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NETWORK THEORY AND POLITICAL REVOLUTION

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Running head: NETWORK THEORY AND POLITICAL REVOLUTION

Network Theory and Political Revolution:
A Case Study of the Role of Social Media in the Diffusion of Political Revolution in Egypt
Carrie O‟Connell
San Diego State University
Journalism and Media Studies


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Abstract
The main goal of this study is to achieve a qualitative understanding of the scope and
shape of the network of political revolution as evidenced by the 2011 Egyptian civic uprisings. In
charting the physical map of the information-spreading that occurred through new media
platforms during the month-long protests, the foundation for qualitative study of the correlation
between the rise and influence of new media, the civil and political engagement of the publics
and the success of political revolutions will be achieved. Prompted by the success of 2011
Egyptian uprisings, the author will perform a case study of social unrest in Egypt between
January – February, 2011 with specific attention paid to the social media tools used to diffuse
information to physically disconnected groups of individuals. The central research questions ask:
What are the major hubs, vertically expansive and hierarchically leaderless, of the network of
revolution in Egypt and how are these hubs interconnected? Network theory (Watts and
Strogatz, 1998; Barabasi, 2002; Galloway and Thacker, 2007; Benkler, 2011; Castells 2011;
Castells, Monge and Contractor, 2011) will serve as a framework for understanding how the

dispersal of information through virtual networks of communication played a role in facilitating
revolution and examine the declining role of hierarchically organized apparatuses of power in a
network society.


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Statement of Purpose and Background
In recent months, the political phenomenon dubbed the “Arab Spring” has swept across
the Middle East and Africa, credited by many as the cultural trend of democratization made
possible by a century of Western influence, the emergence of new media and a generational flux
that has positioned the ideologies of a youthful populace at the helm of a hegemonic shift from
the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia to the western borders of Iran. As of October 2011, less than
a year after the first sign of Spring, the Tunisian revolution that ousted President Zine El Abidine
Ben Ali, the ultimate impact of the Arab Spring has yet to be determined. However, this lack of
an endgame has not slowed many in the media from declaring clear winners and losers nor
populations all over the globe, from Greece to the United States, from taking a page out of the
Arab Spring play-book to mimic revolutionary trends treated by many in mainstream media with
only superficial analysis.
Of the clear victors thus far, new media – specifically, social networking platforms that
offer a necessary combination of connectivity, anonymity and instant information dissemination
– have emerged as champions of social revolution and catalysts of change. And, upon superficial
glance, it is not hard to see why. One need look no further than the numerous Twitter feeds that
dominated conversation during the 2011 Egyptian uprisings to imagine the salience of social
networking as a major theme in political revolutions. However, looking to new media as the
cause of recent political turmoil (as many in the mainstream media have done) would be to
willfully neglect a repository of pre-existing factors from festering discontent with political
figureheads, real-world socialization that predated the virtual network, the influence of popular

opposition movements with clear, pre-established political goals and generations of historical
hegemonic shifts in populations as different from each other in cultural character as they are in


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physical dynamic. Yet, the impetus to cleanly package social and political revolution and clarify
a cause for the change it will no doubt spawn is evident when, in light of the recent Occupy Wall
Street protests in the United States that have captured global attention, the question dominating
newsfeeds across mainstream media is: “can the Arab Spring happen here?”
Less than a half-century after the now infamous false analogy, the “Domino Effect,”
peddled by U.S. policy-makers as reasoning for military intervention in Vietnam (without action,
Cambodia, Burma and Thailand would surely fall to Communism as well, due solely to their
proximity to Vietnam), it appears a critical misunderstanding of the cause / effect correlation as
well as the complexity of national character as an influencer of hegemonic change still dominate
revolution discourse.
While the emergence of new media tools, characterized as phenomenon of the “Web 2.0”
era due to their allowance for user interactivity and global scalability, have certainly played a
role in twenty-first century revolution, the importance of that role must be examined with the
context of the individual revolutions in mind. A conflation of character and prophecies of
eventual outcomes of the revolutions in Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Greece, the United States and a
host of other countries, are not only premature, they are potentially dangerous if one‟s goal is to
understand the influence of the network upon social movement and political revolution. Like the
media revolutions that came before it, new media must be understood not as a catalyst for
change; rather, it should be heralded as a tool of information spreading and an agent of
organization.
Political Revolution Evolves as New Media Emerges
Though its invention dates back to the fifteenth century, the pace at which Johannes

Gutenberg‟s printing press diffused through mass society (outside of aristocratic circles, that is),


