e-Democracy: Egypt’s 18 Day Revolution

e-Democracy: Egypt’s 18 Day Revolution

eDemocracy: Egypt’s 18 Day Revolution
Hend Alhinnawi
University of Southern California

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Abstract

The Middle East, home to the world’s authoritarian regimes and brutal dictatorships,

witnessed a revolutionary transformation in 2011, beginning with Tunisia and spreading to

Egypt, Libya and Syria. Years of frustration, oppression, unemployment, poverty and unfair

living standards, pushed people into the streets and massive protests soon erupted. On January

25, 2011, Egyptians took to the streets and ultimately ended the 30 year rule of Hosni Mubarak.

During this 18 day revolution, Egyptians used ICTs, mainly satellite television, mobile phones,

and social media to organize protests, provide crucial information and share their movement with

the world. Additionally, face-to-face communication was essential in not only facilitating this

revolution, but in building a network based on trust between the protesters. The movement in

Egypt has been referred to as the “Facebook and Twitter revolution,” and undoubtedly, social

media played a crucial role. However, the high diffusion of satellite television, mobile phones

and the face-to-face communication culture in Egypt were the defining factors in spreading

information, organizing protests and influencing public opinion and actions. This paper will

examine various research on the Arab Spring, and particularly the Egyptian revolution to further

understand how the different channels of communication played out in Tahrir Square, and which

were ultimately more influential.

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Introduction

After nearly 30 years in power, the Egyptian people said kefaya (“enough”). In 2011,

something incredible happened in the Middle East. It started in Tunisia, and it quickly spread to

Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia and there is no end in sight. This Arab awakening,

fueled by ICTs, including satellite television, mobile phones and social media has every regime

in the region sitting scared, desperately trying to hold on to their thrones. On January 25th, 2011,

it was Egypt’s turn to rise. With a population

exceeding 82 million, Egypt is the 15th most

populous country in the world. 1 Under Hosni

Mubarak’s rule, there was vast corruption,

high unemployment (almost 10%), low wages

(Egypt’s GDP ranks 113/154 countries),

police brutality and judicial abuse of power.

While dissatisfaction had been brewing for years, the 2010 killing of an Egyptian blogger named

Khaled Said sparked protests that would eventually lead to Hosni Mubarak’s fall from power.

Political activism in Egypt was nothing new, in fact, there were many protest earlier in

the years demanding political, economic and social reform. In 2011, and capitalizing on the

momentum in Tunisia, the protests in Egypt took an interesting and unexpected turn. In 18 days,

people occupying Tahrir Square, and under massive international pressure, forced Hosni

Mubarak to resign. While there are many theories on how and why this happened, there is

sufficient research suggesting that effectively combining the internet, satellite television, mobile

phones, face-to-face communication and social media is what made this particular uprising a

successful one.
1
Referenced from CIA World Fact book/Egypt

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The Spark

In 2010, police beat and killed Khaled Said, an Egyptian blogger, who had posted a video

online of police officers sharing the spoils of a drug bust. Within days, a Facebook page titled

“We Are All Khaled Said” was established and it had over 80,000 followers. “All of us are

Khaled Said, because all of us might face the same destiny at any point in time." 2 When people

took to the streets on January 25th, 2011, to protest government corruption, torture and failures,

no one dreamed that 18 days of protesting would end a 30 year dictatorship.

The protests fueled by the killing of Khaled Said were different. They came at at a time

when ordinary citizens could post their stories, share their thoughts and express to the world

what was happening in their cities. The large penetration of satellite television, face to face

communication and social media were the key ingredients that made the difference in Egypt.

Unlike previous protests, the world was watching the events unfold in Cairo, 24 hours a day,

seven days a week. By the time the protesters in Tunisia were in the streets, Egyptian youth were

ready to follow. The spread of information about events across the region through satellite

television, mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter fueled these protests and allowed for a

solidarity among the populations living under these dictatorships. “By expanding access to

political, social, and spiritual narratives beyond the control of the state, satellite broadcasting and

the Internet have encouraged different ways of relating the self to the culture at large, and in so

doing, they have offered the building blocks for individuals to imagine themselves as part of the

wider world in ways never before possible. Both a reflection of and a catalyst for the

globalization and regionalization of culture, the flood of information, entertainment, and

mediated experience of the wider world forces Arabs to live in the larger narratives of global

2
Referenced from: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/02/eveningnews/main7311469.shtml

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modernity. It is within this context that the masses of young people in Egypt refused to accept

any longer the reality imposed upon them by the regime of Hosni Mubarak.” (Elseewi, p. 5)

Egypt is the second biggest recipient of U.S. military aid, receiving more than $2 billion a

year. The money is used to support police and army related activities, which is widely

condemned for its perpetration of human rights abuses. 3 “This, too, is a crucial part of the basic

context because it not only informs us about the overall weight of the Internet when matched

against other tools: It tells us what was at stake to topple Mubarak. Finally, and related to this

point, we think it is important to differentiate between the importance of penetration rates for

shaping public opinion to convince a critical mass, and for organizing certain political efforts.”

(Alexander, p.8). I would argue that in the case of the Egyptian revolution, the Internet

penetration rates were important in both shaping public opinion, inside and outside of Egypt,

while simultaneously playing a role in organizing political efforts.

Wael Ghonim

An Egyptian citizen named Wael Ghonim was instrumental in the Egyptian revolution.

Ghonim, Head of Marketing for Google in the Middle East and North Africa is an Internet

activist and has now made history when he started the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled

Said.” After creating the page and calling for the anti-government protests on January 25th, he

worked to mobilize protesters on the ground, and was subsequently arrested by the Egyptian

authorities. Wael Ghonim was jailed for 11 days, his family presumed that he was dead. On

February 7th, 2011, Ghonim was released and he made a statement to Dream TV, CNN and

other satellite based television stations. His interview was emotionally moving and he called for

the end of the Mubarak regime. Wael used news and media outlets in Egypt and globally to send

3
Figures and statement are referenced from Human Rights Watch, 2004.

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a message of unity among the Egyptian youth and called them to action. Across the Middle East,

people felt empowered. They became citizen journalists, and even if they themselves didn’t have

access to the Internet, they asked their friends to post their thoughts and videos. During a CNN

interview in 2011, Ghonim stated: “I always said that if you want to liberate a society just give

them the Internet. The reason why is the Internet will help you fight a media war, which is

something the Egyptian government regime played very well in 1970, 1980, 1990, and when the

Internet came along they couldn’t play it.” (Russell, p.4)

Access to the Internet gave people the opportunity to tap into different channels,

including news stations and social sites. It was key in connecting the protesters to a global

population, and show the world first hand what was going on in their country. “Dictatorships

work best in darkness; they capitalize on ignorance as well as fear. But today, more and more

people know things, all kinds of things – political, cultural, social. They vacuum up information

from an ever-growing universe of sources. Some of what they acquire is accurate, some of it not.

Conversation, which is an essential element of democracy, is more pervasive and ranges farther

afield than ever before. All this is a function of the connectivity enabled by social media along

with other information and communication technologies.” (Seib, p.14)

The Internet

In “Analyzing the Role of ICTs in the Tunisian and Egyptian Unrest from an Information

Warfare Perspective” the authors discuss how political and social activists use technology,

including the Internet, to further their objectives. The Internet provides immediate access to

audiences, and in turn creates a situation where social warfare and information can thrive. The

paper provides numerous examples of how ICTs were used successfully in previous uprisings.

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“...mobile phones and online social networks have been used to orchestrate anti-government

protests in the Philippines, Iran, Moldova, and Urumqi in China (Pillay, van Niekerk & Maharaj,

2010). The first use of ICTs in a protest context in Africa was in Mozambique during the 2010

riots over the increase in food prices (Jacobs & Duarte, 2010). The unrest in North Africa and the

Middle East is the latest in this emerging trend of using ICTs to facilitate mass protest actions.”

