Copyright by Timothy Jason Arnold 2012 The Thesis committee for Timothy Jason Arnold Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: THE LIMITS OF STRUCTURAL THEORIES OF REVOLUTION: EGYPT, SCALE, AND TWITTER AS “HISTORY 2” APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Co-Supervisor: _____________________________________ Megan Winget Co-Supervisor: _____________________________________ Tarek El-Ariss THE LIMITS OF STRUCTURAL THEORIES OF REVOLUTION: EGYPT, SCALE, AND TWITTER AS “HISTORY 2” by Timothy Jason Arnold, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts and Master of Science in Information Studies The University of Texas at Austin December 2012 Acknowledgements I would not have been able to put this thesis together without the help of many people. I would like to thank my thesis advisors Megan Winget and Tarek El-Ariss. Data collection presented a number of unique obstacles, but not so great that they could not be overcome with the help of Stephen Pipkin, Walker Sampson, Thomas Elliott, and Devin Gaffney. Thank you, Ipsita Chatterjee, Kamran Aghaie, and Benjamin Brower for presenting me with concepts that I could use to navigate my way through this uncharted territory. I would like to give a very special thanks to my research partners Matthew Rafalow and Amber Tierney. Working with you has been an absolute delight. iv Abstract THE LIMITS OF STRUCTURAL THEORIES OF REVOLUTION: EGYPT, SCALE, AND TWITTER AS “HISTORY 2” Timothy Jason Arnold, M.A./M.S.Info.Studs. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Co-Supervisors: Megan Winget, Tarek El-Ariss. Through a qualitative analysis of messages posted on the micro-blogging application, Twitter, and qualitative research interviews with people from Egypt and the United States who were active on Twitter during the eighteen day Egyptian Revolution in 2011, this study considers why Dr. Theda Skocpol’s theory of revolution proffered in States and Social Revolutions (1979) does not work in the case of the Egyptian Revolution. Skocpol asserts that a weakening of the state vis-à-vis a dominant class within the state or other states is a necessary precondition for revolution. By examining Twitter as a mechanism through which on-the-ground activists in Egypt were able to circumvent repressive state structures and “jump-scales” to a transnational configuration of resistance, this thesis asserts that emergent technologies complicate Skocpol’s assertion that states must be weakened politically and financially prior to the execution of a successful social revolution. v Table of Contents List of Tables ....................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ........................................................................................................ ix List of Illustrations ...................................................................................................x Introduction ............................................................................................................1 Twitter .....................................................................................................................7 Literature Review ................................................................................................12 REVIEW OF SOCIAL MEDIA LITERATURE ...................................................12 Influence.....................................................................................12 Use ……………………………………………………………14 Information Diffusion................................................................16 Social Change ............................................................................18 Gaps in the Literature ................................................................20 SKOCPOL’S STRUCTURAL THEORY OF REVOLUTION .................................21 CHAKRABARTY’S “HISTORY 1” AND “HISTORY 2” ....................................25 SCALE............................................................................................................30 Methodology .........................................................................................................35 SCRAPING TWEETS .......................................................................................35 USER SELECTION CRITERIA ..........................................................................37 TWEET CODING ............................................................................................39 INTERVIEWS ..................................................................................................39 Findings .................................................................................................................41 COLLECTIVE ACTION ...................................................................................41 CITIZEN REPORTAGE ...................................................................................45 Reports of Censorship .................................................................46 Reports of Corruption .................................................................47 Reports of Complicity .................................................................48 vi Framing through Media ..............................................................48 TRANSNATIONAL SOLIDARITY .....................................................................55 Conclusion ............................................................................................................59 Appendix A Interview Protocol ..........................................................................61 Appendix B Interview Transcripts .....................................................................68 INTERVIEW WITH AHMED AWADALLA ........................................................68 INTERVIEW WITH MAJDA GHADA ...............................................................95 INTERVIEW WITH LANCE FRIZZELL-REYNOLDS ......................................122 Appendix C Code Tree ......................................................................................142 Bibliography .......................................................................................................386 Vita …………………………………………………………………………….392 vii List of Tables Table 1: List of Twitter Symbols........................................................................8 Table 2: List of search terms used for scraping tweets ...................................37 viii List of Figures Figure 1: Interaction on Twitter .........................................................................7 Figure 2: Scale-jumping ...................................................................................33 ix List of Illustrations Illustration 1: Twitter interface ..........................................................................10 Illustration 2: “Mubarak must go!” Provided by @Zenobia. Artist Unknown .50 Illustration 3: “People Should Not Be Afraid of their Governments.” Taken by @RamyRaoof. .............................................................................51 Illustration 4: “Mubarak Went Mad.” Taken by @RamyRaoof ........................52 Illustration 5: “The Blood of the Martyrs is Not Wasted.” Taken by @GSqaure86 .....................................................................................................53 Illustration 6: “Freedom” Cross and Crescent. Taken by @Ssirgany ..............54 Illustration 7: “Who Killed President Sadat? You [Mubarak], you coward?” Taken by @waelabbas ...........................................................................55 x But this much remains correct: modern technology too is a means to an end. That is why the instrumental conception of technology conditions every attempt to bring man into the right relation to technology. Everything depends on our manipulating technology in the proper manner as a means. We will, as we say, “get” technology “spiritually in hand.” We will master it. The will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control. -Martin Heidegger Introduction On 17 December 2010, a man named Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire in front of the governor’s office in a small town named Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. Bouazizi was a street vendor. His father had died and as the eldest child in a large family, many of the responsibilities of providing for his family fell on him. He had graduated from university with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, but, like many in his generation, he was unable to find a job and the financial need of his family drew him to informal labor. He started selling fruits and vegetables from a small cart on the roadside. Bouazizi was constantly harassed by the police for not having a vendor’s permit. He was forced to go into debt in order to buy his fruits, vegetables, his cart, and his electronic weighing scales however he was unable to make enough money to bribe the police so that they would allow him continue to sell his produce. Bouazizi was unable to pay-off his debts, the police, and make enough money after those obligations to support his family. The final straw came when, on 17 December, he was slapped in the face by a police officer who also confiscated his scales. The story of Bouazizi is not atypical. Across the Middle East, young people are finding that although they have dedicated many years of their lives to education and 1 career-building,