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attributed to a technological void in industry that, coupled with strict censorship by those in
control of capital and production, marred its potential immediate impact. Daily newspapers
would not emerge in continental Europe for another two centuries and it would be a half-century
after that before the first English-language daily circulated through the streets of London
(Harrower, 2007). Similarly, it is no coincidence that, though the genre had been steadily
emerging since the seventeenth century, the novel would also not receive mass recognition until
the midpoint of the nineteenth century – when industry eventually caught up to innovation. Seen
as an indulgence of pop-culture, the novel awakened a newly literate class of people once it
reached the masses.
It is commonly agreed upon in circles of academic interest that the rise of technology
during the Industrial Revolution paved the way for the worldwide social, agricultural, political
and military changes endured during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Castells, 1996).
Similarly, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as the Internet gains in popularity amongst
the masses, the democratization of communication (Couldry, Livingstone & Markham, 2010) is
encouraging idea-sharing and debate in virtual spaces free of issues typically experienced by
their „real-world‟ counterparts. Once the playground of an elite group of computer hobbyists and
programmers (Castells, 1996), the Internet has expanded to include the general populace poised
for political influence.
Historical Precedent for Network Influence
When the United States declared its independence on July 4, 1776, the rapid transmission
platforms of Twitter and Facebook might not have existed, but this does not mean that a peoplecentered network as diverse as the population within it did not play heavily in the distribution
patterns of the revolutionary information. Per Congress, a copy of the Declaration of

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Independence was ordered to be printed in every major colonial newspaper as a means of
disseminating the information over a vast geographical area. Unlike the monopolized printing
industry in much of Europe, the colonies represented a vast network populated by postmasters,
shopkeepers and even housewives moonlighting as part-time printers as a means of making endsmeet (Library of Congress). Wearing multiple hats, the common colonial printer represented a
multi-faceted node with a variety of weak links, as Barabasi (2002) might assess, due to the
necessity of occupational diversity. The quick distribution and subsequent social influence of the
Declaration of Independence, which circulated through every major paper within two weeks
(relatively quickly, by eighteenth century standards), in part can be attributed to the structure of
the network. Unable to rely on a single distributer and the capital which supported mass
distribution, the colonists made the best of the talents of amateurs turned publishers and the
increasingly affordable tools of distribution.
The amateurization of the printing industry did not create civil discontent in the colonies,
however. It merely facilitated the flow of information. Contextually, marrying the rise of
industry, the rise of literacy and the rise of political revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries together is hardly a stretch. When produced within a system supported by the power of
capital (like the printing press was at inception), the influence of message can be contained,
managed and disseminated per the interests of the controlling powers (like the sixteenth century
Church). However, when the publics acquire the ability to participate in active message
dissemination, traditional political structures are threatened, as the newly minted States realized
by the end of the eighteenth century.
In Egypt, specifically, the media characterize a curious complexity that in many ways
mirrors the cognitive dissonance of the Egyptian population itself. Part governmental mouthpiece


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by way of state control, part conduit of globalization due to an economically liberal market, the
evolution of media in Egypt is not so unlike that of the early United States. Perhaps different in
regulatory framework, one thing remains the same: when industry evolves to equalize the
playing-field of distribution, and message creation and dissemination is placed firmly in the
hands of amateurs who represent vast personal networks, not only can information flow, so too
can hegemony flux.
The Use of New Media in Non-Democratic Societies
A crucial first step for understanding how media tools support this flow and flux is to
understand the context of the community in which they are used. And, while drawing
hypothetical connections between today‟s world and events of previous centuries provides some
insight into the relationship between media tools, pre-established social networks and changing
political dynamics, the twenty-first century has provided multiple examples in only its first
decade that offer a more equitable comparison.
On January 16, 2001 thousands of protesters descended upon the historic site of Epifanio
de los Santos in Manila to voice their discontent for the president of the Philippines, Joseph
Estrada, accused of a list of corruption from mishandling public funds to using illegal income to
purchase homes for his mistresses (Castells et al, 2007). Wearing all black to mourn the “death
of democracy,” protesters, dubbed Power People II, remained in the town square for four days
until Estrada was removed from office by military force on January 20, 2001. The protesters,
who organized their demonstration through rapid SMS text-messaging, considered their 4-day
standoff a success.
However, assessing the cause and effect equation simply as protesters arrived day one,
president removed day four, and attributing success of the Power People II movement to efficient


