Revolutions without Revolutionaries? : Social Media Networks and Regime Response in Egypt (Record no. 26444)
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| fixed length control field | 02706nam a2200157Ia 4500 |
| 008 - FIXED-LENGTH DATA ELEMENTS--GENERAL INFORMATION | |
| fixed length control field | 180524s2010 CNT 000 0 und d |
| 245 10 - TITLE STATEMENT | |
| Title | Revolutions without Revolutionaries? : Social Media Networks and Regime Response in Egypt |
| 264 #0 - PRODUCTION, PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, MANUFACTURE, AND COPYRIGHT NOTICE | |
| Place of production, publication, distribution, manufacture | Philadelphia, PA : |
| Name of producer, publisher, distributor, manufacturer | University of Pennsylvania |
| Date of production, publication, distribution, manufacture, or copyright notice | 2010 |
| 500 ## - GENERAL NOTE | |
| General note | - |
| 500 ## - GENERAL NOTE | |
| General note | - |
| 520 3# - SUMMARY, ETC. | |
| Summary, etc. | Does the Internet change the balance of power between authoritarian regimes and their domestic opponents? The results of this case study of Egyptian digital activism suggest that the Internet has important effects on authoritarian politics, though not necessarily the kind we have come to expect from popular accounts of online activism. In this dissertation, I argue that what I call Social Media Networks can trigger informational cascades through their interaction effects with independent media outlets and on-theground organizers. They do so primarily through the reduction of certain costs of collective action, the transmission capabilities of certain elite nodes in social and online networks, and through changing the diffusion dynamics of information across social networks. An important secondary argument is that while states, including Egypt, have become more adept at surveillance and filtering of online activities, SMNs make it impossible for authoritarian countries to control their media environments in the way that such regimes have typically done so in the past. Case studies of media events in Egypt between 2006 and 2008 explain how SMNs undermine the process of authoritarian media control and why the independent press is critical for claims-making and the building of shared meaning. However, the power of SMNs is not capable of challenging the entrenched repressive capacity of determined states, nor can SMNs be substituted for the difficult work of grassroots organizing. I arrive at this conclusion through a case study of the April 6th Youth Movement, which staged nearly identical strikes on April 6th, 2008, and April 6th, 2009, with divergent results. Therefore, the dissertation concludes that even though SMNs may lead to richer information environments with increased capacity for organizing, the technologies themselves are not determinative of political outcomes. Finally, by studying the use of digital tools by Muslim Brothers and Baha’is, the dissertation argues that SMNs can provide critical public space and create discursive focal points for political and religious minorities. |
| 690 ## - LOCAL SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM (OCLC, RLIN) | |
| Topical term or geographic name as entry element | AUTHORITARIANISM |
| 700 1# - ADDED ENTRY--PERSONAL NAME | |
| Personal name | Faris, David |
| 700 1# - ADDED ENTRY--PERSONAL NAME | |
| Personal name | Lustick, Ian S |
| 856 41 - ELECTRONIC LOCATION AND ACCESS | |
| Materials specified | |
| Host name | internal-pdf://Faris, Lustick - 2010 - Revolutions without Revolutionaries Social Media Networks and Regime Response in Egypt.pdf |
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