THE 2011 EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION ON TWITTER A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Noona Queen Oh February 2016 © 2016 Noona Queen Oh ABSTRACT THE 2011 EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION ON TWITTER Noona Queen Oh, Ph.D. Cornell University 2016 This dissertation examines Twitter communication from the 2011 Egyptian revolution to assess emotional, cognitive, and relational processes involved in mass mobilization against the state in order to understand the collective experience of revolutionary events, organization in communicative action, and the effects of the revolutionary process on actors. The work examines: (1) changes in emotional and cognitive states with interacting elements in revolutionary consciousness that motivated and sustained opposition; (2) coordinated information dissemination on social media that generated emergent organization in spatial- information networks about Egyptian protests; (3) affective solidarity formed from the diffusion of revolutionary humor that influenced subsequent participation in subversive communication; and (4) cognitive changes among participants and observers of revolution through the spread of messages that reflected imagined collective futures. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Noona Oh finished graduate school in January 2016. iii DEDICATION For my family For the good people of Egypt For Dawn T. Robinson iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my family for their support during my enrollment in graduate school. I thank HeyungJoo Oh for assistance on the data work. I thank Chris Cameron for assistance in preliminary work for chapter 3. I thank Shaomei Wu for the Arab Spring Twitter data collection work. I thank Andrew Simon for comments on an early draft of chapter 1. I thank Matthew Brashears for comments on the second to last dissertation draft. I thank Michael Macy and Edward Lawler for comments on the last dissertation draft. v TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH……………………………………………………………………………....iii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………………………..iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………….…………..v LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………………….vii LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………………….…...ix PREFACE……………………………………………………………………………………………….....xi CHAPTER 1. REVOLUTIONARY MINDS………………………………………………………….…...1 CHAPTER 2. ORGANIZATION IN EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION SPATIAL-INFORMATION NETWORKS...........................................................................................................................…………....80 CHAPTER 3. HUMOR IN DISSENT: RIDICULE IN THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION.....………...130 CHAPTER 4. UNINSTALLING DICTATORS…………………………………………………….…..147 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUDING REMARKS…………………………………………………………..…160 APPENDIX A1. TWITTER DATA AND USER FIGURES BY COUNTRY……………………….…164 APPENDIX A2. NEWS REPORTS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA USE DURING ARAB SPRING PROTESTS………………………………………………………………………………………………168 APPENDIX A3. ARAB SPRING HASHTAGS………………………………………………………...169 APPENDIX B. EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION LOCATION TERMS USED IN TWITTER DATA ……...……………………………………………………………………………………………….171 APPENDIX C. SELECTED JOKE TWEETS………………..……….....…………………….….…..…172 APPENDIX D1. TIMELINE OF ARAB SPRING PROTESTS, DECEMBER 17, 2010-JUNE 11, 2011……………………………………………………………………………………………………....173 APPENDIX D2. UNINSTALLING DICTATOR TWEETS……………………………………………177 vi LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER 1. REVOLUTIONARY MINDS Figure 1. Associations among Religion, Repression/Violence, Government, and Individuals/Collectives Words in Protest Tweets on January 25, 2011 Figure 2. Proportion of Word Associations by Word Category in Protest Tweets Figure 3. Total Word Association Frequencies by Word Category in Protest Tweets Figure 4. Proportion of Words by Category in Protest Tweets Figure 5. Total Word Frequencies by Category in Protest Tweets Figure 6. Associations with Religion Words in Protest Tweets on January 27, 2011 Figure 7. Frequency of Religion Words in Protest Tweets by Hour Figure 8. Associations with Individuals/Collectives Words in Protest Tweets on February 10, 2011 Figure 9. Associations with Repression/Violence Words in Protest Tweets on February 2, 2011 Figure 10. Difference in Positive and Negative Emotion Word Counts, February 2-3, 2011 Figure 11. Frequency of Anger Words in Protest Tweets by Hour Figure 12. Frequency of Swear Words in Protest Tweets Figure 13. Frequency of Mentions of Death in Protest Tweets by Hour Figure 14. ‘Egyptian’ and ‘Protester’ References in Protest Tweets by Egyptian Twitter Users Figure 15. Percentage of LIWC Emotion Words in Protest Tweets Figure 16. Associations among Religion, Repression/Violence, Government, and Individuals/Collectives Words in Protest