University of Cape Town

The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Full name: Diane Awerbuck (AWRDIA001) Thesis title: The spirit and the letter: Trauma, warblogs and the public sphere Date: 15 August 2008 Abstract This research investigates the personal and political emancipatory potential of digital media, specifically the weblog, and asks the following question: How does individual trauma translate into public space? The research focus is the self-selected, unpaid and civilian bloggers forming the core of the Lebanese blogosphere during the 33-Day War between Israel and Lebanon in July and August 2006. Through the progression of their on-line narratives, I examine how traumatic events can be transformed into a narrative act. Blogging is a particularly apt medium for closing the `historical gap' between an event and its reporting, and can facilitate the reflection and recovery necessary for cohesive individual and social identity after trauma. Town I conclude that this transformation, from traumatic memory to narrative memory, has social implications in any context in which the democratisation of voice is important. The blogosphere provides an intimate public space for memory work: digital social networking can inspire reciprocal connectedness with others, and blogs can therefore functionCape both as healing platforms for individual survivors of trauma, and as expressions of communal political will. This mediation, through self- selected structures, can only strengthen democraticof practice ± an idea which resonates particularly in repressive contexts. Analysing the autobiographical records of ordinary people in the public domain requires a psycho-social approach drawn from literary criticism as much as from social sciences. This research therefore utilises aspects of both interpretive and critical approaches such as reader-response theory and constructivism, stemming from an underlying hermeneutic philosophy that promotes an empathic approach as well as the consideration of the influence of cultural and social forces that have been brought to bearUniversity in the context. This dialectic is essential for examining the relationship between blogger and reader, where the transmission of a first-person perspective to an engaged hearer-participant forms the key process. Socio-politically, the incorporation of context, complexity and diversity are considered in light of the recent developments in the Arab blogosphere, and the cultural, historical, and literary context of the Lebanese blogs themselves. This research is therefore situated within a qualitative framework, utilising a small but focused sample, and investigating the meanings of lived experiences. Perceived problems of reliability in this imprecise mode of analysis are countered by the fact that qualitative research tends to be exploratory rather than conclusive. This research necessarily concludes with critical social theory. I make recommendations for the further utilisation of the digitality of the medium, both in Lebanon and further afield, based on the urgent need for dialogue in multicultural societies, and the value of civil engagement in the rhetorical public sphere. The innovative potential of electronic public space for restitution after 1 trauma, and the support of alternative narratives, is clear. Town Cape of University 2 CONTENTS Introduction 3 Part One: Narrative, Trauma and Restitution 20 Part Two: The Blogosphere 57 Part Three: The Lebanese Warblogs 106 Part Four: The Uses of Humour in Lebanese Warblogs 182 Town Conclusion and Recommendations 207 References Cape 213 of Appendix A: Lebanese Weblog Directory 239 Appendix B: A Brief History of Modern Lebanese-Israeli Conflict 256 University Appendix C: A Timeline of the 33-Day War 258 3 INTRODUCTION Rationale/gap in existing research The research problem addresses the clear lack of critical analysis of trauma narratives in the new and evolving media forms, specifically blogs. The question - How does individual trauma translate into public space? - emerges from a broader set of disciplinary and professional issues. There is an established body of research and discussion with regard to trauma narratives in terms of traditional media (documentaries, newspaper features, public oral testimony, diaries and journals and so on, as will be discussed). Similarly, there is an established body of theory on dealing with trauma narratives in general (see References for more detailed information). However, blogging as a medium of communication is still under- represented in trauma studies. This research examines three basic aspects of the digitality and content of the blogs from Lebanon during the 33-Day War of 2006 ±Town their function as detailed, intimate and first-hand corollaries to the accounts in the mainstream media; their status as reflective and katabatic (descent-and-recovery) narratives; and their ability to create affiliative activist communities online - an illustration of the blogosphereCape as a public space for functional dialogic engagement. This addresses to some extent the uniqueof and difficult phenomenon outlined by Caruth (1995): the problem of how to help relieve suffering, and how to understand the nature of suffering, without eliminating the force and truth of the reality that trauma survivors face in transmission (vii). The warblogs were acts of rhetorical witnessing, individual narratives conveyed by motivated storytellers, that had visible socio-political implications. By 1999, the toolsUniversity needed to enable ordinary people to create and manage their own websites had been introduced. As Keren (2005) and others point out, as a research tool, this medium allows for a partial observation of consciousness before the mediators step in: `We are thus given the opportunity to have a rare glimpse at memory's ``ground zero'', i.e. at the very moment in which consciousness turns into memory'. My research synthesises the areas of trauma and technology, and examines the attendant shift in power relations that is a unique by-product of these blog narratives. Blogging is the combination of independent media, hyperlinked posting, and voluntary association that bypasses and critiques mainstream media (MSM). The following characteristics of blogs are their least controversial aspect. Writers agree that they are: written in the style of a 4 personal essay, journal entry, diary or memoir; interactive; contain posts of varying length in reverse chronological order; are embedded with hyperlinks within text; provide permalinks and allow trackbacks, and list other blogs (blogrolling and blog carnivals). More controversially, the Internet has challenged mainstream media narratives, thereby changing the status quo. Objectified, disenfranchised, pathologised, and otherwise misunderstood groups - those who feel that their voices are under-represented or were unheard in the past - now have unlimited access to public forums. The marriage of means (the blog or forum) and content (personal trauma narratives) is particularly important in places where voicing factual, historical and emotional truths has been discouraged or prevented by the dominant socio-political structure. It should be remembered that the lack of censorship or constriction associated with new media is both the greatest strength and weakness of blogs, as many writers document. Blogs are edited - it s just not the same kind of editing process to which the MSM is subject, andTown includes self-censorship, pre- posting conferencing with other bloggers about the advisability of contentious posts and the editing (peer or site-managed) of profane or offensive comments in the threads that follow the posts. Reconstructing trauma, however, does not addressCape the social and relational concerns that gave rise to the original events. Hamber (2004) arguesof that public revelation of the traumatic past, or the process of narration, is not in itself a miraculous cure for conflict. Rather, it is the engagement and reflection by the listening other, a process that encourages us to reconsider our worldviews and assumptions, that provides support to individuals dealing with the ambivalences of the past. There needs to be a public space in which to grapple with the `...multiple histories, truths, complexities and inconsistencies as wellUniversity as resistances that a truth recovery process implies' (Hamber). Specifically, I am interested in examining the trauma content and themes of the blogs from Lebanon, which were prompted by a single and community-wide disruption in the form of the 2006 bombing by Israel, which resulted in a 33-day war. There was a torrent of protest and outrage from both local bloggers (self-selected first-hand witnesses, blogging autobiographical content and commentary) and the local and international readers of blogs (second-hand witnesses engaging in reciprocal dialogue). Blogging provided a means of interrogating the bloggers' own assumptions and reflecting on the effects of conflict, as well as conveying alternative narratives to those of the mainstream media, highlighting human rights abuses, and, in some cases, organising local social 5 action. I examine some of the processes of remembering and commemorating in a social

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