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ABSTRACT
Does the uncertainty associated with post-authoritarian transitions cause political and social polarization? Does ubiquitous social media exacerbate these problems and thus make successful democratic transitions less likely? This article examines these questions in the case of Egypt between the 11 February 2011 fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the 3 July 2013 military coup, which overthrew President Mohamed el-Morsi. The analysis is based on a Twitter dataset including 62 million tweets by 7 million unique users. Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, we demonstrate how clusters of users form and evolve over time, the density of interactions between them, and the flow of particular types of information through the clustered network structure. We show that the Egyptian Twitter public developed into increasingly isolated clusters of the like-minded which shared information unevenly. We argue that the growing distance between these clusters encouraged political conflict and facilitated the spread of fear and hatred, which ultimately undermined the democratic transition and won popular support for the military coup.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Tufekci and Wilson, “Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest”; Brym et al., “Social Media in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising”; Lim, “Cabs, Clicks and Coffeehouses”; Aouragh and Alexander, “The Egyptian Experience”; Lotan et al., “The Revolutions were Tweeted”; Khamis and Vaughn, “We Are All Khalid Said.” For a comparison with Tunisian mobilization, see Breuer, Landman, and Farquhar, “Social Media and Protest Mobilization.” Bruns, Highfield, and Burgess, “The Arab Spring and Social Media Audiences”; Eltantawy and Wiest, “Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution”; Hanna, “Computer-aided Content Analysis.”
2 Exceptions include Siegel, “Tweeting beyond Tahrir”; and Borge-Holthoefer et al., “Content and Network Dynamics behind Egyptian Political Polarization on Twitter.”
3 Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty; O’Brien, “The Primacy of Political Security.”
4 Farrell, “The Political Consequences of the Internet”; Tufekci, “Social Movements and Governments in the Digital Age.”
5 Hinnebusch, “Conclusion.”
6 Harding, “Beyond the Arab Revolts”; Hinnebusch, “Conclusion.”
7 Bou Nassif, “Coups and Nascent Democracies.”
8 Stepan and Linz, “Democratizaton Theory and the Arab Spring.”
9 Hafez, “Radically Polarized Publics”; Badr, “Limitations of the Social Media Euphoria.”
10 O’Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 3–5.
11 Lupu and Riedl, “Political Parties and Uncertainty in Developing Countries”; Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty.
12 Luong, “After the Break-up,” 564; and Bleck and Van de Walle, “Valence Issues in African Elections,” 1396.
13 Weidmann, “Communication, Technology, and Political Conflict.”
14 Durac, “Social Movements, Protest Movements and Cross-ideological Coalitions.”
15 Stacher, “Fragmenting States, New Regimes”; Asad, “Fear and the Ruptured State.”
16 Colleoni, Rozza, and Arvidsson, “Echo Chamber or Public Sphere?”
17 Farrell, “The Political Consequences of the Internet”; Aday et al., Blogs and Bullets.
18 Benstead, “Why do Some Arab Citizens see Democracy as Unsuitable for their Country?”; Hafez, “Radically Polarized Publics and the Demise of Media Freedom in Egypt.”
19 Iyengar and Westwood, “Fear and Loathing across Party Lines,” 690; Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes, “Affect, Not Ideology.”
20 Tufekci, “Big Questions for Social Media Big Data”; Haggitai, “Is Bigger Always Better?”
21 Prior, “Media and Political Polarization”; Arceneaux, Johnson, and Murphy, “Polarized Political Communication”; Conover et al., “Political Polarization on Twitter”; Siegel, “Social Networks and the Mass Media.”
22 Gentzkow and Shapiro, “Ideological Segregation Online and Offline”; Baum and Groeling, “New Media and the Polarization of American Discourse”; Arceneaux and Johnson, Changing Minds or Changing Channels?; Barbera et al., “Tweeting from Left to Right.”
23 Stacher, “Fragmenting States, New Regimes”; Asad, “Fear and the Ruptured State”; Lust, Wichmann, and Soltan, “How Fear Explains the Failure of Egypt's Transition.”
24 Ahy, “Networked Communication and the Arab Spring”; Robertson, “Connecting in Crisis”; Nanabhay and Farmanfarmaian, “From Spectacle to Spectacular”; Sakr, “Social Media, Television Talk Shows and Political Change in Egypt”; Webb, Media in Egypt and Tunisia; Abdullah, Egypt’s Media in the Midst of Revolution; and Faris, Dissent and Revolution in a Digital Age.
25 Hassan, Kendall, and Whitefield, “Media, Cultural Consumption and Support for Democracy in Contemporary Egypt.”
26 Blondel et al., “Fast Unfolding”; Freelon, Lynch, and Aday, “Online Fragmentation in Wartime.”
27 Lust, Wichmann, and Soltan, “Why Fear Explains the Failure of Egypt’s Transition.”
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Notes on contributors
Marc Lynch
Marc Lynch is Professor of Political Science at The George Washington University and director of the Project on Middle East Political Science.
Deen Freelon
Deen Freelon is Associate Professor in the School of Communication at American University.
Sean Aday
Sean Aday is Associate Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University.