Abstract
The relationship between media and democratization has always been a key concern to scholars of global communication. In the aftermath of several protest movements around the world, research on digital tools, political activism and democratic change has especially increased. This literature, with a few exceptions, has been marked with a dichotomy between utopian and sceptic perspectives – the former celebrating the role of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in facilitating social, political and economic change, the latter instead focusing on government surveillance, data mining, corporate colonization and digital divides.
It is this expansive and growing literature to which Mohamed Zayani’s book makes a substantial contribution. In Networked Publics and Digital Contention: The Politics of Everyday Life in Tunisia, the recipient of the 2016 Global Communication and Social Change Best Book Award from the International Communication Association, Zayani offers a historical, in-depth analysis of online (and offline) activism in Tunisia and a much-needed political sociology of media and the state in the Arab context.
Instead of regurgitating the technology-centred functionalist approaches, Zayani explores ‘digital culture/spaces of contention’, a term he uses to refer to ‘an amalgam of social interactions, citizen forms of engagement, cultural practices, ordinary activities, and mundane pursuits that intersect with and are embedded in media experiences, anchored in participatory networks, and intertwined with processes of communication’ (pp. 12–13).
Accordingly, Zayani’s interpretive framework is constituted by Michel de Certeau’s notion of the ‘dispersed, tactical, and makeshift creativity’ of everyday practices, Asef Bayat’s concept of ‘social non-movements’ and Henry Lefebvre’s emphasis on the politics of everyday life (pp. 13–17). Based on analyses of digital network archives, blogs, Facebook pages and online postings, as well as interviews with activists, bloggers and ordinary users, Zayani offers readers a compelling account of how the ‘Internet nurtured a silent opposition’ in Tunisia during the late 1990s and early 2000s (p. 173).
Following the Introduction, Chapter 2 offers a review of social, economic and political conditions that have defined state–society relationships in Tunisia and provides insights into the underlying tensions and structural problems of the seemingly modern regime of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Drawing upon this background, Chapter 3 analyzes the intermittent and scattered protests that took place in 2008 and 2010, and their role in revealing the discontent among the youth and the poor. This historically grounded account helps readers put in perspective Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in December 2010, and understand how the subsequent protests spread from unprivileged sections of the population in small provincial towns to urban middle classes in well-off regions, accompanied with new demands for socioeconomic justice and, democratic change.
In Chapter 4, ‘Cyber-activism comes of age’, Zayani turns his attention to the emergence and development of Internet culture and digital contention. The chapter begins with an exploration of the Ben Ali regime’s predicament concerning the Internet: its efforts to increase access to ICTs coupled with heavy censorship of online content. Despite strict government control, Zayani tells us, early forms of online engagement (chat groups, forums, mailing lists, independent news services) emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s paving the way for new forms of political action in coming years.
Chapter 5, ‘The politicization of the blogosphere’, is an account of the transformation of cyber-activism into a more open and direct political act – a development that was facilitated by the increasing number of bloggers in Tunisia and its diaspora, their collaborative efforts, and a growing interest in political content. This period, which Zayani calls the ‘golden days’ of the blogosphere (2006–2007) was soon followed by a period of tension (2008) as pro-government players entered the online sphere, and Islamist and secularist bloggers began to clash. Around 2009, Zayani points out, the majority of the bloggers began to migrate to Facebook due to increasing censorship of blogs, and arrests of prominent online activists. Despite these challenges, the blogosphere was nonetheless a significant part of the culture of digital contention primarily because it helped to foster ‘a subtle but growing political affinity’ among activists and ordinary users (p. 123).
In Chapter 6, ‘The battle over Internet control’, Zayani discusses the state initiatives that were meant to disrupt online activism by way of surveillance of publinets (cyber cafes), tracking of users, blocking of websites, and filtering of IP addresses and keywords. The battle over the Internet brought together online and offline activists, and helped them to transform the problem of censorship from a technical issue of access to an issue of citizen rights (p. 140). The ‘electronic uprising’ of Spring 2010 culminated in a broad-based youth movement that engaged in street protests, flash mobs and other small yet symbolic actions that redefined the meaning of citizenship.
Chapter 7, ‘Mediatizing the revolution’, offers an analysis of the symbiotic relationship between old and new media during the protests of December 2010. Zayani points out that it was neither Facebook nor Al Jazeera alone that enabled the revolution, but, rather, their convergence. In the aftermath of Bouazizi’s self-immolation, videos of street protests that were captured on mobile phones and posted on Facebook helped activists to attract the attention of the broader public. In the meantime, Al Jazeera used these videos in its coverage of the unrest amplifying the voices of the protestors.
Throughout the book, Zayani maps the emergence and evolution of spaces of digital contention, but he is also mindful of the challenges that lie ahead for online (and offline) activists. As he notes in Chapter 8, ‘Post-revolutionary dynamics: Changes and challenges’, the official Internet censorship ended after the revolution, yet new tensions emerged online (e.g. misinformation, rumours and political partisanship on Facebook), and the media system continued to pose limitations on freedom of speech.
Scholars of political activism, youth engagement, and digital media will find extremely valuable insights in Networked Publics and Digital Contention. Moreover, readers familiar with the Middle Eastern context will notice connections between Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey (and other countries as well) with regard to the complicated course of modernization and economic development the, depoliticization of the youth, and suppression of dissent.