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organization via mobile communication would mean to neglect the nearly three-year anti-Estrada
campaign, launched largely on the Internet, that aided in building political momentum that
surged behind the temporally and spatially confined protests. It would also willfully discount the
impact Filipino cultural managers like the Catholic Church had on the progress of the movement
and ignore the civil unrest, namely the bombing of a subway by an Islamist militant group, in the
months leading up to the protests that had created a climate of fear in the country.
Collectively, however, when a climate of social unrest, the influence of powerful cultural
managers, popular civil discontent with failing government and the influence of technological
development are married, a perfect storm of potential for democratic change is formed. Despite
criticism that one faction (say, the Catholic Church) co-opted the movement as a means to
disseminate a politically-steeped agenda (in this case, the middle-class, white-collar defined
opposition movement seeking Estrada‟s impeachment), the ability of mobile communication to
facilitate and “mobilize civil society when push came to shove,” cannot be discounted (AndradeJimenez as cited in Castells et al, 2007).
In non-democratic societies (and, I use that phrase superficially to define those societies
whose governmental structures do not fit the prototypical hegemonic Western mold of
participatory government), the potential, therefore, exists for societal and political change if the
power of the people works in tandem with the powerful facilitation provided by available
telecommunications platforms that enable mass-connectivity and ubiquitous informationspreading at the hands of the people. Transformation of such non-democratic societies is reliant
upon democratically developed telecommunications industries that allow for personal autonomy
despite political restrictions on governmental practices. When push comes to shove, as Andrade-


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Jimenez (2001) expresses, it is the flow of technological development that will force the ebb of
autocratic rule.

The Technological Democratization of Egypt
Of the non-democratic societies that exist in the early twenty-first century, particular
attention must be paid to the developing countries of the Middle East, particularly because of
their potential for the influence of foreign telecommunications investment and popular demand
for global technology.
When ARABSAT launched its first satellite into space in 1985, telecommunications in
the Arab world marked a major period of advancement. The ARABSAT project, conceived by
the Arab League as early as 1969 and developed with the help of French manufacturer
Aerospatiale, represented a burgeoning trend of economic globalization and foreign partnership
that would reshape economies and politics throughout the Arab world into the new millennia.
Though the span of the ARABSAT satellite system, which by 1986 included three satellites,
reached across the entirety north of Africa through Saudia Arabia to the East and Sweden to the
north, those countries able to own channels within the satellite system were limited to Arab
League partners (Rugh, 2004). Unfortunately for Egypt, suspended from the Arab League in
1979 for signing the Camp David Peace Treaty with Israel, participation in broadcast and
production of satellite programming would be delayed six years until they launched their own
satellite system, NILESAT, in 1991 as a byproduct of the Gulf War.
While Egypt was excluded from production through the ARABSAT system, this does not
mean that Egyptian consumers were blocked access to ARABSAT programming. The impact of
globalization on the availability of audiovisual equipment cannot be understated in this respect.
While in 1980, Egyptian-made satellite dish antennas cost consumers roughly 30,000 Egyptian


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pounds, by the early 1990s this cost had significantly dropped to around 1,750 Egyptian pounds,
thanks to cheaper imports from Singapore and Taiwan (Guaaybess, 2001). This broadening of
the telecommunications market laid the foundation for what Attiga (2000) calls the economic

groundwork for democratic growth. To Attiga (2000), democracy requires “an acceptable level
of social equity in the distribution of wealth, and opportunities for education […],” (p. 89). And,
while Egypt is a country under strict autocratic control (at least in practice), according to Attiga
(2000), the patterns of democratic development can take place even in the absence of political
democracy.
At this point, it is crucial to remember Egypt‟s long and varied past, rife with a hybridity
that reflects both its Arab tradition and European influence. Though it is easy to oversimplify the
country as a strict autocratic regime based on recent civil unrest, Egypt‟s democratic tradition by
way of foreign influence is crucial for understanding its political potential. When Napoleon first
invaded Egypt in 1798, while his military conquest was met with considerable resistance, the
influence of the French society – at the time marked by political revolution and civil engagement
in evolutionary changes in print communication – infused Western traditions that would persist
in Egypt for the next two centuries (Vatikiotis, 1969). The founding of the Institute of Egypt, the
country‟s first institution of higher learning, and the print journals the Courrier de l’Egypte, a
political journal, and La Decade Egyptienne, a monthly scientific and economic journal, brought
about a significant development of the intellectual class in Egypt (Vatikiotis, 1969). Throughout
the development of Modern Egypt, the influence of foreign interest persisted, most notably
marked by British occupation in the 19th century and the Western-backed construction of the
Suez Canal in 1869. Throughout the 20th century, a growing discontent with foreign influence
culminated with the overthrow of British-backed monarch Ismail Pasha, a Western sympathizer,