(van Niekerk, Kiru & Maharaj, p.2) The proper use of ICTs in a revolution is not only crucial in

terms of disseminating information, but also for delivering a message to a global audience,

ultimately creating a psychological frame that influences media coverage and perceptions.

According to “The Egyptian Revolution: Sense and Nonsense of the Internet Revolution”

Egypt has 23 million broadband Internet users, and 9 million mobile phone Internet users. The

Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (2010) reports that 80% of households

have mobile phones and 30% have access to the Internet. In March 2009, Facebook launched an

Arabic version of its website, and within two years, the number of Facebook users had tripled.

This is particularly important because a high percentage of Egypt’s demographic is young, and it

is expected that in less than 10 years, the majority of the Egyptian population will be Internet

users.

According to the United Nations

Development Program and Arab Human

Development Report in 2009, few post

independence Arab states have

transitioned to a democratic government,

and subsequently, civil society falls victim

to restrictions that hinder their ability to

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operate. Adding on to this issue is the high percentage of young people living under these

oppressive governments. “This “youth bulge” makes the Middle East one of the most youthful

regions in the world, with a median age of 22 compared to a global average age of 28 (UNDP,

2009). However, many youth are unemployed, with 33% of Egypt's youth staying at home

(Hokayem, 2011). This lack of employment among many youth, combined with nepotism,

corruption and state repression, has seen the Arab social contract fracturing (Hokayem, 2011),

making many countries ripe for a people’s revolution.” (van Niekerk, Kiru & Maharaj, p.5)

The combination of an angry youth population, coupled with ICTs created the perfect

environment which led to protests and a revolutionary movement.“The Arab world has always

been an early adopter of “mass media” technology. Egypt, in particular, is perceived as a leader

in the adoption of technology and also as the country with the largest number of Internet users in

the Arab world (Abdulla, 2007). Lynch (2007) argues that Egypt has some of the most active

political bloggers in the Arab public sphere, with Arab political blogging becoming more

politically relevant. This is supported by Etling et al., who contend that Egypt bloggers comprise

the largest structural cluster in the Arab world. Blogs intersect and compliment existing

transnational media, allowing for dissident groups and their sympathizers to tap into the

mainstream (Ajemian, 2008).” (van Niekerk, Kiru & Maharaj p.5)

In 1999, the government launched a campaign aimed at expanding Egypt’s information

technology capabilities by offering free Internet access, low-cost computers, and community

Internet centers. “According to Internet marketing research firm Internet World Stats, in

February 2010, more than 21% of Egypt’s population of 80 million had access to the Internet,

and more than 4.5 million used Facebook (Internet World Stats, 2011). Additionally, more than

70% of the population had a mobile phone subscription (Arab Republic of Egypt Ministry of

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Communications and Information Technology, 2010).” (Eltantawy & Wiest, p.6) Access to the

Internet allowed bloggers to blossom in Egypt, and it became a platform for tackling taboo

issues. “In the early 2000s, several Egyptian bloggers became prominent for tackling thorny

issues. The initial blogs were only published in English, but the development of Arabic software

encouraged the creation of more blogs in Arabic, thus attracting a wider domestic audience

(Hamdy, 2009). As the Egyptian blogosphere grew, activists began utilizing other

communication technologies, including social media like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and cellular

phones. April 2008 marked the first Egyptian instigated cyberactivism attempt, in which activists

created a Facebook page to join textile workers in Mahalla on a general strike. Although the

Facebook page attracted 70,000 supporters, the strike was harshly defeated by state security

forces.” (Eltantawy & Wiest, p. 6) Ultimately, the knowledge gained using social media during

this protest, proved useful in the 2011 Tahrir square uprising and subsequent revolution.

In “Media Ecologies, Communication Culture, and Temporal-Spatial Unfolding: Three

Components in a Communication Model of the Egyptian Regime Change” the authors discuss

the importance of how the social evolution and liberal control policies in Egypt, enlarged the

virtual space that was critical for a public sphere to form before the revolutionary movement

gained momentum. “The increasing popularity and the more censored traditional mass media

space, along with the liberal Internet control policies, enlarged the virtual space for a critical

public sphere before the revolutionary movement gained momentum. It also established a virtual

place to both express dissenting voices and flourish counter-hegemonic discourses. Although this

expanded public realm is mostly occupied by social elites, online discussions helped to create an

awareness of possible political change within a previously a political youth that helped in

transfering the virtual uproar to the streets and the traditional mass-mediated public sphere. In

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the pre-protest period, Egyptian Internet activists used Facebook predominantly as a platform for

knowledge seeking and sharing. They established transnational networks between activists in

Arab and non-Arab countries in order to exchange information about strategies for successful

political resistance and protest.” (Rinke & Roder, p.5)

Satellite Television

The wide spread access to satellite television in the Middle East, played a large role in the

spread of information, particularly coverage of the revolutions, which brought a sense of unity

and support from different communities across the region. “Comparing the sputtering, fact-

challenged official state television coverage of the revolutionary demonstrations with

international broadcasters such as Al Jazeera, BBC, and CNN dramatically illustrated that

Egyptian television was no longer able to impose its preferred reality upon its citizens. Egyptian

state television has to deal with the realities of competition with the hundreds of Arabic-language

channels being broadcast on satellite television throughout the entire Middle East, as well as with

the masses of people creating their own media truths on YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and

other Internet sites.” (Elseewi, p.4) Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera’s former Director General stated

that Al Jazeera’s role was to liberate the Arab mind. “We created the idea in the Arab mind that

when you have a right, you should fight for it." 4

In 2011, the ability for citizens to look to different sources for the truth became a

powerful tool in fighting the media war around these revolutions. They were no longer criminals,

animals or illegitimate fighters disrupting everyday life. Satellite television gave people a chance

to see from different sources what was really going on. “As state television showed scenes of the

Nile flowing comfortingly, calmly through central Cairo, as it has always flowed, Al Jazeera

4
Referenced from: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/the_big_think

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English and Arabic were broadcasting from inside Tahrir Square when violence broke out

between government thugs and demonstrators. Meanwhile, middle-class demonstrators were

posting their videos and tweets online. Repeated attempts by the Egyptian government to shut Al

Jazeera down, either through violent or technical means, failed. Their attempted shutdown of the

Internet and the mobile phone networks in the entire country resulted in an outcry from the

world, who was watching, and from neutral Egyptians. It was never clearer that reality was no

longer solely in the hands of the state. It also became clear that, just as the state had failed

Egyptians in terms of job creation, human rights, education, the environment, and everything

else, it had also failed in its ability to dictate cultural reality.” (Elseewi, p.4)

Authors of “Media Ecologies, Communication Culture, and Temporal-Spatial Unfolding:

Three Components in a Communication Model of the Egyptian Regime Change” point to

another important factor within the ecology of the Egyptian uprising when discussing television

broadcasting. “Due in part to high illiteracy rates and a cultural preference for orality, television

is a highly popular medium in the Egyptian public sphere. We can differentiate between three

kinds of TV networks: national state-run channels, national private satellite channels, and

transnational satellite channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. The coverage of the state-owned

channels under the Mubarak regime was devoid of criticism toward the political elites, and

interviews or talk programs were carefully orchestrated and supervised by the information

ministry. This type of reporting also characterized coverage of the political protests, and

therefore, it stood in sharp contrast to the transnational channels, which showed hundreds of

Egyptians demanding their civil rights. State television promoted a dishonest version of events

and broadcast calm scenes of Cairo street traffic or aired patriotic songs in favor of the

established regime. All of this happened against the backdrop of a recent top-down liberalization

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of the Egyptian media system during the last years, through which the Egyptian government had

reacted to the development of media globalization, and which had led to a more pluralistic media

environment dominated by private satellite channels and more independent newspapers (Khamis,

2008). These developments were generally regarded as having resulted in an expanded critical

public sphere. The role of transnational media outlets was yet another important element during

the revolutionary process in Egypt.” (Rinke & Roder p.7,8)

