The Socio-Political Implications of Social Media Participation And
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The Socio-Political Implications of Social Media Participation and Activism among Young Adults in Saudi Arabia Waseem Abdulali Alsahafi A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2019 Copyright This work is the intellectual property of the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level, and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner(s) of the Intellectual Property Rights. Acknowledgement All thanks be to God who has enabled me to complete this research. Without his guidance and assistance, I would not have been able to achieve this. I owe deep thanks to the many individuals who have significantly contributed to my Ph.D. thesis during my time at Nottingham Trent University. First and foremost, I am profoundly grateful to my supervisors Professor Olga Bailey and Professor Martin O’Shaughnessy for their continued support of my Ph.D. study and related research and for their patience and encouragement. Their valuable insights and recommendations helped me through all the stages of research required for this thesis and during the writing of it too. Besides my supervisors, I would like to sincerely thank my external and internal examiners Dr Lina Dencik and Dr Cuneyt Cakirlar for kindly agreeing to be a part of this thesis. I appreciate your efforts and valuable contribution. I would also like to give special thanks to the Doctoral school for the very valuable workshop session on viva preparation held in June 2019 as well as for their feedback on my viva presentation. I would like to express my great gratitude to my mother and father, Jawaher Alsahafi and Abdulali Alsahafi, for their endless support and unwavering encouragement, which helped me complete my Ph.D. study successfully. To the one whose help cannot be quantified, my wife Manal Alsahafi, who has been my greatest motivator throughout my study. I am very thankful to God for giving me you as my wife, lover, and great friend. I also would like to thank my son Ahmed for 1 his patience with me even though I could not give him the time and attention he deserved while working on this project. Lastly, I would like to thank my sweet sister Nailah and my lovely brothers Faris and Asim. Your support has been incredibly valuable throughout the process of conducting this research. I hope I have made you all proud. Waseem 2 Abstract In most democratic countries, citizens have access to several avenues to participate in and engage with political and social issues. However, in Saudi Arabia, there are only a few permissible forms of expressing opinions and venting frustrations. Therefore, unlike most democratic societies, where social media is primarily utilised to foster the traditional, offline means of exerting pressure on state agencies, social media is the principal platform for political participation and activism in Saudi Arabia. This thesis therefore aims to explore the political and social implications of social media participation and activism within an authoritarian environment. Although there is extensive scholarly agreement that social media has widened the scope of information, enhanced horizontal networks of communication, and expanded the space for freedom of expression, the nature of the socio-political context within an authoritarian environment can critically influence the way in which individuals engage with and participate in social and political issues online. Thus, the political potential of these platforms in a public sphere that is characterised as being extremely authoritarian, religious, and patriarchal requires further empirical investigations. This thesis also investigates, through a case study of the anti-male guardianship hashtag activism, how Saudi women have utilised Twitter’s ‘hashtag’ feature to promote their campaigns and fight for their rights. Based on 29 semi-structured interviews with activists and non-activists (aged between 20 and 35) and extensive fieldwork, this study will explore how Saudi young 3 adults perceive the socio-political implications of social media for political participation and activism in Saudi Arabia. The literature pertaining to the political implications of social media is highly contradictory, with some studies emphasising its potential to serve as a space of autonomy and participation, while others emphasise its depoliticising nature. Making its own original contribution to this debate, my study shows how social media has played an unprecedented role in paving the way for Saudis to participate in socio- political issues, increase the level of transparency and accountability, expose wrongdoing, express opinions, and generate awareness. More critically, the findings introduce a model that demonstrates how the ‘socially connective function’ of social media can penetrate the dynamic of ‘ubiquitous preference falsification’ (characterising most societies living under authoritarian regimes) by encouraging the public disclosure of preferences. The findings also show how the anti-male guardianship hashtag activism functions as an ‘alternative space’ for geographically dispersed and affected women in Saudi Arabia to mobilise thousands of national and global opinions, frame male- guardianship-related issues, and challenge the patriarchal and victim-blaming discourse dominating the Saudi public sphere. Finally, I argue that within an authoritarian context, social media can increase socio- political participation, but it does not essentially lead to the democratisation and pluralism of the online public sphere due to two critical reasons: the increasing adoption of sophisticated surveillance technologies by states and online trolls. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgement ............................................................................................... 1 Abstract ............................................................................................................... 3 List of Figures, Tables, and Pictures ...................................................................... 9 1 Chapter One: Introduction ........................................................................... 11 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................11 1.2 Research Questions ......................................................................................12 1.3 Social Media in Saudi Arabia: A Brief Review ..............................................15 1.4 Research Motivation: Why this Topic? ........................................................18 1.5 Significance of the Study ..............................................................................24 1.6 Structure of the Thesis .................................................................................26 2 Chapter Two: The Theoretical Framework: Theorising the Implications of Social Media in Political Participation and Activism ............................................ 31 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................31 2.2 Authoritarianism, Openness and Information Pluralism, Transparency .....37 2.3 Public Awareness, Widespread Shock, and the Cascade Disclosure of Preferences .............................................................................................................47 2.4 Social Media: Spaces of Outrage and Autonomy .........................................52 2.5 Online Quasi-Participation and Endless Content Circulation ......................59 2.6 Affective Networks, Stuckness, Feedback Loops, and Phatic Communication ......................................................................................................67 2.7 Decentralised Weak-Tie Networks vs Strong Organisational Ties ...............74 5 2.8 Contemporary Gender Politics: The Rise of Hashtag Feminism ..................81 2.9 Online Public Sphere: The Debate over Online Participation ......................91 2.9.1 The Perceived Limitations of the Old Public Sphere .............................92 2.9.2 The Potential Advantages/Disadvantages of Online Public Sphere .....95 2.10 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 100 3 Chapter Three: The Context: Saudi Arabia – The Political, Social, Religious, and Media Environment .................................................................................. 104 3.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 104 3.2 Saudi Arabia: A Country Profile ................................................................. 105 3.2.1 Geography .......................................................................................... 105 3.2.2 History ................................................................................................ 106 3.2.3 Demography ....................................................................................... 111 3.3 Complex Authoritarianism: The Political and Socio-religious Background 112 3.3.1 The Political System: Institutions, Strategies of Control, and Decision- Making 112 3.3.2 Identity and Everyday Culture: The Role of Islam in Saudi Arabia..... 117 3.4 Political Participation: