Media use by young Tunisians during the 2011 revolution vs 2014 elections

Abstract

Citizen participation is a key factor in open government and a fundamental form of collective problem solving in democratic societies. Citizens need reliable information to support collective sense making and decision-making. During crises, such as political uprisings and controversial elections, reliable information sources are essential for citizens to stay informed and make sense of rapidly changing developments. In countries that exert control over media, citizens try to access alternative information sources, such as unfiltered Internet and social media. Using two rounds of surveys with young, educated adults in Tunisia, we examined their use of diverse information sources during the 2011 revolution. We update these findings with a third survey round asking similar questions to young, educated Tunisian adults’ about their use of diverse information sources during the 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections. Our results show there have been dramatic changes in the use and perceptions of the reliability of broadcast media as Tunisia builds a new government with more open participation and national communication media. The Internet and social media still play an important role in informing the Tunisian public, but new government and private sources are perceived as significantly more reliable than they were under the authoritarian regime overthrown by the 2011 revolution. Our election survey results show that higher perceptions of information reliability, along with the sharing of online information, lead to greater political information efficacy (PIE). Prior studies show higher PIE is associated with greater democratic participation. This finding bodes well for the nascent democracy emerging in this small North African state.

Keywords

Social media government information sharing political information efficacy Tunisia Arab Spring

1. Introduction

On November 7, 1987, Tunisia’s General Ben Ali led a successful coup against the aging President Bourguiba whose authoritarian regime reigned since independence from the French colonizers in 1956. Ben Ali’s coup launched an optimistic period of political reform that also swept across the Middle East and North Africa starting in the late 1980s [1]. Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and Tunisia initiated political reforms that many observers and participants hoped would sustain democratic transitions. However, despite some initial reforms, within ten years, it was clear that the Ben Ali government was also deeply authoritarian. Methods for co-opting and manipulating the press, trade unions, and other organizations were similar to and sometimes worse than under the Bourguiba regime [1].

Tunisia is the country that initiated, in December 2010, what became known as the Arab Spring, a series of cascading popular political movements that spread to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria [2]. Protests and violent demonstrations originated in the rural town of Sidi Bouzid on December 18, 2010, and spread throughout Tunisia to its capital, Tunis, largely due to the participation of young, well-educated adults [3], labor unions, and satellite-distributed news and videos broadcast by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera Television Network [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. For the most part, the Tunisian government-controlled media did not cover the uprising. After 29 days of violent street protests, on January 14, 2011, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali resigned and went into exile in Saudi Arabia, ending his 23-year regime.

During political crises, such as Tunisia’s 2011 revolution and the critical developments during the first few years leading to historic elections in 2014, different actors seek to influence public policy and citizens’ sense-making of political developments via diverse information and communication channels. In a society struggling between democratic and authoritarian responses to political upheaval, it is especially important for citizens to have access to reliable information. Democratic response depends on a citizenry having reliable information on which to base political discussion, decision-making and collective action.

We are interested in the use and impact of different information sources among young, educated Tunisians, because they are credited with being an important influence in the uprising in 2011, along with their use of social media, especially Facebook (FB). The relatively independent Arab regional satellite TV broadcasting network, Al Jazeera, was also credited with carrying timely and reliable information and video footage of protests and demonstrations that rocked North Africa at the time (most notably, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia). The Tunisian revolution gave birth to new online news sources, and opened up access to some blocked or filtered websites (e.g. www.nawaat.org, YouTube.com and dailymotion.com), as well as new, more independent broadcast TV and radio channels and newspapers.

The 2014 elections were historic in that they were the first regular presidential elections since the 2011 revolution and the adoption of the new Constitution in January 2014. Both local and international monitors described the elections as “free and fair” with the secular parties winning and the Islamists parties conceding the election peacefully.

Citizens’ perceptions of the reliability of information sources are important to our study because prior research has shown that perceived information reliability predicts a greater sense of political information efficacy (PIE), that is, a person’s belief that s/he is well informed and capable of forming opinions and acting on political information. Our finding that sharing information regularly with family and friends leads to a greater sense of PIE is a contribution to research on PIE, and confirms our prior findings of media use, information reliability and sharing, and PIE during the 2012 elections in Mexico [9].

Our goal in this study is to establish by empirical tests whether there are significant differences in subjects’ media use and perceived reliability of different information sources during the turbulent period extending from the 2011 revolution to the first regular elections in 2014. Given prior research, although empirical studies are limited, we expect significant differences in the use and evaluation of government-controlled versus more independent media. More importantly, within the more independent media (i.e., Al-Jazeera TV, Internet and social media), we seek to determine empirically whether there are significant differences among these information sources in terms of use and perceptions of reliability, and the impact of these factors and information sharing behavior on political information efficacy.

We examine the use of diverse information sources over time in Tunisia in order to consider whether political developments and changes in public policy toward press freedoms after the revolution might be reflected in survey respondents’: (1) media use, (2) perceived reliability of different information sources, (3) information sharing behavior, and (6) political information efficacy.

Our findings show a dramatic change in the use and perceived reliability of information from diverse sources. During the 2010–11 uprising, culminating in the 2011 revolution, government sources of information, including the national TV stations, were perceived to be among the least reliable. After the revolution, Tunisia established a new national government, drafted and approved a new constitution, granted new freedoms to the press, created new political parties and communication channels, and held parliamentary and presidential elections that were judged to be largely ‘free and fair’. By the time of the 2014 elections, we see that government sources of information, including new national TV stations, are perceived to be among the most reliable information sources. The results from our surveys also largely show a causal sequence from access to more reliable information, to information sharing, to an increased sense of being well-informed (or political information efficacy). This suggests that the nascent democratic tendencies emerging in Tunisia, unlike other Arab Spring uprisings, have an empirical basis for increasing democratic political participation in the face of multiple forces struggling for competing visions of the country’s future.

This paper provides the theoretical background and literature review in Section 2, the political context of the 2011 Tunisian revolution and 2014 elections, as well as media use, in Section 3, methods in Section 4, results in Section 5, and discussion and conclusions in Section 6.

2. Theoretical and historical background

2.1 The role of information and communication in political participation

Political participation theory emphasizes that an informed citizenry is fundamental to democracy [10, 11, 12]. It is through awareness and knowledge of issues and events that citizens are able to participate more fully in democratic decision-making. Seeking political information is itself a form of political participation. Citizens tend to participate more in civic life when they believe they have the political information they need to ask appropriate questions, form opinions and take action. This sense of feeling well informed about politics – political information efficacy, discussed below – is a known predictor of engagement in democratic processes, such as information sharing, discussion and consensus building [13].

We use political participation theory to examine the communication behavior (i.e., media use and information sharing) of young, educated, adult Tunisians during the political crisis of the 2011 revolution and the subsequent democratic process of parliamentary and presidential elections held in 2014. We build on a study by Wang and Mark [14] on the use of blogs during the five years leading up to the Egyptian uprising in 2011. They model citizens’ preference for news from social media during the political crisis of the Egyptian uprising that followed shortly after and overlapped in January 2011 with that of the Tunisian uprising. Wang and Mark [14] find that features of social media explain why citizens might trust it as a channel of news in a regime where the press is tightly controlled. Essentially, citizens trust each other more than government for information, so citizen media serve as alternative news sources. During the period of the study (2004–2011), blogs provided a medium for citizens to report events, commentary and criticism of institutionalized power as represented by government-controlled media in Egypt. We expect to find similar trends in Tunisia, and extend this work from the realm of blogs to all types of information sources. We test whether the use of different information sources and their perceived reliability affects respondents’ sense of being politically informed in the midst of the political crisis of revolution and the uncertainty of democratic elections following a revolution.

