media and satellite TV, with a wealth of information and images that became increasingly trusted by them. Citizen journalists used social media as a public sphere to counter the censored and highly controlled state media and this increased general awareness of and support for the uprisings, especially after the international media and satellite TV began recycling this coverage (Salanova,2012).
Therefore, social media can be regarded as contributing to the development of civic engagement in Tunisia and Egypt by providing the people with the means to participate as citizens/activists. Social media can also be regarded as developing activism by encouraging users to join the street protests. Similarly, the people could use social media to plan, communicate and organise after they had joined the demonstrations, thereby reducing mobilisation costs (Salanova, 2012). Also, Salanova (2012, p.53) concludes his research by stating:
‘The analysis of the role that social media have had on the Egyptian and the Tunisian revolts gives evidence of the impact new media technologies can
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have on social transformation. They are used as a tool for fastening communication and coordination at a lower cost, although they cannot be seen as catalysts of any revolution by themselves. They are part of a broader media environment.’
Of important relevance to the investigation of this thesis, Salanova (2012) believes social media assisted in generating social changes through their usage by both activists and citizens as cheap tools for communication as well as for planning/organising. While Salanova (2012) does not regard social media as being the sole generator of the Egyptian and the Tunisian uprisings, he does believe Facebook and Twitter assisted in starting these uprisings in conjunction with the influence of other contributory factors. Likewise, similar enthusiasm for the successful role of the social media during these two countries’ uprisings is expressed by DeLong-Bas (2016, p.2):
‘Perhaps nowhere have the attempts to use social media to promote the principles of democracy in new ways been more visible than in Tunisia and Egypt, where Facebook and Twitter have been used to quickly disseminate information and instructions that the government has not been able to control’.
By highlighting the role of Facebook and Twitter as innovative communicative tools that assisted in generating democratic political change in these two countries’ uprisings, the writings of DeLong-Bas (2016) may also be regarded as providing indirect support for the public sphere by arguing that the social media was a new forum enabling activists and citizens to hold political debates and communicate. The extract also introduces an important idea (which will be discussed in the next
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chapter), namely, that social media contributed towards social/political change. Indeed, DeLong-Bas (2016) concludes that:
‘Social media has opened the door to new and creative thinking about how to assemble, organize, plan, and strategize activities ranging from political to social change’ (DeLong-Bas, 2016, p.6)
This view is represented within the literature concerning technological determinism in the next chapter (chapter two).