the role of information and communication technologies in shaping the arab spring

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

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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.

Country

Percentage of population with a cell phone

Percentage of population that uses the Internet

Percentage of population on Facebook

Percentage of Internet users on Facebook

Bahrain 129.0% 34.5% 25.0% 72.4%

Canada 70.6% 79.2% 49.7% 62.7%

Egypt 86.1% 24.5% 10.9% 44.3%

Libya 165.2% 5.4% 4.8% 89.4%

Tunisia 104.6% 32.9% 25.8% 78.2% 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.


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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)

TV Household (thousands)

Percentage of Households with a TV

Bahrain 130 127 97.7%

Egypt 21560 20112 93.3%

Tunisia 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 country’s 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>.


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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.

3 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.


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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 - Egypt’s 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), 78–96 <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.


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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

El-Ghobashy. 13

El-Ghobashy. 14

Mustafa Fathi, ‘وم مظاهرات من ضب ي غ شاب - ال صري ل م قاب YouTube, 2011 ,’مدرعة م<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWr6MypZ-JU> [accessed 23 November 2011]. 15

Al-Jazeera, ‘Timeline: Egypt’s 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].


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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 Qaddafi’s 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

Cottle, 647-659. 18

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


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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. Al-

Jazeera 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 regime’s 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


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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].


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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.


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Appendix 1: Derivation of Table 1 data. Source is the CIA World Fact book and Facebook.

Country Population 2011 est Moblie Phone Users 2010 Internet Users 2009 Facebook 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

Source CIA World Factbook Facebook

Country

Percentage of population with a cell phone

Percentage of population that is an internet user

Percentage of population on Facebook

Percentage of Internet users on Facebook

Bahrain 129.0% 34.5% 25.0% 72.4%

Canada 70.6% 79.2% 49.7% 62.7%

Egypt 86.1% 24.5% 10.9% 44.3%

Libya 165.2% 5.4% 4.8% 89.4%

Tunisia 104.6% 32.9% 25.8% 78.2%


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the role of information and communication technologies in shaping the arab spring

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