Access to reliable information is fundamental to democratic political participation whether a country has a well-established democratic government or is struggling towards more democratic processes and institution building as it emerges from an authoritarian regime [15]. Reliable information is posted content that users consider in general to be more accurate, factual, trustworthy and relatively unbiased. Information quality or reliability is based on the perceived credibility of the information source and consequently on the satisfaction of users’ need to stay informed. Having access to reliable information for sense making and collective action is essential for citizen participation at any time, but it is especially important during political crisis, such as an uprising and revolution, so that citizens and organizations can interpret and respond to rapidly changing conditions [16, 17, 18]. Such public access relies on, among other factors, a relatively free press, which helps to educate and inform the public and foster debate.

In established democracies, traditional broadcast media, such as newspapers, radio and television, have played a critical role in informing the public. In authoritarian regimes, these traditional mass media have been highly restricted through government controls, including licensing and censorship [19, 20]. This authoritarian model of the press is well understood and has operated in many dictatorial states for decades following independence from colonial powers [21].

2.2 Tunisia and political change: Revolution to elections

Tunisia is a small, upper middle-income country in North Africa with a population of about 11.3 million in 2015 [22]. It is a former French colony whose predominant languages are French and Arabic. Tunisia’s economy is highly dependent on foreign tourism. During the period of the revolution (December 2010–January 2011) adult literacy was fairly high at 79%; GDP per capita in current US dollars was $4,305; total unemployment just before the uprising was about 13% and rose to 18% a year later, with the loss of some foreign investment and tourism [23]. Youth unemployment (ages 15–24) as a percentage of total labor force was high (29%) and has been especially high for educated youth which is cited as one of the motivations for their participation in the uprising [24]. By 2015, adult literacy was similar at 81%; GDP per capita in current US dollars had dropped to $3,872. Youth unemployment (ages 15–24) as a percentage of total labor force was still high at about 31%. Total unemployment was down to pre-revolution levels of 13% in 2015 [22].

The 2014 elections were for Parliament and President. Parliamentary elections were held October 26; presidential elections were held November 23, followed by a second round of voting on December 21. In the parliamentary elections, the big tent party, Nida Tunis (Tunisia Salvation), running on an explicitly more secular, anti-Islamist platform, won a plurality: 85 of the 217 seats. This plurality in parliament gives it the right to name a prime minister and to lead a coalition government. The moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which had previously dominated the parliament, came in second with 69 seats [25].

The Free Patriotic Union was a distant third with 16 seats; Slim Rihai, millionaire football club owner and political newcomer, heads the party. In fourth place was the leftwing coalition of parties known as the Popular Front; extremists assassinated two of its members in 2013. The liberal party Afek Tounes came in fifth place with 8 seats. The remaining 24 seats were split among a dozen small parties.

The Presidential elections went to a second round on December 21, 2014, in a run-off between incumbent Moncef Marzouki and the Nida Tounes party’s founding leader and candidate Beji Caid Essebsi, who won with 55.68% of the final vote.

2.3 Public policy toward the media in Tunisia

Until 2003, all national radio and TV broadcasting was owned and controlled by the Tunisian state, and therefore, reflected favorable views toward the government. Liberalization of the media, initiated in 2003, permitted the entry of numerous private sector actors, but did not eliminate the government control or censorship of these media [26].

The government-owned TV network operating before and during the uprising, La Télévision Nationale (Tunisie 7 and Canal 21), offered news, sports, films and culture. News programs promulgated government views. In 2005 the first private TV station, Hannibal TV, began broadcasting. This station was owned by Larbi Nasra, a businessman, almost unknown in the media sector, who benefitted from some privileges (including financial support) due to close ties with the authorities [27]. After the uprising, the Hannibal TV owner was arrested and accused of trying to spread disinformation in order to bring the country into chaos and hasten the return of President Ben Ali [27].

Also before the revolution, the private TV Stations Hannibal and Nessma operated throughout the country, but were not fully independent in so far as they were officially forbidden from reporting on politics. Nessma TV began broadcasting a regular program in Tunisia in 2009. It was partly owned by Italian media tycoon and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in partnership with the Karoui brothers, important Tunisian businessmen. Nessma TV largely focused on entertainment, sports and reality shows before the uprising, but presented some debates on social issues while avoiding criticism of Islam, and the President, the regime or other elites [28].

The advent of regional satellite broadcast systems, such as the Arab League’s Arabsat network in 1985, and the private network, Middle East Broadcasting Center (of which Al-Arabiya TV is part) in 1991, had begun to loosen slowly the grip of authoritarian regimes over the press beginning [16, 29]. Al-Jazeera TV, established in 1996 in Qatar as a pan-Arab network, has been praised for circumventing censorship and for contributing to the relatively free exchange of information in the Arab world [30, 31]. But after the Egyptian uprising, and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power through elections, Al-Jazeera’s coverage was deemed by many in the Middle East to be biased in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, who complained about the increasing encroachment of the Brotherhood’s executive power over the legislative and judiciary branches of the post-revolution Egyptian government.

Al Arabiya TV, sponsored by the Saudi royal family, launched in 2002, headquartered in Dubai, is part of the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) [32]. While Al-Arabiya news coverage is not highly critical of Saudi Arabia, it seeks to play a more moderate role than Al Jazeera, that is, its coverage places less emphasis on politics and on Arab regional tensions and conflict than does Al-Jazeera [33].

Radio broadcasting followed a similar pattern. With some liberalization in 2003, the first private radio station appeared, Radio Mosaique FM, followed in 2005 by Radio Jawhara. In 2007, the country’s first Islamic radio station launched, Radio Zitouna. In 2010 two more private radio stations obtained broadcast licenses, Shems FM and Express FM, however these were closely affiliated with the regime. Before the uprising, President Ben Ali’s daughter directed Shems FM, and Mourad Guediche, the son of the President’s private doctor, directed Express FM [28].

There were many daily newspapers and magazines in Tunisia before the revolution; private groups and individuals owned most of them. However, public and private newspapers were under the control of the government through the authorization of licenses, and by direct censorship and self-censorship. After January 14, 2011 and the confiscation of President Ben Ali and his family’s assets, Assabah came under state control.

The 2011 revolution gave rise to more than 30 TV and radio channels, new newspapers and magazines and online news sites. Notably, a private TV channel, El-Hiwar Ettounsi, became available in Tunisia after the revolution. El-Hiwar Ettounsi, an Arabic language channel, was established in 2003 by Paris emigre Tahar Ben Hassin, as an unlicensed satellite station broadcasting programs from abroad that were critical of the Ben Ali regime. After the revolution, the channel relocated to Tunisia, in the Manouba suburb of Tunis and extended its broadcast program on an independent satellite (Nilesat) channel starting September 2011. The founder sold the channel in 2014 to the founder of another Tunisian TV station, Ettounsia, that had been forced by the government to give up its frequency [34]. By 2015, El-Hiwar Ettounsi ranked highest among the TV channels for most viewers, with 65.6% of the audience share. El-Hiwar Ettounsi programs focus on information, cultural magazine type content and political talk shows.

The theoretical argument outlined above together with the change in the public policy toward press freedoms and media usage, lead us to our first hypothesis: 1) young, educated Tunisians, such as those in our sample, will no longer use more heavily and rate as more reliable information sources from the Internet, including social media, because during the elections, these sources were no longer in sharp contrast to government-owned and government licensed traditional media, such as national broadcast TV and print newspapers.

2.4 Social network theory, internet use and information sharing behavior

We also draw on social network theory in our analysis. Tunisia is recognized as a high contact culture [35], that is, a society with dense social networks and strong social ties (i.e., extended family and close friends who interact frequently and know each other well from multiple contexts). As a ‘high contact culture’ Tunisians get together face-to-face (F2F) regularly, and communicate by phone or online in between social gatherings. Social network theory states that people rely on their social networks for emotional support and aid, which includes information [36].

We test for information sharing behavior, since prior studies suggest that in countries with authoritarian regimes and tight controls over the press, we can expect that citizens are likely to turn to each other for information. Citizens tend to rely on each other to try to interpret news and information from mainstream sources, since censorship is common in the government-controlled broadcast media (e.g., TV, radio and print media) [14, 17]. We can expect that during a political crisis, such as the Tunisian revolution, people in a high contact culture will share information frequently with each other, and in different modes (face-to-face, phone, online) and will compare what they hear in order to try to make sense of what seems to be happening [37, 38].

Internet penetration in Tunisia at the time of the uprising was 36.8%, rising to 43.8% by 2013 when we ran our initial two rounds of surveys about information sources used during the revolution [23]. In 2015, the year of our election survey, Internet penetration was estimated at 48.5% [39]. Even before the revolution, citizens with Internet access could seek out a variety of Internet-based news sources, including websites of print newspapers, such as La Press (lapresse.tn), Le Temps (www.letemps.com.tn), and Le Maghreb (lemaghreb.tn), as well as TV stations, such as Al Jazeera (Aljazeera.net) and CNN (cnn.com).

Social network sites (SNS), such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as, wikis, blogs, micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter, Tumblr), and photo and video sharing websites are collectively referred to as social media. These media provide online platforms and software for users to more easily and widely share information with their trusted social network of friends, family, and acquaintances in local or distant groups to which they belong, as well as the larger general public [40, 41, 42]. Sharing information, opinions and ideas is made easier via social media and information production tools (i.e., Web 2.0) that accommodate tagging, posting, rating and other user-generated content [43, 44, 45].

Facebook penetration rose from 17.6% in early 2011 and 33.9% in 2013 to 85% in 2015 [46]. In general, in the Arab world, the percentage of Facebook users that are young people (15–29 years old) is much higher than the percentage of total FB users over 15 years of age. That is, as in many other parts of the world, young people are the predominant users of Facebook (FB). Moreover, there is a youth bulge in Tunisia, as in many other countries in the Middle East [24]. In Tunisia, young people (15–29 years old) make up 37.5% of the total population over 15 years old, and the majority (77.7%) of FB users are young people. As for gender and language, there were more male than female (58% male) FB users as a percentage of total FB users in Tunisia.

Twitter penetration, by contrast, has remained roughly the same since 2011 (0.34%) when there were an estimated 35,746 users. The small increase in the number of Twitter users (estimated in 2014 at 37,100) is offset by the small increase in population, thereby keeping Twitter penetration the same for four years [47]. Video sharing and photo sharing websites and the social network site (SNS) Facebook (FB) appeared to play key roles in spreading information in Tunisia at the outset of the unrest in response to the suicide by self-immolation of a young street vendor in the town of Sidi Bouzid [6].

The near universal ownership of cell phones and the use of phone apps in combination with Internet and social media have been fundamental to accessing information and sharing it. In 2011, at the time of the Tunisian revolution, there was over 100% (115.2%) penetration of cell phone ownership in Tunisia [23].

While it was still in power, the authoritarian Ben Ali government in Tunisia (like that in Egypt) shut down or reduced bandwidth on Internet access intermittently, e.g., blocking access to FB and YouTube between early December 2010 and January 13, 2011. The regime also reduced bandwidth on cell networks in protest areas [48]. The regime tried to calm the population by promising to unblock Internet access. Nonetheless, through a combination of media, including Al-Jazeera TV, cell phones, Internet websites and social media, citizens became increasingly aware of events and contacted others to share information, ideas and opinions, and to coordinate a series of collective actions, such as street demonstrations. As noted above, the Tunisian revolution gave birth to many new broadcast stations, newspapers, and new online news sources, and opened up access to some blocked or filtered websites, such as, www.nawaat.org, YouTube.com and dailymotion.com. Citizens’ use of all these information sources and devices was instrumental in accessing, creating and sharing information in Tunisia and across the region during the Arab Spring of 2011 [6, 49, 50, 51].

Our theoretical arguments and the communication behavior (i.e., media use and citizen information sharing) described above, lead us to our second hypothesis: young, educated Tunisians will continue to share regularly with family and friends the political information they obtain from the Internet and social media.

2.5 Political information efficacy and political efficacy

We examine the information sharing behavior of respondents with a view to understanding the contribution of such behavior on respondents’ political information efficacy. That is, we test whether sharing self-perceived reliable information with friends and family during uncertainty or contentious circumstances (i.e., protests, government-controlled press) contributes to a greater feeling of being politically informed and knowledgeable. This sense of feeling informed is known as political information efficacy or PIE [13, 52].

There are four standard questions for the construct: 1) I consider myself well qualified to participate in politics; 2) I think that I am better informed about politics and government than most people; 3) I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues; and 4) If a friend asked me about the (elections), I feel I would have enough information to help my friend figure out (whom to vote for). We adapted these questions in our survey for the context of the Tunisian uprising and the elections.

Prior research has shown that PIE is an important predictor of political participation [13, 52]. Studies in the US have found that people who report feeling more knowledgeable and well informed tend to have higher levels of political participation. We test the predictors of PIE (e.g., media use, information sharing, perceived information reliability) for its potential role in affecting political participation in Tunisia.

PIE is related to (but distinct from) the concept of internal political efficacy, a person’s belief that s/he is competent to participate in politics in a broad sense (not just because one has adequate or reliable information). External political efficacy is also important in predicting political participation; it is a person’s belief that the government authorities are genuinely interested in and responsive to his or her needs and interests (whether individually as a citizen or as an identity group, such as a minority). We examine the role of both internal and external political efficacy in this study.

Our theoretical argument and findings from prior research, lead to our third hypothesis: young, educated Tunisians who share information regularly with members of their social networks will continue to experience a greater sense of political information efficacy (PIE) than those who do not share information regularly.

3. Methods

3.1 Survey sample

We designed and administered all three rounds of our surveys to opportunity samples of undergraduate and graduate students (aged 18–33, mean age of 24) in business courses taught by co-author Skandrani at the High Institute for Management (Institut Supérieur de Gestion), University of Tunis (February 2013), and at the High Institute of Accounting and Business Administration (Institut Supérieur de Comptabilité et d’Administration des Entreprises), University of Manouba (November 2013). We administered all rounds to different sets of students.

We administered the first round, focused on information sources used during the revolution, in February 2013 and the second round of the same survey in November 2013. We administered the third round of the survey, modified to focus on information sources used during the 2014 elections rather than the 2011 revolution, in February 2015. Skandrani administered the survey to a similar opportunity sample (but a different set) of undergraduate and graduate students in business courses at the High Institute of Accounting and Business Administration, University of Manouba. A smaller number of her students at the High Institute for Management, University of Tunis, also participated in the election survey.