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in 1952 was realized with the election of Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, the country‟s first
president, in 1956. Backed by the Revolution Command Council, while Nasser‟s election was
welcomed by many as revolutionary change and a return to nationalistic priorities, it is important
to note the military influence of neighboring Arab countries in positioning a militant as leader of

a once “Europeanized” country. Egypt did not lose its hybridity, however, as illustrated by its
first constitution, adopted in 1956. The constitution merged Islamic religious law with
Napoleonic civil law as the foundation for the new-found republic. Not unlike many Western
democracies, to this day Egypt‟s governmental architecture includes an executive, legislative and
judicial branch of elected officials. Differing from many Western democracies, however, certain
governing officials are appointed to office by the president, who enjoys six-year terms with no
term limits.
In structure, the Egyptian governmental system seems plausibly democratic. However,
the strict state control of public institutions, namely the communications industry, threatened the
potential for true democracy to flourish throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Adopted in
1979, Law No. 13, reconfirmed in 1989 by Law No. 223, of the Egyptian constitution states that
the state shall have “sole authority over all radio and television in the country,” (Rugh, 2004, p.
205). While these laws exist to exclude the influence of opposition ideology within the country,
they are not impenetrable by privatization.
As previously discussed, the ARABSAT satellite system, launched in 1985, and the
Egyptian-owned NILESAT, launched in 1991, opened the door for foreign influence due to the
Egyptian government‟s inability to produce programming that met with the peoples‟ tastes and
subsequent demands. The Egyptian Radio and Television Union‟s (ERTU) reliance upon CNN
for information about the Gulf War put Egypt‟s strictly-controlled communications industry in


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an interesting position in the nineties. As the network gained more influence with the people due
to its “novelty and quality of the information of American origin,” (Guaaybess, 2001, p. 65) the
evolving tastes of the Egyptian people were realized in a very high profile way. Unable to meet
the demands of a newly competitive market, throughout the nineties, president Mubarak
launched programs aimed specifically at attracting private investors in the Egyptian audiovisual

market (Guaaybess, 2001).
Throughout the decade, the strict control of the ERTU waned as fixing a budget deficit of
$200 million became a top priority of the audiovisual regulator. By the mid-nineties, with only
50% of shares in Cable News Egypt, the country welcomed the investment of foreign networks
like CNN and MTV to meet public demand for programming (Guaaybess, 2001). Additionally,
foreign advertisers were wooed in order to balance depleting communications budgets. In short,
economic strains and public demand for “quality” programming deemed unbiased,
comparatively, eclipsed ideological platforms aimed at protecting Egyptian ideological interests
via audiovisual platforms.
This liberalization of the audiovisual market is in line with the telecommunications
history of Egypt, the Arab world‟s unparalleled leader in broadcast. As Amin & Gher (2000),
highlight, unlike many Arab countries Egypt‟s long theatre history, cinematic gravitas (in the
1920s, cinema was the second largest source of income for Egypt), and stable entertainment
industry have made Egypt a formidable leader in the audiovisual market. As a strong competitor,
its proclivity for relatively open markets is understandable in a new economy. And, as new forms
of media emerged in the latter twentieth century, the liberalization of the entire of
telecommunications market – even in a country with strict regulations and governmental control
– should have been no surprise.


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Yet, as the economic liberalization of the telecommunications sector grew, so too did
governmental restrictions on the press which criminalized those media outlets who did not meet
with pro-Egypt attitudes. Having enjoyed a much freer existence under Mubarak‟s regime than
Sadat‟s, Law No. 93 which was introduced in 1995 and restricted freedom of the press, shocked
many in the media world. Under the new law, journalists whose articles were not “supported by
conclusive and irrefutable evidence,” according to Mubarak (as cited in Napoli, Crimmins and

Teel, 2000) could be imprisoned, subject to judicial review. An era of overt and self-censorship
subsequently emerged in the Egyptian press giving rise to public apathy and growing distrust of
the government-backed media institutions. What was on the horizon, however, would change the
game forever.
The Mobile Movement in Egypt
When the first mobile phones were introduced in Egypt in 1997, diffusion was slow and
aimed largely at the upper classes who could afford the new technology. By 2000 there were
roughly 3.3 million mobile phone subscribers in Egypt which climbed to 14 million by 2006
(Mecheal, 2008). As of 2011, according to the first quarter report from the National
Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, the number of mobile phone subscribers in a
population of just over 80 million people has reached 74 million for a 93% market penetration
rate (Q1-2011). For a “non-democratic” society with marked Western influence both in popular
culture and governmental structure, this is significant.
Today, Egypt boasts an interesting combination of wide-spread mobile phone use, a
median age of 24.3 years according to a 2010 census report, and government initiatives that,
despite their regulatory framework, see the advancement of technology as part of the Egyptian
future. In 2008, the Egyptian National Post Organization (ENPO) and Computer and Software