Mobile Phones

In the midst of the protests in Tahrir square, people used their mobile phones to document

their struggle through pictures and videos that would go online within minutes.When 72% of the

Egyptian population owns a mobile phone, they quickly become a great tool to utilize. In

addition, most social networking sites allow you to post messages using short message services

(SMS) in case the Internet is sparse or inaccessible. For example, a protester can text or tweet a

status update or even your geographical location with a message. According to “Media

Ecologies, Communication Culture, and Temporal-Spatial Unfolding: Three Components in a

Communication Model of the Egyptian Regime Change”, sensitive information about

demonstration venues and guidelines were spread through e-mail and short message services

(SMS). “Communication through these technologies draws more on personal networks services

and therefore, it allowed for both a more flexible spread of semi-public information services and

a mobilization of people who were not connected to social network sites. People were also asked

to print out protest guidelines and distribute them among their friends and colleagues. The

protest organizers also used SMS to spread the call for support of the protests in various forms:

either physically, by joining the demonstrators on the streets, or symbolically, by just waving the

Egyptian flag from balconies. This likely was an effective approach to reaching a large number

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of people. One important reason for that is the fact that, according to Ghannam (2011), 72% of

the Egyptian population uses mobile phones.” (Rinke & Roder p.6,7)

Oral Communication

The communication culture in the Middle East thrives on oral and face-to-face

communication. It factors in trust, family, friends and is essential in how social networks are

formed. “Oral communication, more so than in the Western world, has a striking advantage in

creating the resource of trust, and thus it was indispensable in the creation of a protest movement

that was based to a large extent on one-to-one mobilization. The culturally specific functions of

oral modes of communication necessarily interact with the two other components of an empirical

communication model of the Egyptian Revolution.” (Rinke & Roder p.3) Their research suggests

that while in Western socities, e-mail, phone calls and handouts are more central in

communication, for the Egyptian revolution, there was “need for orality.” Distinct cultural norms

and forms of communication in Egypt dictated specific patterns in which political protests unfold

in terms of time and space. “The “need for orality” during the early stages of protest formation,

for example, tends to lead to locally entrenched pockets of an initial resistance where an identity

and organization for the movement is developed and spread, especially under authoritarian rule.

Similar examples of such a cultural specificity are the local concentration of political

communication among citizens in the Friday Mosque and the consequences of Friday being the

traditional day of public political protest for the temporal dynamics of the revolutionary

movement. (Rinke & Roder p.3)

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Social Media

According to the Dubai School of Government’s Arab Social Media Report, there is a

large growth of Arab Facebook users. “The total number of Facebook users in the Arab world

stood at 27,711,503 as of April 2011, up from 21,377,282 in January 2011, an increase of 30

percent. The number had almost doubled since the same time the previous year (14,791,972 in

April 2010).” (Seib, p.11) Regimes in the region had not fully understood the magnitude of

social media and how the public was consuming it. In 2011, there were an estimated five billion

mobile phones in use, and two billion people who had access to the Internet. People are able to

connect to one another virtually anywhere in the world, and that creates new kinds of

communities. 5 That means people were able to connect to Facebook using their mobile phones,

and that in turn connected them globally to numerous communities. The high mobile phone

penetration in Egypt also meant that people were able to call one another, send text messages and

easily disseminate crucial information, including protest sites and location of the secret police.

“Unlike 20th-century nationalistic or Islamic transformations, this change is not accompanied by

or born out of strictly defined ideologies. Instead, we are witnessing the result of ongoing deep

transformations in the practices of cultural consumption and production in the Arab Middle East.

