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Amnesty International and the Egyptian Uprisings

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Amnesty International and the Egyptian Uprisings From Tweets to the Streets ! New Media and Political Engagement # A Case Study of Amnesty International and the Egyptian Uprisings Katinka Riis Asplin Program: Master of Science in Global Studies Advisor: Professor Annette Hill 21.05.2013 ! “Twitter of course, don’t topple governments, people do” Evgeny Morozov, 2011 “If you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet” Wael Ghonim, 2011 ! ! "! Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my advisor Professor Annette Hill for her guidance, useful comments and support throughout this period. I would like to express my gratitude towards Amnesty International Norway for offering me valuable work experience and a great deal of knowledge through an exciting and interesting internship. Further, I wish to thank the organisation’s employees for partaking in my interviews and for providing me with very useful information for my research. I would also like to offer special thanks to Sahar El-Nadi and Maikel Nabil for agreeing to take part in my interviews. ! $! Abstract Despite the so-called ‘great retreat’, in which people arguably are distancing themselves from the political sphere and civic engagement, the last two years has seen an upsurge in political activities. Outside the realms of institutionalised politics, i.e. political parties, lies a whole terrain of alternative political activities, including social movements and media institutions. Following the Egyptian revolution in 2011 there has been increased attention on the democratic potential of new media with the coining of terms, such as “Facebook revolution” and “Twitter revolution”. The question remains, however, to what extent new media can facilitate political empowerment and participation. Through a case study of Amnesty International and the Egyptian uprisings this paper will argue that faced with few attractive political opportunities, the Egyptian people created their own democratic space, a digital public sphere, where they could impact on society. This paper further argues that new media facilitates communication, rapid information exchange and education by opening up operational spaces for marginalised groups who might otherwise be excluded from the public sphere due to power hierarchies. Furthermore, new media challenges mainstream media’s hegemony and information monopoly by increasing the number of voices in public deliberation. However, it will be emphasised that despite the technology-as-progress discourse, one should not place too much value on new media as facilitator for social and political change. Nevertheless, based on a broad definition of the political, that acknowledges maximalist forms of democratic participation, we may begin to understand the democratic potential of new media. ! ! ! %! Table of context:! "#$%&'()$"&#!***********************************************************************************************************************************************!+! $,-&%-$")./!0%.1-2&%3!**********************************************************************************************************************!4! 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Introduction New media has received a lot of attention in both academia and mainstream media following the Arab spring in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people mobilised support and action and managed to topple existing totalitarian regimes in four countries, including former president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. The coining of the term “Facebook revolution” in reference to the Egyptian uprisings
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