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Department at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce signed an agreement to
spread personal computers for to home Egyptian home, making the digital divide in a country
with over a 60% rural population (Research and Markets, 2011) seem less of a hurdle. By 2011,
Telecom Egypt‟s monopoly of the telecommunications sector was also partially privatized and is
thought to be largely under private control by 2015 (Research and Markets, 2011). Add to these
factors the emergence of a third mobile license open to foreign communications companies and
expected to be launched by 2012, the power of state regulatory bodies amidst growing civil

instability and the influence of globalization will most certainly ebb in the coming decade. And,
with a literacy rate of 71% - a 20 point increase from just a decade ago, Egypt is primed for a
democratic shift by way of technological development, if history proves a precedent.
Adding to this combination, the growing distrust of Egyptian media has spawned an
amateurization of journalism whereby private citizens are taking control of information
dissemination, thanks to the tools of convergence available to them. According to a report from
the Egyptian Cabinet‟s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), the number of blogs
had dramatically raised from a few dozen in the late nineties to over 160,000 by 2008. With the
boom of interactive technology, users can create, disseminate and reproduce messages at a
relatively low cost and with the security of anonymity if preferred. Low cost and reflective of a
burgeoning technological generation, mobile telephony has propagated in Africa above all other
countries due to its paralleled combination of factors: economic disenfranchisement and a largely
young population.
Seen as a “tectonic shift in the contemporary formation of adolescent identity,” (Holmes
and Russell and cited in Castells et al, 2007, p. 141) the flexibility associated with mobile
communication has defined an emancipated mobile youth culture eager to craft its own identity


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free of geo-spatial influence and, as we have seen in many non-democratic societies that manage
expression through regulation, find an autonomous yet collective voice facilitated by technology.
As climates of social unrest, the influence of powerful cultural managers by way of Western
media, popular civil discontent with failing governments and the influence of technological
development are married in the non-democratic societies of the Middle East, the perfect storm of
potential for democratic change has arrived.
It is important to remember that this storm did not brew overnight, however. In the case
of Egypt, the storm is just another in a larger weather system that cycles almost as often as the

annual flooding of the Nile river. In a 2008 profile of the brewing political tension in the
country, Bradley (2008) summarized a near-century of political ebbs and flows:
And the evidence of the past hundred years shows the Egyptians to be far from
docile and unconcerned with who rules them or how: a popular revolution against
the British (1919), a mass uprising in which half of Cairo burned (January 1952)
followed by a coup d‟etat (July 1952) itself, and massive food riots that forced AlSadat into a humiliating climb down in plans to cut government food subsidies
(1977) – not to mention a steady stream of assassinations, mass demonstrations,
and terrorist attacks. (p. 221)
Noting a temporal pattern to the uprisings, Bradley‟s (2008) assessment of the future was
prophetic:
Such a history hardly speaks, then, of apathy; but still more worrying for the
regime, and still more inspiring for those who aim to bring about its demise, is the
fact that the gap between both 1919 and 1952, and 1952 and 1977, was about
three decades: precisely the period between 1977 and the present. Egypt, this


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reading of history would suggest, may indeed be ripe for one of its periodic
popular uprisings. (p. 221)
And, on January 25, 2011, Bradley‟s prophecy was realized. This popular uprising would be far
different in shape and scope from the revolutions of yesteryear, however. Supported by a virtual
network available through new media tools of the twenty-first century, the 2011 Egyptian
uprising has proved not only effective for removing a dictator, but sustainable as well. As the
one-year anniversary of the occupation of Tahrir Square approaches, the revolution is far from
over, and by many accounts – growing stronger.
Literature Review
Silencing Dissenting Voices

One of the biggest hurdles opposition groups within Egypt faced prior to the dominance
of new media as the preferred platform of political discourse was the risk of exposure that came
packaged with the benefits of traditional social networking. As the capital city of Egypt, Cairo is
a microcosm of contemporary culture where, backed by a mix of social vibrancy and
metropolitan chaos, the life of the public space is one in which animated debate is a staple
activity (Bradley, 2008). And, on an average Thursday in 2006, it would not be irregular to
witness one such lively debate at Al-Nadwa Al-Saqafiya café, a place where average Egyptians –
Muslim, Christian, Sufi and secular alike – could meet to discuss political events and their shared
disdain for the government, which by 2007 had culminated in an 87% disapproval rating,
according to a Pew International poll (Bradley, 2008). Lively discourse, therefore, had a platform
for expression, but not without the fear of exposing those who took part in these public
gatherings. And, like many platforms of dissent before it, in 2006, before one such meeting,
Egyptian secret police raided the café and arrested its owner, effectively shutting down the


