james brooks's List: THE EGYPTIAN GOV WAS CHANGED BY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

• “If you want to free a society, just give them Internet access.” These were the words of 30-year-old Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim in a CNN interview on February 9, 2011, just two days before long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down under pressure from a popular, youthful, and peaceful revolution. This revolution was characterized by the instrumental use of social media, especially Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and text messaging by protesters, to bring about political change and democratic transformation. This article focuses on how these new types of media acted as effective tools for promoting civic engagement, through supporting the capabilities of the democratic activists by allowing forums for free speech and political networking opportunities; providing a virtual space for assembly; and supporting the capability of the protestors to plan, organize, and execute peaceful protests.

   

   

  • This is a very good article it talks about how the people of Egypt used digital tech to bring down their dictatorial Leader. i highlighted a few points but the whole article is worth a read.

• Additionally, it explores how these new media avenues enabled an effective form of citizen journalism, through providing forums for ordinary citizens to document the protests; to spread the word about ongoing activities; to provide evidence of governmental brutality; and to disseminate their own words and images to each other, and, most importantly, to the outside world through both regional and transnational media.

   

   

   

  In discussing these aspects, special attention will be paid to the communication struggle which erupted between the people and the government, through shedding light on how the Egyptian people engaged in both a political struggle to impose their own agendas and ensure the fulfillment of their demands, while at the same time engaging in a communication struggle to ensure that their authentic voices were heard and that their side of the story was told, thus asserting their will, exercising their agency, and empowering themselves. The article concludes that these aggregate efforts resulted in tilting the political and communication balance in Egypt in favor of freedom-fighters and political activists.

   

   

• A popular Facebook group affiliated with the April 6 movement, “We Are All Khaled Said,” also existed before the uprising and was famously linked to young Google executive Wael Ghonim, its (initially) anonymous creator. The Facebook page had over 350,000 members before January 14, 2011, and it was named for Khaled Said, a young Egyptian man dragged from a café and beaten to death in the street by police in June 2010 (Giglio, 2011, p. 15). Ghonim used the site to educate and inspire Egyptians about democracy, driving home the message that “This is your country; a government official is your employee who gets his salary from your tax money, and you have your rights” (Kirkpatrick & Sanger, 2011). Ghonim claimed that the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook page was successful because it used surveys to determine the majority’s opinion, which then prevailed (Joyce, 2011).

   

   

• Egyptian tech-savvy activists were fighting back against state control of the Internet prior to the 2011 protests. Many had reached out to the international community to educate themselves on new technologies for bypassing state controls. The April 6 Movement received technical advice from the Italian anarchist party on how to use “ghost servers,” which “bounce Internet searches to nonexistent servers to confuse any online monitoring, allowing users to share information and continue coordinating their activities in heavily monitored digital and telecom environments” (Ishani, 2011). Others in the movement worked with the Kenyan NGO Ushahidi to develop their “capabilities for securely and credibly capturing raw video and reporting on the ground with mobile phones and building online content around it,” and yet more received training from a U.S. NGO on how to use mapping tools, such as Google Maps and UMapper, to document protests and choose demonstration sites (Ishani, 2011).

   

   

• Furthermore, protesters on the street used Twitter to “announce new initiatives, like marching to the parliament building, and to boost their collective morale with reports of other developments around the country” (Idle and Nunns, 2011, p. 20). “Planning discussions also took place on Twitter, using the hashtag #Jan25 to enable anyone to join the conversation, and activists talked to each other directly using the @ reply function” (Idle and Nunns, 2011, p. 20).

   

   

• Cyberactivists used digital artifacts effectively during the Egyptian revolution through “digitally encoding text, video, or audio” and then uploading them directly or synthesizing content by aggregation (“bringing together content of the same type,” such as photos and news articles) and mash-up (“bringing together content of different types,” such as “GPS data, video, music, text, and maps)” (Joyce, 2011). These were aggregated and distributed by the protesters to achieve a set of strategic goals during the revolution and beyond.

   

   

• In brief, it could be said that cyberactivists deployed new media for multiple reasons throughout the revolution. For example, as Mary Joyce (2011) stated, Egyptian activists used digital technologies to broadcast general information; mobilize protesters by sharing information with a “call to action”; co-create by collective “design and planning”; protect each other by “evading censorship and surveillance”; and transfer money.

   

   
• The protesters also took advantage of international efforts to help them. During the Internet blackout, Google and Twitter scrambled to offer the “Speak-2-Tweet”, a service whereby users could call an international telephone number to post and hear Twitter messages without the Internet (BBC, 2011). The Small World Newsproject “Alive” partnered with Speak-2-Tweet to translate voice messages from protesters at Tahrir Square, and one of their reports was that of a 15-year-old boy telling his story about being “abducted from the street, beaten, and detained for 22 days” (Silver, 2011). Some recordings appeared on the Speak-2-Tweet Twitter account from Egyptians who learned about the service during the blackout, possibly via phone calls with friends and family outside of Egypt (York, 2011c). This last point highlights an interesting phenomenon, whereby Egyptian activists were supported by the flow of information coming to them from abroad, while simultaneously influencing international public opinion abroad, through their own coverage of the Egyptian uprising and the information they provided on it. This clearly signals the “indispensable role for the mobilization of communication networks across borders in an attempt to recruit political support and…resources required for public will to emerge and gain traction” (Salmon, F

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• The article reports on how Facebook, a social networking Web site, has evolved into a tool for political protest in Egypt. Through Facebook, activists reportedly called for a day of national strike on May 4, 2008, coinciding with the 80th birthday of President Hosni Mubarak, to protest price increases. The beginnings and development of the use of Facebook by activists and the government's response to it are offered.

  • this article talks about how the egyptian citizens used facebook for a political protest and in 2008 they planned for a national strike on may 4th.