Transcript Arab Spring: Communication and Collective Action

Arab Spring: Communication and Collective Action
Arab Spring
Collective Action / Media Revolution
In what way is it possible to understand
collective protest as a general phenomenon?
Under what circumstances does digital media
technology have political consequences?
Arab Spring and Digital Media
5 Phases
1) Preparation Phase
Shared Content of Injustice Creates Community of Dissent
2) Ignition Phase
Dramatic event creates “Cognitive Liberation” in which individual
anger forms collective community of outrage
3) Street Protests
Collective community of outrage targets public space for collective action
4) International Outreach
Protestors draw from diasporas and target international media to isolate
the regime
5) Climax Phase
Protests succeed or succumb to counter-movement in a protracted war,
ideological or real
Howard / Hussain
Theory of Collective Action and Communication
Digital media helped turn individualized, localized, and
community-specific dissent and outrage into a structured
movement with a collective consciousness about shared
plights and opportunities for action.
Phillip N. Howard, and Muzzamil M Hussain, Democracy's Fourth Wave: Digital Media and
the Arab Spring (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 25.
Merlyna Lim
Network Theory of Collective Action and Communication
Social movements can be understood in terms of an
initial cluster of strong ties – a core group -- that then
mobilizes weakly-linked individuals through social
media, spreading discontent into a mass movement.
Merlyna Lim, “Clicks, Cabs, and Coffeehouses: Social Media and Oppositional Movements in
Egypt, 2004–2011,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 62, no. 2 (2012), pp 231–48, p. 234.
Blowback
The Unintended Consequences of Social Movements