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platform of expression for dissenting voices. In the realm of the Internet, however, the threat of a
single crack-down dismantling an entire platform of expression is highly unlikely. Unlike a raid
on a café and the tangible political threats that come with it, for a host of reasons (not the least of
which is the simple fact that many of the old-guard simply aren‟t “hip” to its reach), the Internet
can withstand the loss of a single node without much disruption. Regarded as the only truly
democratic form of communication (Castells, 2002), the Internet boasts a seemingly egalitarian
pedigree far different from the boundaries of group communication in the „real world.” Free of
non-verbal communicators that often serve to threaten or encourage silence amongst ideological
minorities within a group and backed by an asynchronous world, communities of like-minded
individuals (Couldry, Livingstone & Markham, 2010) can bond in online communities and
engage actively in topics that matter to the individuals which make-up the group.

The Acceptance of Dissent
Without the public visibility of majority opinion, those of opposing perspectives are often
marginalized and silenced from public debate (Noelle-Neumann, 1993). Sustaining the life of
this silence is the psychological need of the individual to feel a part of a group, thereby
encouraging lack of dissent. Without inclusion into a group dynamic, the fear of isolation
emerges. The need to publicly engage with others and the subsequent (albeit superficial) mimicry
of behavior and ideological position that follows often trumps the original passions of the
dissenting voices (Noelle-Neumann, 1993).
In his evaluation of mass media‟s ability to change opinions, Schramm (1964), argued
that because individuals are “anchored in (the need for) approval by family or other groups
which are important,” (p. 132) one is much more likely to fall in line with the consensus of the
opinion of the valued group, even if that opinion conflicts with what is peddled by the mass


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media. What this illuminates is the idea that individuals are not arbitrarily swayed – even if
larger social consensus is at stake; rather, strength of opinion is positively correlated to the
promise of inclusion within a group the individual deems valuable. In short, the sociopsychological need to belong to a community linked by common values motivates an individual
far more than the righteousness of both personal opinion and larger social acceptance.
The hedonistic need for social capital gained through inclusion within a group, as
outlined by Schramm (1964) is in line with modern theories of social solidarity. According to
Scholz (2008), there are three defining characteristics of solidarity between individuals. The first
characteristic emphasizes that neither individualism nor communalism defines solidarity; rather,
it is elements of the blend of both (p. 18). The second characteristic states that solidarity is, at its
core, unity of an identifiable group, (Scholz, 2008, p. 19). The third and final characteristic of
solidarity amongst social groups is the moral obligation that unites each member of the group
around a philosophical core (Scholz, 2008, p. 19). When these characteristics exist within a

group, social movement is possible. When multiple groups working independently of one
another share the common threads of social solidarity, despite superficial differences in their
agendas, social revolution is possible.
Social Solidarity in Egypt
On January 25th, 2011, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets all throughout
Egypt to express discontent with the government and its internal security forces. Curiously,
though the masses descended upon town “squares” in Alexandria, Suez, Cairo and various other
cities throughout the country, there was no single, unifying event or cause that prompted
individual protest. Rather, a series of events dating back to 2008 cumulatively led to loosely
organized protests of the government and its police forces on January 25th – Egypt‟s public


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holiday known as National Police Day (Aljazeera 2011). The symbolic correlation between the
day of protest and the national holiday is salient. Following the controversial killing of 28-year
old blogger Khaled Said in June 2010 at the hands of the Egyptian police, President Hosni
Mubarak‟s internal security forces and the national police force became both abstract and literal
targets of public disdain.
Said‟s death highlighted the power of the state – backed by the threat of physical force –
over the individual, particularly those in opposition to the government. It also highlighted the
rising power of information spreading that would prove a formidable opponent to the physical
force threatened by the national police months later.
Like the People Power II movement in the Philippines a decade earlier, the
“spontaneous” uprising in Egypt, which many assess as being catalyzed by the uprisings in
Tunisia a month earlier (and, erroneously, I assess), the movement had been growing, as Bradley
(2008) predicted it would in 2008, for years before boots ever hit the ground in Tahrir Square. In
the years and months leading up to the initial day of protest, two Facebook pages in particular:

“April 6th Youth movement” founded in 2008 by private citizen Ahmed Maher as a popular
workers strike against corrupt government labor practices, and the “We are all Khaled” page,
established in June of 2010 after the brutal killing of blogger Khaled Said, served to organize
thousands of discontented individuals in a virtual sphere before protests took physical shape.
What is interesting about these two distinct pages is that at their inception – years apart
from one another – their purposes were superficially different, even if their ideological platforms
(opposition to the state) were similar. As interest in each site grew, as evidenced by their
independent fan bases boasting tens of thousands of fans per page, a tenuous correlation – or,