Skandrani invited 280 students to participate in round 1 and 340 students to participate in round 2 of the same survey. She recruited them in several ways: in class, via class FB groups, via class Google groups, or personal invitation by email or via private message on FB. For round 3, the election survey, Skandrani invited 330 students in the same ways used for rounds 1 and 2 (the revolution survey): in class (N $=$ about 180), by private message via FB or student groups on FB (N $=$ about 50), and via class Google groups or personal invitation by email or via private message on FB (N $=$ about 100).

3.2 Survey instrument

It is important to note that in the first two rounds of the survey about information sources used during the revolution, we did not use the term ‘revolution’; rather we used the term ‘uprising’ as the political crisis was more commonly referred to at that time (December 2010–January 2011). Subsequently, it has become more common to refer to the uprising as a revolution, since the outcome of the uprising became clear. In this paper, therefore, to simplify the distinctions between the surveys, we refer to them as the ‘revolution survey’ (i.e., rounds 1 and 2) and the ‘election survey’ (round 3).

The first two rounds of the survey asked questions about the use of different media sources to obtain information about the events and developments of the 2011 uprising. The third round of the survey asked the same questions, but for information about the 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections rather than the 2011 uprising. We administered the survey in French, since the students in our sample were taking courses that are taught primarily in French.

We made the revolution surveys available online; we made the election survey available online and in print form, if preferred. There were multiple sections to the survey and it took about 20 minutes to complete. Apart from face-to-face and phone communication with family and friends, the types of media we asked about fell into two broad areas: 1) traditional broadcast and print media and 2) the Internet, including social media. These two broad areas also correspond roughly with 1) more government controlled sources, and 2) more independent sources of information.

Media use: Information Sources and Frequency of Use: Among traditional (more government controlled), broadcast and print media, we asked about TV and radio networks and print newspapers. For each of these information sources, we specified networks and newspapers by name. We asked which of the listed items they watched/listened to/read most often to obtain information about political developments during the uprising or elections, depending on the survey round. The specific TV and radio networks we asked about are those noted above and an open-ended category ‘Other’. The specific newspapers we asked about are: Assabah, Essahafa, La Presse, Le Temps, Echourouk, Agence Tunis Afrique Press, and Other.

Among online (more independent) media, we asked about use of Internet, SNS (e.g., FB), Twitter, photo and video sharing sites, blogs, and Internet communication services, such as Skype and Instant Messaging (IM). We also asked about cell phone use, and specific features, such as sending and/or receiving voice and text messages, sending and/or receiving photos or videos, and accessing the Internet.

Information reliability: We asked respondents to rate the reliability of the sources they used most often to obtain information about the revolution (rounds 1 and 2) or about the elections (round 3). As with the ‘Media Use’ and ‘Frequency of Use’ questions we listed each type of source individually (e.g., Twitter, SNS, photo sharing). We asked them to rate the reliability of each of these sources on a 4-point scale from: 0 (not at all reliable) to 3 (reliable most of the time).

Due to survey length concerns, for questions about the reliability of TV, radio and newspapers, we did not list again each station or newspaper by name; rather, the asked them to “rate the reliability of: 1) TV stations 2) radio stations, and 3) newspapers, that they used most often to obtain information about political developments.

Information sharing behavior: To measure the extent of information sharing by respondents with their social networks, we asked two questions (with a 4-point agreement scale): 1) I regularly shared with my family and friends information about the (uprising, elections) that I obtained on the Internet; and 2) My family and friends regularly shared with me information about the (uprising, elections) that they obtained on the Internet. It is acceptable for researchers to use a 4-point scale when they want to require respondents to show which way they might be leaning on a question [53, 54].

Political information efficacy: There are four standard questions for this construct, which we adapted slightly for this context, as follows: 1) I consider myself well qualified to participate in politics of the current Tunisian government; 2) I think that I am better informed about Tunisian politics and government than most people; 3) I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues facing Tunisia; and 4) If a friend asked me about the Tunisian (uprising or elections), I feel I would have enough information to help my friend figure out (whom to vote for).

Political efficacy: We asked three standard questions measuring internal and external political efficacy [11], adapted slightly for the Tunisian case. Response categories were a 4-point agreement scale; the questions are: 1) Since the first government of Mouhamed Ghannouchi, I feel that sometimes politics and government seem so complicated that persons like me can’t truly understand what’s going on; 2) I don’t think officials in the current Tunisian government care much what people like me think; and 3) There are plenty of ways for people like me to have a say in what the current Tunisian government does.

Demographics: We asked about basic demographics, including age, gender, highest level of education completed, occupation (e.g., student) and marital status.

We analyzed the results with standard statistical techniques, including factor analysis and OLS regression, using SPSS software. For the factor analyses, we used Principal Component Analysis extraction method, and Oblimin with Kaiser Normalization rotation method.

4. Results

For round 1, 80 respondents completed the survey, giving a response rate of 29%. For round 2, 70 respondents completed the survey, giving a response rate of 21%. For round 3 (election survey), 156 respondents completed the survey, giving a response rate of 47%.

Of the 150 completed revolution surveys (rounds 1 and 2) about the 2011 uprising, there were no significant differences on the variables between rounds 1 and 2. Therefore, we combined responses from both rounds 1 and 2 in order to provide higher numbers of responses for the tests we ran on the revolution surveys about information sources used during the uprising.

4.1 Demographics

Of the 150 respondents in the combined revolution survey rounds, 61% are female and 89% are single. Participants are highly educated: 40% have bachelor degrees, 43% have master degrees, and 17% hold diplomas from technical, commercial or industrial schools. Just under half (49%) of participants report their age, which ranged from 20 to 45 years old; the mean age was 24 years. Almost all revolution survey respondents (98.7%) report that they have cell phones, and half report they have smart phones.

For the election survey, the demographics are largely similar. A somewhat higher majority (76.4%) is female, but a similar proportion (86%) is single. Participants are also well educated: 54.7% have completed bachelor degrees, 36.7% completed masters, and 8.7% hold diplomas from technical, commercial or industrial schools. Ages range from 19 to 55, but almost all (95%) respondents are between the ages of 19 and 32; the mean age was also 24 years. As with the revolution survey, almost all election survey respondents (97.1%) report they have cell phones; a larger proportion in 2015 – over two-thirds (67.8) – reports they have smart phones compared with about half in 2013.

4.2 Internet use for ALL purposes

For the revolution survey, with regard to Internet use for ALL purposes (that is, not just to get political information during the uprising) the vast majority of respondents report they use the Internet (99.2%); 93.8% use it on a daily basis; 85.4% use it several times a day. A vast majority (98.7%) also reports using SNS/FB; 96.6% report using SNS daily; 89.4% use it several times a day. A majority (81.4%) report using some kind of Internet communication service, such as Skype, MSN, or Yahoo messenger; 56.9% use these services daily. Only a quarter (25%) reports using Twitter; a small, active subset (16.9%) uses Twitter daily. The majority (79.1%) reports using photo/video-sharing sites, such as Flickr and YouTube, at least daily; 60.7% reports using it several times a day. Only 6% of respondents were not using photo/video-sharing sites at all. Most (60.7%) respondents report they read or write blogs; 29.1% read or wrote blogs daily. The majority (80%) of participants report they use French to interact on the Internet, 40% use Franco-Arabic, 34% used Arabic, and 6% use other languages.

