The Role of Social Media in Mobilizing Political Protest
The Role of Social Media in Mobilizing Political Protest
Evidence from the Tunisian Revolution
The Tunisian revolution of 2011 was supported by a broad coalition of social forces that united an intellectual elite with the rural poor and urban middle classes and initiated disruptive collective action to remove the authoritarian regime of Ben Ali from power. This chapter argues that information and communications technology, particularly social media, made a significant contribution to the formation of this coalition. Drawing on evidence from the popular protests in Tunisia between December 2010 and January 2011, expert interviews with Tunisian bloggers, and a web survey conducted among 608 Tunisian Facebook users, this chapter demonstrates that social media allowed a “digital elite” to form personal networks and circumvent the national media blackout; helped to overcome the “free rider” problem of collective action; and facilitated the formation of a national collective identity supportive of protest action against socioeconomic disparities.
Keywords: Tunisia, information and communications technology, social media, collective action, protest action, collective identity
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