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“stick” (Weinberger, 2008) – of connection between the sites became apparent as individuals
became fans of both sites.
In his analysis of the morality of links in a network, Weinberger (2008) posits that those
connections between nodes are not so much a funnel that channels correlating information
between pages thereby creating ideological connections between separate nodes, but a “stick”
that serves only to link what could be ideologically opposing forces. Therefore, links are not
conduits of ideological inculcation; rather, they are the literal bridges of dissonance, necessary
for connecting superficially opposing groups.
When considering the individual rise of “competing” Facebook pages, understanding this
distinction is important. Underlying the moral value of the network is what Weinberger (2008)
refers to as the “Golden Rule” syllogism of the network: opposing forces share one world, the
world matters to all, therefore what matters to others matters to us (p. 186, 2008). While these
rules serve to sustain the morality of a network of opposing forces, when that opposition is
superficial (say, the purpose of a page or the religion of the actors within the network) and the
ideological matter similar (opposition to the state), the stability of connection is strengthened.
Surpassing the superficial differences of the actors and nodes of special interest and

sustained both by virtual connection and tangible action, the revolution in Egypt defied
traditional threats of force and ended with the interim removal of president Hosni Mubarak from
office on February 11, 2011. The journey of a country from scattered disenfranchised individuals
to collective action marks a turning point in the organization of peaceful political uprisings.
Armed with the tools of information dissemination rather than the weapons of oppression, a
previously powerless populace found its voice.
Challenging the Traditional Systems


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With the rise of the Internet, dissenting voices that were once marginalized found
communities of like-minded souls through new media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Though largely unable to share their opinions in public due to what Wael Ghomin, the Google
executive responsible for administering one of the pages, calls the “psychological barrier of
fear,” (TED 2011) the Egyptian population unified under identifiable groups, connected by
ideological passion and moral obligation to bring attention to human rights violations (TED
2011) in Egypt.
Many critics of state-controlled media (like that of Egypt) cite the entanglement of
government and the press as a key factor in the stifling of dissenting voices. With government
sponsorship, the spin is potent of prolific due to its backing. Without government sponsorship,
those voices on the fringe, and the outlets that cover them, run the risk of being deemed political
operatives in opposition to state control, as those in the Al-Nadwa Al-Saqafiya café discovered.
The threat of being labeled and, therefore, accountable for the label of “enemy of the state”
instills what Ghonim (2011) deems a “psychological terror,” in line with the depth of fear of
isolation Noelle-Neumann (1993) enumerates. This fear materializes in what some critics
characterize as disengagement from civic engagement provoked by marginalization.
However, as the report on public engagement conducted by Couldry, Livingstone &

Markham (2010) observed, public interest and participation in civil engagement do not share a
positive correlation. Rather, belief in lack of public efficacy and a general malaise brought on by
the belief that individual acts would yield no real results, politically, brought about the declining
rates of public participation in activities such as voting, volunteering and protesting throughout
the latter half of the twentieth century. Conversely, when participants in the study saw a positive
correlation between cause and effect (their efforts yielding actual political effects), civic


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participation increased (Couldry, Livingstone & Markham, 2010). What this suggests is the
failure of traditional media to galvanize public opinion, or as cynics argue: success of the
traditional media in weeding out subversive or otherwise oppositional voices.
In many ways, the structure of the media industry is to blame. Those publics that stood a
fighting political chance against a government they opposed traditionally needed the support of
those with access to institutions of similar architecture. In Egypt, where the average salary of a
journalist, for example, rarely meets the standard of living, many journalists supplanted their
incomes by taking bribes from advertisers and other politically interested factions (Bradley,
2008). What resulted, as many critics assess, was an overt as well as self-muzzling of journalism
that proliferated throughout the twentieth century.
Egypt is not alone in this phenomenon. The traditionally synergistic relationship between
media and the architectural apparatus of “the state” played a role in both crafting and
counteracting democratic movements in nondemocratic societies prior to the advent of new
media platforms. One can look no further than the anti-Communist uprisings in Eastern Europe
during the 1980s for evidence of the strict framework, supported by a reverence for
hierarchically organized social and political relationships, in which subversive revolutions were
able to form. What close attention to the architecture of these “democratic” revolutions proves is
that contrary to the theory of democracy, subversive voices were only able to sound and echo

through a chamber characterized by access to capital, previously acquired social power and
ideological control: the theoretical nemeses of true democracy. Though the political movements
which opposed the Communist party reflected and served a conflicting ideological agenda, the
media which supported the opposition were hardly autonomous from the States in which they
derived (Gross, 2002). Revolution was only supported in those limited instances where the