With regard to the election survey, respondents’ overall use of the Internet (not just for election information, but for ALL purposes) the vast majority (97.9%) reports they use the Internet; 80.5% use it on a daily basis; 67.2% use it several times a day. The vast majority (95.9%) also reports using SNS (e.g., FB); 85.7% use it daily. A slight increase (29.3%) use Twitter, compared with 25% in revolution. The majority (89.6%) reports that they use photo/video-sharing sites, such as Flickr and YouTube; about half use them daily. About half (54.2%) read blogs; 31.2% write blogs. About two-thirds (67.7%) report that they use some kind of Internet communication service, such as Skype, MSN, or Yahoo messenger (again, for any purpose, not just for election information). This is lower usage of Skype and other similar Internet communication services for all purposes compared with the revolution survey.

When interacting online (e.g., email, web browsing, social media), the vast majority (91.5%) reports using French; 48% report using Arabic and 23.5% Franco-Arabic. Only 16% of respondents use English. The majority (87.5%) of respondents use the Internet from home; 18.5% use the Internet from a public access point, such as an Internet café; 15.5% use the Internet from school, 13.5% from someone else’s home, and 12.5% from work. Percentages add up to more than 100 since we asked respondents to indicate all the locations they used for accessing the Internet. Almost two-thirds of respondents (65.8%) reported that they think the elections were, in general, free and fair (“libres, équitables et transparentes”).

4.3 Media use for information about the revolution vs. the elections

To obtain political information during the 2011 uprising, the majority of revolution survey respondents (84%) report talking face-to-face and about half (51.6%) by phone with family and friends. To obtain information about the elections, an even larger majority of election survey respondents (92.9%) report they talked face-to-face (F2F) with family and friends, but a smaller proportion (25.8%) talked by phone with family and friends compared with the revolution survey. Table 1 shows the percentages of respondents who report using which information sources in the revolution survey versus the election survey. They are listed in descending order based on the revolution survey; the order is clearly different for the election survey.

Table 1a
Use of different information sources during revolution and elections

Information source	% Used source: Revolution	% Used source: Election
Internet	99.2%	90.6
SNS/FB	98.7	90.1
TV (broadcast)	90 (est.)	92 (est.)
F2F friends/family	84%	92.9%
Video sharing sites	79.1	80.6
Radio (broadcast)	29.6	82.5
Newspaper (print)	26.4	30.3
Twitter	25	24.1

Table 1b

Use frequency of information sources during revolution and elections

Information source	Mean for 2011 revolution (a)	Mean for 2014 elections (b)	Mean diff. and sig. (b-a)
Video sharing site	7.05 (1.81)	5.14 (2.54)	$-$ 1.91 ${}^{***}$
Facebook	7.79 (0.84)	6.71 (2.09)	$-$ 1.08 ${}^{***}$
Internet news	7.71 (0.95)	6.41 (2.20)	$-$ 1.25 ${}^{***}$
Twitter	1.53 (2.72)	1.92 (1.93)	0.38
TV (count of channels)	2.68 (1.37)	2.38 (1.41)	$-$ 0.30
Radio (count of stations)	1.69 (1.03)	1.37 (0.86)	$-$ 0.32 ${}^{***}$
Newspapers (count of papers)	1.14 (0.41)	1.17 (0.48)	0.03

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01.

Table 2

TV stations watched most often: During revolution vs. elections

TV station	% Who watched during revolution	% Who watched during elections
Al Jazeera	75.6%	15.5%
TV Nationale	40.2	56.5
Al Arabiya	37.0	7.5
Nessma	33.1	57
Other (France 24)	29.9	24
Hannibal	25.4	21
BBC Arabic	7.7	5.5
El-Hiwar Ettounsi	NA	68.5

We also compared the frequency of use of the information sources across the surveys using t-tests (Table 1b). Respondents reported using SNS, video sharing, and internet news sites significantly more during the revolution the elections. We approximated the use of TV, Radio, and Newspaper sources by computing variables that counted the number of channels, stations, and papers, respectively. During the revolution, respondents used significantly more broadcast TV and radio than during the elections. The number of newspapers and the use of Twitter are not different across the surveys.

The details of broadcast media use versus Internet and social media use are described in the next two sections and in Table 2.

4.3.1 Broadcast media use: Revolution vs. elections

In the revolution survey, the most commonly watched TV station is Al Jazeera (75.6%), followed distantly by National Television channels (40.2%) and Al Arabiya (37%). Table 2 lists the stations in descending order of popularity in the revolution survey. The total percentages add to more than 100% because we asked subjects to check all stations that they watched most often to get information about political developments during the uprising. In sharp contrast, the TV stations that respondents reported they most commonly watched to obtain information about the elections (Table 2, last column) are the private channel El-Hiwar Ettounsi (68.5%), followed by the private channel, Nessma (57%), and the government channels El Watania 1 and 2 (56.5%). The total percentages add to more than 100% because we asked subjects to check all stations that they watched most often to get information about political developments during the elections. The last column shows the percentage of respondents from the election survey that report watching the station during the 2014 elections.

The change in the percentage of respondents reporting which stations they watched during the elections is in stark contrast to the pattern during the revolution, when the large majority of respondents reported they watched Al Jazeera, followed distantly by the National TV channels, and Al Arabiya. We provided a category ‘TV Other’ that is open-ended; revolution and election survey respondents listed most frequently France 24. France 24 is a Paris-based news network broadcasting in English, French and Arabic, generally considered less biased than Tunisian-government controlled media.

Most revolution survey respondents (73.6%) report they did not read any newspapers. Of the minority who did read newspapers, they predominantly read La Presse (25%) and Echourouk (9.9%). In a similar trend, most (69.7%) election survey respondents report they did not read newspapers to obtain election information. Of the minority who did, as earlier, they predominantly read La Presse (25%) and Echourouk (12.1%). The most popular radio station among all survey respondents was Mosaique FM, listened to by almost two-thirds of respondents (63.8%) in the revolution survey rising to almost three-fourths (74.5%) in the election survey; the distant second was Shems FM, with 18.2% and 25%, respectively.

4.3.2 Internet use including social media for information on the uprising vs elections

As shown in Table 1, to get information during the uprising, almost all revolution survey respondents used the Internet (99.2%; 93.8% used it on a daily basis; 85.4% used it several times a day). Almost all (98.7%) also reported using SNS/FB; 96.6% reported using SNS daily; 89.4% used it several times a day. A majority (81.4%) reported using some kind of Internet communication service, such as Skype, MSN, or Yahoo Messenger; 56.9% used them daily. Only a quarter (25%) of respondents used Twitter; a small, active subset (16.9%) used Twitter daily. The majority (79.1%) reported using photo/video-sharing sites, such as Flickr and YouTube, at least daily (60.7% several times a day). Only 6% of respondents were not using these sites at all. Most (60.7%) read or wrote blogs about the uprising; 29.1% read or wrote blogs daily.

To get information about the elections, a large majority (90.6%) of election survey respondents also reports using the Internet, Facebook (90.1%) and photo/video-sharing sites (80.6%). Among the specific Internet sites that respondents used for election information, 17.8% used the websites of newspapers that are also circulated in print form (e.g., www.lapresse.tn, www.letemps.tn), and 22.8% used websites of TV stations that also broadcast over the air. Among FB pages, a majority (72.1%) of respondents reported reading election news on Facebook (FB) pages that were specifically on the elections. Just over half of respondents (53.8%) reported using FB pages of specific organizations (e.g., Association Tunisienne pour la Transparence Financière or Tunisian Association for Financial Transparency) for election information. Similar to the revolution survey, about a quarter (24.1%) of election survey respondents used Twitter to get relevant information; only about 7.1% used Twitter daily.