This change is represented and put into motion by a transformation in the ability of “regular

people” (i.e., those with access to limited resources) to consume new kinds of media, as well as

to produce and distribute their own media via social networking, YouTube, and other electronic

distribution networks.” (Elseewi, p.1)

Facebook and Twitter proved to be powerful tools during the 18 day revolution in Egypt,

because unlike television, these outlets provided a more raw sense of what was going on in the

streets. “Television functions as a distancing technology while social media works in the
5
Referenced from “Real Time Diplomacy” by Philip Seib

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opposite direction: through transparency of the process of narrative construction, through

immediacy of the intermediaries, through removal of censorship over images and stories

(television never shows the truly horrific pictures of war), and through person-to-person

interactivity, social media news curation creates a sense of visceral and intimate connectivity, in

direct contrast to television, which is explicitly constructed to separate the viewer from the

events.” (Seib, p.15) As protesters poured into Tahrir Square, police and military stood ready

with tear gas and guns. At one point, when the Egyptian government shut down the Internet,

hackers worked to restore a connection. “Within hours, the OpenMesh Project, a volunteer-

based initiative, was working to create secondary wireless Internet connections. The project

created mobile routers connected through mobile phones and personal computers. Technology

companies donated low-cost mini routers. Innovators donated patents.” (Russell, p.3) The act by

the Egyptian govenment to shut down the Internet speaks volumes to the power of the Internet,

and how it was used to share stories and information with audiences within and outside of Egypt.

In our world today, shutting down the Internet will not stop protesters from conveying a

message, there are other ICT tools in place, including mobile phones with built in cameras and

satellite television.

During the protests in Egypt, respectable news organizations, including the BBC and Al

Jazeera had live feeds from Egypts’ streets, facebook updates, text messages and that created a

continuos process of information that was beamed to audiences worldwide. An interview with

one of the protesters noted that during the early stages of the revolution, Twitter provided a

mechanism by which contact were made between activist and journalist. “During the sit-in in

Tahrir, people from the international media often looked for our hashtags [grouped messages],

and got in touch with us through Twitter. This was how we got to speak on their shows. So some

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communication with the mainstream media internationally started on the social networks.” 6

(Alexander, p.5) The interviewee goes on to explain that during a blackout, there was little

information coming out of Egypt. Hence, bloggers, activists, journalist collected the information

physcially and transmitted it physically or electorically, so they can spread the word about what

was going on in Egypt. “For an important layer of Egyptian opposition activists, we argue that

the Internet similarly became a sphere of dissidence. As one of the interviewees, Noha Atef,

explains, it was a place where people could and did meet others who shared their opposition to

the Mubarak regime and exchange information about protests: To have a space, an online space,

to write and talk to people, to give them messages which will increase their anger, this is my

favorite way of online activism. This is the way online activism contributed to the revolution.

When you asked people to go and demonstrate against the police, they were ready because you

had already provided them with materials which made them angry. (Interviewee Atef, 2011)”

(Alexander, p.5)

Conclusion

In the midst of the Arab awakening, ordinary citizens had become journalists, and these

journalist aided by ICTs, were bringing viewers all over the world their side of the story. A side

not filtered by the government, and not censored by broadcasting guidelines. The Egyptian

revolution demonstrates the power of ICTs, including satellite television, mobile phones, social

media and when combined with face-to-face communication, can yield powerful results. 7

6
Referenced from an interviewee, Gharbeia-2011
7
Chart referenced from “Media Ecologies, Communication Culture, and Temporal-Spatial Unfolding: Three
Components in a Communication Model of the Egyptian Regime Change.”

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Medium How it Worked What Did it Do?
Social Sites, blogging, Twitter, Pre Protest: Mobilization, Facilitated Pan Arab Identity
Facebook knowledge, raised political and broke the barriers of
awareness. traditional mass media spheres.

During Protest: Mobilization,
disseminating information,
sharing experiences.

Transnational Television Pre-protest Period: Renewed Engagement with
Stations Arab Journalism Practices Transnational Public Sphere
Popularity of TV as oral
medium mass media coverage
During Protest: Popular spread of events
of protest
Email, SMS, Mobile Phones During Protest: Cooperation Combined with a preference
with TV Channels spread for Oral Communication
information. provided information and built
trust between the protesters.

To the Egyptian people fighting this revolution, the ICT technology combined with face-to-face

communication made all the difference. The world was watching them, debating their issues,

tweeting about them, sharing Facebook posts and You Tube videos, and combined with their

fight for in the streets pressured Hosni Mubarak to step down.

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