The Internet & Democracy: Have We Learned Anything?
In the first wake of the Egyptian uprisings, and their framing as a “Facebook” revolution or Twitter revolution or “social media revolution” there was a lot of Utopian discours…
Tag: egyptian revolution
New Book Chapter On Mediated Experience Of The Uprisings
This just in: I have a new book chapter out on the Egyptian uprisings. The title is “Mediated Experience in the Egyptian Revolution” and it appears in Digital…
What Would A Muslim Brotherhood State Have Looked Like?
It’s one of the greatest controversies of the revolution: What would the state overseen by Egypt’s President Morsi have looked like if he had not been ousted in…
Bloodshed, Liminality & The Ends Of Egypt’s Revolution
The word “ends” has at least two significant meanings. We can speak of “ends” as goals, aspirations or outcomes. For example, we might ask, “What are the ends…
Are The Media Using The Wrong Yardstick To Measure The Revolution?
The concept of “revolution” used by Western media to report on the so-called “Arab Spring” (itself a term coined by the Western media) is rooted in understandings of…
“Revolutionary Egypt” Book Gets a Facebook Page
Its a book about the “Facebook revolution”, right? So it is only appropriate it finally gets its own Facebook page–concurrent with its coming out in paperback and as…
Creating Participatory Democracy (Or Trying, Anyway)
In hindsight, the biggest problem with the extraordinary protests in Tahrir Square was the lack of a coherent plan for creating democracy once Mubarak stepped down. I hear that…
Dying For The Revolution: Special Journal Issue
“Death lies at the beginning of the Arab uprisings and continues to haunt them.” So writes Amira Mittermeier in the introduction to a special collection of articles in…
Love And Fear in Egypt
Autocratic and democratic regimes are pretty much the same, says Joseph Massad in an article in the journal Public Culture. The chief difference is whether they seek to…
Did Social Media Cause The Egyptian Revolution?
I was recently asked (by otherwise sensible people), “Dr. Peterson, how would you assess the predominant media narrative that the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions—nicknamed ‘Facebook …