4.4 Reliability of information sources

Face-to-face communication has high reliability mean scores in both the revolution survey and the election survey. With the exception of Twitter, online sources have high reliability mean scores in the revolution survey, including FB, photo/video-sharing sites, Internet news sites and the Internet generally. In the election survey, however, these sources’ reliability ratings – while still high – were all lower than in the revolution survey (Table 3).

Table 3
Mean reliability of information sources during revolution and elections

Information source	Mean for 2011 revolution (a)	Mean for 2014 elections (b)	Mean diff. and sig. (b-a)
Video sharing site	1.76 (0.84)	1.42 (1.00)	$-$ 0.34 ${}^{***}$
Facebook	1.67 (0.89)	1.47 (1.07)	$-$ 0.20
Face-to-Face	1.73 (0.79)	2.06 (0.87)	0.33 ${}^{***}$
Internet news	1.55 (0.85)	1.43 (0.88)	$-$ 0.12 ${}^{***}$
TV	1.47 (0.89)	1.68 (0.89)	0.21 ${}^{**}$
Radio	1.37 (1.01)	1.61 (0.88)	0.44 ${}^{**}$
Newspapers	0.99 (0.96)	1.01 (0.88)	0.02
Government	0.88 (1.00)	1.41 (1.07)	0.53 ${}^{***}$

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01.

Perceptions of the reliability of government sources (that is, unspecified ‘government sources of information’) rose in the election survey. Perceived reliability of TV and radio broadcasting sources increased in the election survey; perceived reliability of newspaper sources remained the same.

Table 3 shows that for the revolution survey, the sources with lower perceived reliability are TV, radio, newspapers and (unspecified) government sources. In the election survey, TV and radio are among the higher reliability sources, while newspapers remained the same. In the election survey, after F2F, TV is the most reliable source.

In order to test whether any of these differences are significant, we compared the perceived reliability means of the revolution survey to the election survey (Table 3). The perceived reliability of Facebook and video sharing sites are significantly lower in the election survey; Internet news sites are also lower, but not significantly. The perceived reliability of F2F communication, TV, Radio, and Government sources are all significantly higher for the election survey, with government sources having the largest increase. These are notable differences in reliability of sources compared with the revolution survey and suggest that changes in public policy towards greater press freedoms increased the perceived reliability of information sources traditionally controlled by government.

Table 4a

T-test comparisons: mean perceived reliability of sources used during revolution (mean difference and significance)

	F2F	Government	Newspaper	Radio	TV	Internet news	SNS
Government	$-$ 0.84 ${}^{***}$
Newspaper	$-$ 0.71 ${}^{***}$	0.11
Radio	$-$ 0.41 ${}^{***}$	0.43 ${}^{***}$	0.33 ${}^{***}$
TV	$-$ 0.26 ${}^{**}$	0.58 ${}^{***}$	0.48 ${}^{***}$	0.15
Internet news	$-$ 0.13 ${}^{***}$	0.68 ${}^{***}$	0.58 ${}^{***}$	0.25 ${}^{**}$	0.09
SNS	0.06	0.88 ${}^{***}$	0.77 ${}^{***}$	0.45 ${}^{***}$	0.32 ${}^{***}$	0.18 ${}^{**}$
Video	0.08	0.92 ${}^{***}$	0.79 ${}^{***}$	0.49 ${}^{***}$	0.34 ${}^{***}$	0.21 ${}^{**}$	0.04

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01, ns not significant.

Table 4b

T-test comparisons: mean perceived reliability of sources used during 2014 elections (mean difference and significance)

	F2F	Government	Newspaper	Radio	TV	Internet news	SNS
Government	$-$ 0.64 ${}^{***}$
Newspaper	$-$ 1.03 ${}^{***}$	$-$ 0.38 ${}^{***}$
Radio	$-$ 0.42 ${}^{***}$	0.22 ${}^{**}$	0.61 ${}^{***}$
TV	$-$ 0.36 ${}^{***}$	0.28 ${}^{***}$	0.64 ${}^{***}$	0.06
Internet news	$-$ 0.59 ${}^{***}$	0.04	0.42 ${}^{***}$	0.19 ${}^{**}$	0.23 ${}^{***}$
SNS	$-$ 0.56 ${}^{***}$	0.08	0.48 ${}^{***}$	0.15	0.19 ${}^{***}$	0.04
Video	$-$ 0.62 ${}^{***}$	0.04	0.39 ${}^{***}$	0.21 ${}^{**}$	0.26 ${}^{***}$	0.01	0.06

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01.

To compare the perceived reliability means of different information sources within surveys, we conducted paired-samples t-tests comparing all of the information sources within the revolution survey (Table 4a) and election survey (Table 4b). Comparisons in Tables 4a and 4b read from row to column, so that a positive mean difference indicates that the row variable has greater value than the column variable. Conversely, a negative mean difference indicates that the row variable has a lesser value than the column variable.

In the revolution survey (Table 4a), the perceived reliability of SNS/FB, photo/video-sharing sites, and Internet news sites are not statistically different than the perceived reliability of F2F communication with family and friends. In the election survey, by contrast (Table 4b), the reliability of these sources is significantly lower than F2F communications. Furthermore, in the election survey, the perceived reliability of (unspecified) government sources of information is not statistically different from social media, photo/video-sharing sites, and Internet news sites. This indicates a substantial increase in the perceptions of the reliability of government sources of information from the time of the 2011 revolution to the 2014 elections.

To test whether perceptions of the reliability of different information sources grouped together, we conducted principle components exploratory factor analysis on the source reliability variables in both the revolution and election surveys, using Varimax with Kaiser Normalization rotation.

Table 5a

Factor analysis: source reliability during 2011 revolution

	Component
	1	2
Internet news	0.544	0.389
Radio	0.791	0.089
Newspapers	0.820	$-$ 0.120
TV	0.655	0.320
Government	0.704	$-$ 0.018
Photo/video sites	$-$ 0.028	0.847
Face-to-Face	0.071	0.690
SNS (facebook)	0.089	0.782
Internet not SNS ${}^{*}$	0.244	0.662

${}^{*}$ We did not collect this variable in the Election Survey.

Table 5b

Factor analysis: source reliability during 2014 elections

	Component
	1	2	3
Internet news	0.656	0.417	0.240
Newspapers	0.777	0.154	0.125
Government	0.744	$-$ 0.092	0.062
Photo/video sites	0.195	0.895	0.045
SNS (facebook)	$-$ 0.031	0.891	0.208
Radio	0.413	$-$ 0.010	0.739
TV	0.320	0.133	0.794
Face-to-Face	$-$ 0.285	0.256	0.596

For the revolution survey, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy is 0.79, which is above the commonly recommended value of 0.6; Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant ( $\chi$ 2 (28) $=$ 337.83, $p<$ 0.01). The communalities are all above 0.44 with four greater than 0.61, confirming items share some common variance. The factor analysis produced a two-factor solution (Table 5a). The first factor groups together the perceived reliability of information from government sources, newspapers, radio, TV, and Internet news websites, and accounts for 35% of the variance. The second factor includes F2F communication, Facebook/SNS, general Internet sites, and video sharing sites, and accounts for 22% of the variance. The first factor represents government-controlled sources (access to Internet news sites was limited primarily to sites of national TV and newspapers) that were perceived to be less reliable due to government censorship. The second factor represents more independent sources that were perceived to greater press freedoms after the revolution.

