Democracy's Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring
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DEMOCRACY’S FOURTH WAVE? Digital Media and the Arab Spring Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Oxford Studies in Digital Politics Series Editor: Andrew Chadwick, Royal Holloway, University of London Th e Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam Philip N. Howard News on the Internet: Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century David Tewksbury and Jason Ritt enberg Th e MoveOn Eff ect: eTh Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy David Karpf Taking Our Country Back: Th e Craft ing of Networked Politics fr om Howard Dean to Barack Obama Daniel Kreiss Revolution Stalled: Th e Political Limits of the Internet in the Post-Soviet Sphere Sarah Oates Democracy’s Fourth Wave? DIGITAL MEDIA AND THE ARAB SPRING PHILIP N. HOWARD and MUZAMMIL M. HUSSAIN 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2013 Subject to the exception immediately following, all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitt ed, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, record- ing, or otherwise, without writt en permission from Oxford University Press, Inc. Oxford University Press, Inc. has made portions of the book available under a Creative Commons Att ribution-Noncom- merical-No Derivative Works License Version 3.0 (by-nc-nd-sa); these chapters can be accessed through the author’s website at htt p://www.pitpi.org. Subject to this exception, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitt ed, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitt ed by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Howard, Philip N. Democracy’s fourth wave? Digital media and the Arab Spring / Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain. p. cm.—(Oxford studies in digital politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-993697-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-19-993695-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Arab Spring, 2010– 2. Information technology—Political aspects—Arab countries 3. Internet—Political aspects—Arab countries. 4. Internet—Social aspects—Arab countries. 5. Revolutions—Arab countries—History—21st century. 6. Arab countries—Politics and government—21st century. I. Hussain, Muzammil M. II. Title. JQ1850.A91H68 2012 909 ′.097492708312—dc23 2012023604 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Th is book is dedicated to those who led and sacrifi ced for popular democracy. Contents L i s t o f F i g u r e s ix L i s t o f Ta b l e s xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 3 1. Digital Media and the Arab Spring 17 2. The Recent History of Digital Media and Dissent 35 3. Information Infrastructure and the Organization of Protest 47 4. Authoritarian Responses and Consequences 69 5. Al Jazeera, Social Media, and Digital Journalism 89 Conclusion: Digital Media and the Rhythms of Social Change 103 N o t e s 127 R e f e r e n c e s 133 I n d e x 141 List of Figures 1.1. Four Dictators—Ben Ali, Saleh, Gaddafi , and Mubarak—before the Arab Spring. 24 3.1. Percentage of Tunisian Blogs with Posts on Politics, by Keyword. 51 3.2. Number of Tweets in the Region Using Hashtags for Neighboring Countries. 54 3.3. Pre-Uprising Structure and Content of Egypt’s Online Political Sphere, November 2010. 59 3.4. Post-Uprising Structure and Content of Egypt’s Online Political Sphere, May 2011. 60 4.1. Number of Major Incidents of State Intervention in Digital Networks, by Regime Type, 1995–2011. 78 C.1. Mobile Charging Station in Tahrir Square. 122 ix List of Tables I.1. Popular Protests for Democracy in North Africa and the Middle East, 2012, with Minor Political Outcomes 6 I.2. Popular Protests for Democracy in North Africa and the Middle East, 2012, with Major Political Outcomes 8 2.1. Th e Comparative Context of Digital Media in North Africa and the Middle East 42 3.1. Online Structure of Egyptian Political Parties, Before and Aft er Revolution 57 4.1. How Do States Disconnect Th eir Digital Networks? Incidents by Regime Type 77 4.2. Why Do States Disconnect Th eir Digital Networks? Incidents by Regime Type 80 C.1. Two Parsimonious Models Explaining Regime Fragility 114 C.2. Parsimonious Causal Solution Explaining Social Movement S u c c e s s 115 xi Acknowledgments We have received many diff erent kinds of support for this work. Th is material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1144286, “RA PID—Social Computing and Political Transition in Tunisia,” and Grant No. 0713074, “Human Centered Computing: Informa- tion Access, Field Innovation, and Mobile Phone Technologies in Developing Countries.” Additional support for case study research came from the US Institutes of Peace under Grant No. 212 11F, “Digital Media, Civic Engage- ment, and Non-Violent Confl ict.” Any opinions, fi ndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily refl ect the views of either the National Science Foundation or US Institutes of Peace. Support for Hussain’s fi eldwork in Beirut was provided by the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. Sup- port for fi eldwork by Howard, Hussain, nda other graduate research assistants in Baku, Beirut, Cairo, Gaza, Istanbul, London, Sana’a, and Tunis was pro- vided by the National Science Foundation. Th is research was conducted with the approval of the university’s Human Subjects Division under Applications #32381 and #41115. Within our department, our hardworking chairs Jerry Baldasty and David Domke supported this research through travel funding, coaching on grant writing, and permission to arrange teaching quarters conve- niently. A fellowship from Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy supported Howard’s work on this manuscript. Some of the material in Chapter 1 has appeared in “Th e Role of Digital Media” Journal of Democracy 22, no. 3 (Howard and Hussain 2011).1 Some of the material in Chapter 2 appeared as “Opening Closed Regimes: Civil So- ciety, Information Infrastructure, and Political Islam” in Comparing Digital Politics: Citizen Att itudes and Political Engagement , edited by Eva Anduiza, xiii xiv Acknowledgments Michael Jensen, and Laia Jorba (Hussain and Howard 2012). Some of the data used in Chapter 4 were also used in “When Do States Disconnect Th eir Dig- ital Networks?” Communication Review 14, no. 2, co-authored with Sheetal Agarwal (Howard, Agarwal, and Hussain 2011). For research assistance, we are grateful to Deen Freelon and Marwa Maziad. For helpful comments and feedback through the writing of this project, Hussain thanks the organizers of talks and workshops by the University of Wisconsin’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the University of Louisville’s Center for Asian De- mocracy, Uppsala University’s Department of Informatics and Media, Har- vard and MIT’s Truthiness in Digital Media Symposium, and the International Aff airs Program at the Lebanese American University. Hussain is grateful for conversations with al-Husein Madhany (Brookings Institution and Doha Net- work’s New Media working group), Jordan Robinson (Silicon Valley Commu- nity Foundation), and Farha Tahir (Center for Strategic and International Studies). For helpful comments and feedback, Howard thanks the organizers of talks and workshops by the Freie Universitat Berlin, Radcliff e Institute, Stanford University, and the US Institutes of Peace. Howard is grateful for col- legial conversations with Lance Bennett , Dan Chirot, Larry Diamond, Kirsten Foot, Steve Livingston, Joel Migdal, Malcolm Parks, and Gregor Walter-Drop. Howard is also grateful for other conversations with Gina Neff . Th e cover photograph was taken on Th ursday, 10 February 2011, approx- imately 100 meters north of the Tahrir Square roundabout, the day Presi- dent Mubarak enraged Egyptians by publicly refusing to step down. In response, thousands of young people began rapidly organizing for Friday, 11 February 2011, or the infamous “Friday of Departure” that ended with Mubarak’s resignation at 6 pm . Th is image speaks vividly to the intellectual themes of this book, but it also depicts the very real individuals who braved and sacrifi ced for more. For this photograph, we are grateful to Mr. Alisdare Hickson who endured harassment and detainment along with hundreds more. It is because of these individuals, documenting governmental brutal- ities and repression directly and intimately, that we have rich stories of vic- tories to celebrate, losses to mourn, and lessons to glean.