Tweets on February 7, 2011 Figure 17. Difference in Positive and Negative Emotion Word Counts, February 10-11, 2011 Figure 18. Associations with Religion, Repression/Violence, Government, and Individuals/Collectives Words in Protest Tweets on February 11, 2011 CHAPTER 2. ORGANIZATION IN EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION SPATIAL-INFORMATION NETWORKS Figure 1. Spatial-Information Tweets and User Counts during Egyptian Revolution Figure 2. Proportion of Spatial-Information Tweets Retweeted Figure 3. Spatial-information network about Egyptian revolution on January 25, 2011 with Twitter users in North Africa and the Middle East Figure 4. Duration of Centrality in Spatial-Information Network during the Egyptian Revolution Figure 5. Selected User Sequences of Multi-Step Spatial-Information Chains on January 25, 2011 Figure 6. User Sequences of Multi-Step Spatial-Information Chains on February 1, 2011 Figure 7. User Sequences from Multi-Step Spatial-Information Chains on January 27, 2011 Figure 8. Jan 25-Jan 26, 2011 Shared Follower Bases of Central Users Figure 9. Shared information disseminators of central users on January 25, 2011 Figure 10. Jan 26-Jan 27, 2011 Shared Follower Bases of Central Users Figure 11. Jan 28-Jan 29, 2011 Shared Follower Bases of Central Users Figure 12. Shared information disseminators of central users on January 28, 2011 Figure 13. Shared information disseminators of central users on February 2, 2011 Figure 14. ‘monaeltahawy’ as a Disseminator of Core Users on January 25, 2011 Figure 15. Average Position in Retweet Chains of ‘monaeltahawy’ Figure 16. ‘Zeinabsamir’as a Disseminator for Core Users on January 25, 2011 vii CHAPTER 3. HUMOR IN DISSENT: RIDICULE IN THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION Figure 1. Spread of #ReasonsMubarakIsLate among Twitter users in North Africa and the Middle East on February 10, 2011 Figure 2. Co-occurring Twitter Users in Jokes about Political Targets CHAPTER 4: UNINSTALLING DICTATORS Figure 1. Spread of Uninstalling Dictator Tweets, February 10-12, 2011 and February 22, 2011 APPENDIX A1. TWITTER DATA AND USER FIGURES BY COUNTRY Figure 1a. Protest Tweet Counts by Country Figure 1b. Percentage of Protest Tweets by Country Figure 2a. Unique Twitter Users Who Retweeted Protest Tweets by Country Figure 2b. Percentage of Unique Twitter Users Who Retweeted Protest Tweets by Country viii LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER 1. REVOLUTIONARY MINDS Table 1. Key Egyptian Revolution Events, January 25-February 11, 2011 Table 2. Co-occurrence Subject Words from Protest Tweets Table 3. Combined Word Categories in Co-occurrence Figures and Tables Table 4. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) Elements Used Table 5. Top 5 Frequently Occurring Words in Protest Tweets by Word Category Table 6. Top 10 Word Associations in Protest Tweets by Word Category Table 7. Selected Tweets with Religious References, February 10-11, 2011 CHAPTER 2. ORGANIZATION IN EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION SPATIAL-INFORMATION NETWORKS Table 1. Tweets about Protesters Targeting National Democratic Party (NDP) Buildings in 13 Egyptian Cities, January 25-30, 2011 Table 2. Tweets about Protesters Removing Mubarak Pictures in 6 Egyptian Cities, January 25-28, 2011 Table 3. Tweets about the Destruction of Other Government Buildings, January 27-29, 2011 Table 4. Top 20 Users with Highest Eigenvector Centrality in Spatial-Information Network by Day Table 5. Core User Retweet Networks, January 25-February 3, 2011 Table 6. Core User Retweet Networks with Users Labeled and Tweets, January 25-January 28, 2011 and February 2-3, 2011 Table 7. Average Position in Retweet Chains of Select Users Who Maintained Centrality Table 8. Average Position in Retweet Chains of Select Users with Late Centrality Gains Table 9. Core User Retweet Associations that Occurred on More Than One Revolutionary Day Table 10. Average Position in Retweet Chains of Select Users with Early Centrality Gains Table 11. Influence Retention by ‘JassimQ,’ ‘ianinegypt,’ ‘holom10,’ and ‘Zeinobia’ CHAPTER 3. HUMOR IN DISSENT: RIDICULE IN THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION Table 1. #ReasonsMubarakIsLate Jokes about Hosni Mubarak on February 10, 2011 Table 2. Tweets about Twitter Trend Emergence for #ReasonsMubarakIsLate on February 10, 2011 Table 3. Other Political Targets of Twitter Jokes during the Arab Spring Table 4. Selected Humor Tweets from Hosni Mubarak Impersonator Twitter Accounts APPENDIX A3. ARAB SPRING PROTEST HASHTAGS Arab Spring Protest Hashtags APPENDIX B. EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION LOCATION TERMS USED IN TWITTER DATA Egyptian Revolution Location Terms Used in Twitter Data ix APPENDIX C. SELECTED JOKE TWEETS Table 1. Selected Variant Joke Tweets Table 2. Additional Egyptian Revolution Jokes Shared on Twitter APPENDIX D1. TIMELINE OF ARAB SPRING PROTESTS, DECEMBER 17, 2010-JUNE 11, 2011 Timeline of Arab Spring Protests, December 17, 2010-June 11,