We ran the same factor analysis on perceived reliability of different information sources in the election survey (Table 5b). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy is 0.70, above the commonly recommended value of 0.6; Bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant ( $\chi$ 2 (28) $=$ 326.47, $p<$ 0.01). The communalities are all above 0.50 with four greater than 0.71, confirming items share some common variance. This analysis produced a three-factor solution that is different from the factors for the revolution survey data. The first factor groups together the perceived reliability of newspapers, Internet news sites, and government sources, and accounts for 37% of the variance. The second factor includes Facebook/SNS websites and video sharing websites, and accounts for 19% of the variance. The third factor consists of TV, radio, and F2F communication, accounting for 13% of the variance. This factor structure in the election survey analysis is different from the two factors produced for the revolution survey. These results show that the factor groupings changed substantively between the revolution and the 2014 elections. We attribute these differences in the factors to the new press freedoms after the revolution that allowed previously restricted sources to provide more independent content. As a result, government sources, national newspapers and Internet news sites were perceived as more reliable than during the revolution. The other sources were perceived as more reliable during the revolution due to their greater independence from government; these break into two factors. One factor comprises the social media of photo/video-sharing sites and Facebook; another factor comprises Radio, TV and Face-to-Face communication.

4.5 Information sharing behavior

Most revolution survey respondents (77.9%) report that during the uprising, they regularly shared information about the uprising that they had obtained from the Internet (including FB, YouTube or Twitter) with their family members and friends. A similar majority (81%) reports that during the uprising their family and friends regularly shared online political information with the respondent.

A smaller majority of election survey respondents (64%) report that they regularly shared with family and friends the election information they had obtained online. Almost three-fourths (72%) report that their friends and family members regularly shared with them election information they obtained online. This is also lower than the information sharing behavior reported in the revolution surveys. We discuss in more detail the results of information sharing in the next section, due to its relationship with PIE.

We averaged these two variables for each survey respondent to create a new single variable for information sharing. Since most respondents agreed or strongly agreed (on a four-point scale) that they regularly shared information, we applied a median split to create two evenly sized groups that report “higher information sharing” and “lower information sharing”.

4.6 Political efficacy (PE) and political information efficacy (PIE)

We conducted a principle components exploratory factor analysis using Varimax with Kaiser Normalization rotation on the combination of our three internal and external political efficacy (PE) items, and our four political information efficacy (PIE) items.

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.67, above the commonly recommended value of 0.6, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant ( $\chi$ 2 (21) $=$ 161.24, $p<$ 0.01). The communalities were all above 0.38 with five greater than 0.5. The factor analysis produced a two-factor solution. The first factor consists of the four PIE items, accounting for 32% of the variance. The second factor consists of the three internal and external political efficacy items and accounts for 20% of the variance.

We created a scale for the PIE measures for the revolution and elections surveys (Cronbach alpha $=$ 0.75 and 0.67, respectively). To test different information sources as predictors of PIE, we used regression analysis on the PIE scale. For both surveys, the significant predictors of PIE are the frequency of Internet use and the frequency of SNS (e.g., Facebook) use for both the revolution and elections surveys (adj. R Square $=$ 0.25, $p<$ 0.05, and adj. R Square $=$ 0.19, $p<$ 0.01, respectively).

Table 6a
Information sharing behavior and PIE during 2011 revolution

	Higher info sharing (a)	Lower info sharing (b)	Mean diff. (a-b)
PIE feel informed	2.33 (0.79)	2.39 (0.84)	$-$ 0.	06
PIE know issues	2.77 (0.82)	2.71 (0.69)	0.	06
PIE advise friend	2.75 (0.86)	2.39 (0.80)	0.	36 ${}^{**}$
PIE feel qualified	2.14 (0.88)	1.87 (0.72)	0.	27
Politics too complicated for me…	2.55 (0.90)	2.77 (0.96)	$-$ 0.	22
Gov’t doesn’t care about me…	3.29 (0.87)	3.43 (0.77)	$-$ 0.	14
Many ways for me to express…	3.06 (0.86)	2.70 (0.75)	0.	35 ${}^{**}$

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01.

Table 6b

Information sharing behavior and PIE during 2014 elections

	Higher info sharing (a)	Lower info sharing (b)	Mean diff. (a-b)
PIE feel informed	2.45 (0.68)	2.19 (0.72)	0.26 ${}^{**}$
PIE know issues	2.81 (0.64)	2.50 (0.67)	0.31 ${}^{***}$
PIE advise friend	2.64 (0.76)	2.25 (0.74)	0.39 ${}^{***}$
PIE qualified	2.52 (0.84)	2.02 (0.80)	0.50 ${}^{***}$
Politics too complicated for me…	2.49 (0.86)	2.48 (0.86)	0.01
Gov’t doesn’t care much about me…	2.80 (0.82)	2.76 (0.97)	0.04
Many ways for me to express views…	2.64 (0.73)	2.63 (0.85)	0.01

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01.

A final set of variables that might affect PIE is sharing information with one’s social network. We conducted t-tests of the individual PIE variables (not the PIE scale) across the two information-sharing groups (higher, lower) within each survey (Tables 6a and 6b). Using the individual PIE variables gives us greater granularity in the analyses of which PIE variables are affected by information sharing.

In the revolution survey, there are no significant differences between the level of information sharing and three of the four measures of PIE (Table 6a). The higher information-sharing group is significantly higher ( $p<$ 0.05) on only the PIE question: “I feel I know enough about the uprising that I could advise a friend.” For the election survey, by contrast, all four measures of PIE are significantly higher for respondents in the higher information-sharing group. This suggests that during the revolution, sharing information did not seem to affect respondents’ sense of feeling well informed. During the elections, however, sharing information did affect respondents’ sense of feeling informed.

Table 7

Differences in PIE, PE and information sharing behavior: revolution and elections

	Revolution (a)	Election (b)	Mean diff. (b-a)
PIE feel informed	2.35 (0.80)	2.37 (0.71)	0.02
PIE know issues	2.76 (0.79)	2.68 (0.67)	$-$ 0.08
PIE advise friend	2.66 (0.86)	2.48 (0.78)	$-$ 0.18
PIE feel qualified	2.08 (0.85)	2.31 (0.86)	0.23 ${}^{**}$
Politics too complicated for people like me…	2.59 (0.92)	2.49 (0.86)	$-$ 0.10
Gov’t does not care what people like me think…	3.32 (0.84)	2.76 (0.88)	$-$ 0.54 ${}^{***}$
Many ways for people like me to express views…	2.98 (0.84)	2.65 (0.78)	$-$ 0.33 ${}^{***}$
Information sharing with family	3.15 (0.86)	2.76 (0.86)	$-$ 0.39 ${}^{***}$
Information sharing by family with me	3.14 (0.80)	2.78 (0.89)	$-$ 0.35 ${}^{***}$

${}^{**}$ $p<$ 0.05, ${}^{***}$ $p<$ 0.01.

We conducted t-tests to compare the means for information sharing, PE and PIE across the surveys (Table 7). The mean differences for information sharing variables are significantly lower ( $p<$ 0.01) for the election survey (bottom of Table 7). This indicates that during the time of the revolution, more respondents were regularly sharing information with family and friends, and vice versa, compared with the election period.

