Networked Publics and Digital Contention: The Politics of Everyday Life in Tunisia
Mohamed Zayani
Abstract
How is the adoption of digital media in the Arab world affecting the relationship between the state and its subjects? What new forms of online engagement and strategies of resistance have emerged from the aspirations of digitally empowered citizens? This book tells the compelling story of the concurrent evolution of technology and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. It brings into focus the intricate relationship between Internet development, youth activism, cyber resistance, and political participation. Taking Tunisia—the birthplace of the Arab uprisings—as a case study, it of ... More
How is the adoption of digital media in the Arab world affecting the relationship between the state and its subjects? What new forms of online engagement and strategies of resistance have emerged from the aspirations of digitally empowered citizens? This book tells the compelling story of the concurrent evolution of technology and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. It brings into focus the intricate relationship between Internet development, youth activism, cyber resistance, and political participation. Taking Tunisia—the birthplace of the Arab uprisings—as a case study, it offers an ethnographically nuanced and theoretically grounded analysis of the digital culture of contention that developed in an authoritarian context. It broadens the focus from narrow debates about the role that social media played in the Arab uprisings toward a fresh understanding of how changes in media affect existing power relations.
Keywords:
contention,
everyday life,
digital media,
social media,
youth activism,
political communication,
cyber resistance,
Arab uprisings,
Middle East,
Tunisia
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190239763 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190239763.001.0001 |