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opposition had access to spreading their political message through traditional media and the
publishing apparatus that supported them such as books, magazines, newsletters, radio and
television productions and audio and video cassettes (Gross, 2002).
What is presupposed is a level of sociopolitical status of the producers and disseminators
of this messaging that enabled access to such publishing and production tools. What resulted,
therefore, were pockets of revolution limited to those societies with access to the traditional
framework of political power. As such, the democratic nature of revolution, characterized by
these methods, is questioned. When media is used as moderator of revolution, manipulation of
and control over the public is presumed. Livingstone (2005) reflects this knee-jerk attitude
characteristic of those supported by and in support of the traditional media framework when she
states:
[…] one cannot now imagine how the public can be constituted, can express
itself, can be seen to participate, can have an effect, without the mediation of
various forms of mass communication. (pp. 26).
While one the one hand, this point of view seems in line with the idea that mass communication
and the tools which support it should be heralded as facilitators of public action, the theoretical
foundation upon which Livingstone rests her argument is steeped in traditional bias that flaunts
the „shortcomings‟ of new media as it makes its case. She argues that, unlike government
supported-initiatives, as publicly derived movements extend their scope, they lose influence due

to a tangible strain of diffusion (2005). Unless supported by an apparatus characterized by
physical boundaries, the public stands little chance of actual influence.


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Perhaps reflective of its mid-decade inception, this point of view is troubled. New media
do not require the traditional media apparatus as a means of message spreading; rather, it
challenges it – and, successfully.
With the rise of the Internet, a threat to the dominant political influence that has
monopolized the opinion game has emerged. Once marginalized voices find a battleground for
“cultivating their social and cultural proclivities,” (Mattei and Ball-Rokeach, 2002) on the
Internet. A multi-tentacled and generationally divergent platform, the Internet allows for cultural
and social ideologies championed by once marginalized voices (often synonymous with youth
outcries) to achieve popular status, thereby fueling the political goals of their virtual professors
(Mansell and Silverstone, 1994; Silverstone and Hirsch, 1997). This newfound engagement
threatens the traditional view, spun by the majority, of the “apathetic” citizenry commonly
believed to be the cause of declining involvement in the social and political sphere over the past
century.
Stepping Outside of the Traditional Media Framework
In the twenty-first century, the Internet has become the medium of communication of
those groups that lack the economic means or political prowess to obtain traditional media
influence, but boast a contingency that is long on interest and therefore hedonistic motivations
(Benkler, 2005) to contribute to an open-source network of support. When groups share a
common ideological thread, online-based community is viable and potent (Matei and BallRokeach, 2002). With the promise of anonymity and the guarantee of connection, the online
world allows for a forum of community-building free of the traditional constraints of being
“outed” as a dissident. Prior to this safeguard, to a dissenting public the “real-world” equaled
consequences that ranged from social ostracization in societies that champion free speech to

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imprisonment or death in those that did not. On the other hand, the major threat to the newfound
style of community-building is the sustainability of the communities which are derived in the
online platform.
What studies have shown is that those online communities which have roots in or can
translate to actual communities enjoy the best chances for long-term success. Meaning, the
success of substantial online connection and the social action is facilitates is contingent upon
real-world grounding. In 2001 Philippines, this backing came from years of civil discontent and
the power of sympathetic groups with political capital (the Church). In 2011 Egypt, this backing
similarly came from years of civil discontent and the power of sympathetic groups with political
capital – the Muslim Brotherhood, for one, who in five years had increased their role in
government from 15 seats in 2000 to 88 in 2005 (Bradley, 2008). In short, the online world is
simply a conduit for connecting those communities which already exist in the tangible world
(Matei and Ball-Rokeach, 2002). What this suggests is that the online world does not create
strong communities so much as it facilitates and sustains them within a network. As Matei &
Ball-Rokeach (2002) found in their case study of middle-class Korean and Chinese families and
their perspective on political insights, “technology / community-building inventions should be a
dual track,” (p. 422). Social capital gained online was only socially viable when it could translate
to and be supported by social capital existent in the real world. In short, social capital online is
only valuable for provoking social change when it has roots in the offline world.
In the twenty-first century, networks – full of clusters of connection and hubs of activity
– must be considered when addressing the influence of message dissemination on political
action. Understanding the power of networks and their spatial flexibility is essential for
understanding the success of harnessing and diffusing public opinion.