Table 7 also shows results for PIE and PE variables across surveys. Of the four PIE variables, only the variable “I feel qualified” is significantly different (higher in the election survey), with a mean of 2.33 compared to the revolution survey with a mean of 2.08 ( $p<$ 0.05). The external political efficacy (PE) variable “I don’t think the current government cares what people like me think” was significantly lower ( $p<$ 0.01) in the election survey (2.76) compared with the revolution (3.32); the lower score means disagreement with the statement. That is, during the election period, more respondents disagreed with this statement compared with respondents during the revolution. To put it another way, more respondents in the election survey felt that the current government did care what people like them think, compared with the revolution survey respondents. The second external PE variable “There are many ways for people like me to have a say in what the current government does” was also significantly lower ( $p<$ 0.01) in the election survey (2.65) compared with the revolution survey (2.98). The internal PE question “Sometimes politics and government are so complicated that people like me can not understand what is going on” was not significantly different across surveys.

5. Discussion and conclusion

We examine in this study the use of diverse information sources over time in Tunisia in order to consider whether political developments and changes in public policy toward press freedoms after the revolution might be reflected in changes over time in respondents’ media use, their perceived reliability of different information sources, information sharing behavior, and their political information efficacy. We report on comparative results from surveys we administered to address the following questions: 1) which information sources were young, educated, adult Tunisians using to keep informed about political developments during the 2011 revolution and the 2014 elections; 2) which information sources did respondents perceive to be more reliable than others; 3) to what extent and with what effect, if any, were respondents sharing information with others members of their social networks; and 4) what effect, if any, does the use of different sources have on respondents’ sense of being politically well-informed. For all of these questions, we also consider changes, if any, over time as the country struggled with competing forces and interests to shape a new government and society.

We conducted two rounds of surveys to opportunity samples of young, educated, adult Tunisians about their use of different information sources during the 2011 revolution, and a third round about information sources used during the 2014 elections. We administered the first round, focused on information sources used during the revolution, in February 2013 and the second round of the same survey in November 2013. This is admittedly a long time after the 2011 revolution, which means respondents’ recollections may not have been as accurate as they would have been had we been able to administer the survey earlier. This is a weakness of our study. We administered the third round of the survey, modified to focus on information sources used during the Fall 2014 elections rather than the 2011 revolution, in February 2015.

The surveys asked respondents about their use of different information sources to keep up with political developments (the 2011 revolution or the 2014 elections), political information sharing with members of their social networks, and their perceptions of the reliability of political information they obtained from more government-controlled media versus more independent media. Finally, we examined the impact of media use and sharing on respondents’ political information efficacy, i.e., their sense of being well informed and qualified to participate in decision-making processes and collective action, such as voting.

We find that during the revolution, the majority of respondents report they primarily used face-to-face communication (and phone) with family and friends, and they used relatively independent media, such as Internet-based sources, including social media, such as Facebook and photo and video-sharing sites, to obtain information about the uprising. Among traditional broadcast media (e.g., newspapers, radio, TV), the majority of respondents used primarily Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV. Very few report that they used government-controlled media, such as national newspapers, radio and other TV networks.

Revolution survey respondents report, not surprisingly, that they perceive the more independent media (Al Jazeera TV and Internet, including social media) to be more reliable than government-controlled media. We expected this to be the case; what interests us in particular is the differential use and perceived reliability of more independent sources, such as the Internet and social media. Among the Internet and social media sources, respondents rate photo/video-sharing sites, Internet news sources and Facebook (FB) the most reliable. It is likely that respondents were using the online website of Al-Jazeera as well as viewing the Al-Jazeera TV broadcasts, which would have boosted their reporting of the reliability of Internet news sites.

After the revolution, Tunisia established a new national government, drafted and approved a new constitution (albeit not without difficulty), granted new freedoms to the press, and held parliamentary and presidential elections that were judged to be largely ‘free and fair’. Given the changes in the Tunisian government and the loosening of censorship on television and radio broadcasting, these sources and new channels that emerged have been more open, and less biased than those under the authoritarian regime of long-term President Ben Ali, overthrown by the 2011 revolution.

Respondents report that during the 2014 elections, a newly accessible Tunisian TV station, El-Hiwar Ettounsi, was the most watched TV station; Al-Jazeera was among the least watched. We suggest that survey respondents were not watching Al-Jazeera TV for Tunisian election information because Al-Jazeera broadly covers regional events, rather than in-depth national/local events such as Tunisia’s elections. Most importantly, the lightening of censorship after the revolution allowed Tunisian TV stations and other government sources to provide less biased coverage of election information – which made them seem more reliable to our survey respondents, who rated them on a par with photo/video-sharing sites and their trusted social networks.

During the revolution, when reliable information was more difficult to obtain due to government controls, more respondents report they were regularly sharing information with family and friends, compared with the election period. It is possible that respondents did not feel the need to share information as much with family and friends during the elections, because there were greater press freedoms, so it was easier for anyone to obtain reliable information compared with the period of the revolution. That is, respondents may have felt that their family and friends generally already had access to the same fairly reliable information that they had themselves.

During the revolution, information sharing – although it was higher (more respondents shared regularly) – it did not seem to affect respondents’ sense of feeling informed (PIE) for the most part. During the elections, however, information sharing was a significant predictor of all four measures of PIE. This finding is important because higher levels of PIE are associated in prior studies with higher levels of political participation [13, 52].

Political uprisings, such as the Tunisian Revolution of 2011, are crises for both government and citizens. Prior research on information seeking during crises in authoritarian regimes shows that citizens, not surprisingly, will seek information from independent media more frequently than from government-controlled media. We provide empirical evidence confirming this trend in Tunisia as well.

Our main contribution is to compare and distinguish changes in the use of specific independent sources (Al Jazeera TV, Internet and social media) over time and across the momentous political and media policy changes in Tunisia from the 2011 revolution to the historic 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections. Our results contribute to the small body of empirical research on the use of different media over time by educated, young adult citizens and their role in political change in Tunisia. These findings further elaborate on the social impact of media use on young citizens’ sense of being politically informed during conditions of crisis and uncertainty. Our findings bode well for the ongoing struggle in Tunisia for democracy and public policy reforms that failed in 1987.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our study participants in all survey rounds and our close collaborator on this project, John Tedesco, as well as Sehl Mellouli and Donald Shoemaker. We also thank graduate research assistant Yue Sun for help with some of the early statistical analyses. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its support of the larger projects of which this work is part (IIS-1319578, 1619028). Any opinions, conclusions, and findings or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF.

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Media use by young Tunisians during the 2011 revolution vs 2014 elections

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical and historical background

2.1 The role of information and communication in political participation

2.2 Tunisia and political change: Revolution to elections

2.3 Public policy toward the media in Tunisia

2.4 Social network theory, internet use and information sharing behavior

2.5 Political information efficacy and political efficacy

3. Methods

3.1 Survey sample

3.2 Survey instrument

4. Results

4.1 Demographics

4.2 Internet use for ALL purposes

4.3 Media use for information about the revolution vs. the elections

Table 1a Use of different information sources during revolution and elections

4.3.2 Internet use including social media for information on the uprising vs elections

4.4 Reliability of information sources

Table 3 Mean reliability of information sources during revolution and elections

4.6 Political efficacy (PE) and political information efficacy (PIE)

Table 6a Information sharing behavior and PIE during 2011 revolution

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

References

Table 1a
Use of different information sources during revolution and elections

Table 3
Mean reliability of information sources during revolution and elections

Table 6a
Information sharing behavior and PIE during 2011 revolution