UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIAFacoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Scienze Politiche, Giurisprudenza,

Ingegneria, Economia

Corso di Laurea Interfacoltà in

Comunicazione, Innovazione, Multimedialità

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE ARAB SPRINGA FOCUS ON EGYPT

Relatore: Chiar.mo Prof. Paolo CostaCorrelatori: Chiar.mo Prof. Guido Legante Dott. Augusto Valeriani

Tesi diFederica Mordini

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

Khalil Gibran

MYSTIFICATIO

N

Did social media have an impact onthe Revolution?

Did the Revolution have an impact on

social media?

GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT

Lack of Democracy

CorruptionInheritance of the Past

Oppression

FRICTION FACTORS

Global Information Revolution

Tunisia: geographic

coincidences

Economic crisis

Social Inequalities

Freedom

Stronger civic awareness

Democratic reforms

Fair elections

TRADITIONAL MEDIA BACKGROUND

Al-Azhar

EmergencyLaw

Law96/1996

NATIONAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

License released by

the Supreme Council of the Press

CONSEQUENCES

Traditional media controlled

by the regime

They spread fake news

INTERNETFreer medium

But not that muchMissed Liberal

contribution to the last Parliamentary

Elections

Repression

WHY FACEBOOK WAS NOT THE TRIGGER

Egypt popu-lationInternet penetration

Internet communityFacebook penetration

•Widespreadpoverty

•Detention risks

•High illiteracy rate and scarce Pc skills

WHY TWITTER WAS NOT THE TRIGGER

•Scarce penetration in the Internet community

•Huge traffic growth during important events not before

131.204 active users

•The Egyptian Twitter community is not representative of the country population

• “A tweet in need is a tweet indeed ”

Web-savvy

English knowledgeyoung

well-read

graduatedblogger

politically involved

AL JAZEERA EFFECT?

Hidden Agenda (?) Multiplatform strategy

THE CYBER-CRITICS PERSPECTIVE

SHIRKY•Optimist•Utopian•Superficial

MOROZOV•Realist•Accurate•Pragmatic

GLADWELL•Pessimist•Profound•Approximate

GENERALIZATION

WHAT DO EGYPTIANS THINK?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Khalil Gibran