Power to the People? Democracy, Cyberspace and New Media
By Alexandra Zumpolle
[1758276]
MA American Studies Dissertation LAX999M20
20 ECTS
Supervisor: Dr. T. Jelfs Second Reader: Dr. F. J. Krijnen
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter I. Egypt’s Revolution in Tharir Square and the Limitations of “New Media” 6 Chapter II. Occupy Wall Street: Power and Public Space 18
Chapter III. The NSA Disclosures and the Power of the Mainstream Media 30
Conclusion 41
Bibliography 43
“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.”1
John Dewey (1859-1952) one of the influential founders of pragmatism – a philosophical current that emerged at the end of the 19th century – published various works on the moral and ethical aspects of society, such as education and the workings of democratic government. Concerning the latter, Dewey argued that a well-functioning democracy was foremost a social activity in which he identified communication and public conversation as a vital aspect. For Dewey, democracy is an experiment in which individual freedom should enable the public to discuss the “conflict of interests” and reach a “common good.”2 To ensure an open-minded and informed public the freedom of the press was important because freedom to express oneself and enable open discussion stimulates a sense of community and turns a group of separate individuals into a coherent public that can then direct political decision-making.3 A well-informed public could establish a unified public opinion and as a whole exercise power and hold politicians accountable for their decisions, hence stimulating the democratic process. This space of public discussion valorized by Dewey is similar to the public sphere, a concept theorized by Jürgen Habermas (1989). Habermas stresses the significance of this space of rational discussion where the “ruled” could question the “ruling.”4 The democratic public sphere, ideally, was blind to differences in social class and accessible by anyone, creating informed citizens that participate in the democratic political system. It would be a true product of democracy.5 In these understandings of democratic theory the hegemony of the political (or ruling) classes or other “social forces that undermine the democratic potentialities of modern society,” are questioned by both Dewey and Habermas.6 Thus public discussion and the functioning of democracy are closely connected.
1 John Dewey, Democracy and Education (orig. 1916, Gutenberg Project EBook).
2 Matthew Festenstein, “Dewey's Political Philosophy,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2 Matthew Festenstein, “Dewey's Political Philosophy,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2014 Edition).
3 John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Athens (OH): Swallow Press, 1985).
4 Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere.” In Jurgen Habermas on Society and Politics: A Reader, edited by
Steven Seidman, translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen, 398-404. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. 401.
5 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 1989).
6 Robert J. Antonio and Douglas Kellner, “Communication, Democratization, and Modernity: Critical Reflections on
However, as we see today, global technological developments of the 20th and 21st century
have placed the structural framework of the democratic public sphere under pressure. First, the development of mass media, such as the radio and television transformed American political culture.7 The mass media’s ability to communicate with, and inform a larger audience subsequently increased the scale and reach of American politics and affected the formation of the public sphere. Faster and cheaper ways of communication arose, stimulating the growth of news outlets, which eventually, as a result of market competition, merged into huge conglomerates of media businesses. These so-called “Big Media” often determined and controlled (national) news topics, hence limiting the democratizing potential of the media and shaping public opinion in favor of their business interests. One of the most well-known critiques of this tendency is that of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “Propaganda Model” (PM). This model presents an interesting and revealing insight into the workings of the media and politics, demonstrating the tradition of “manufacturing consent,” a term used to explain the various ways in which the interests of political elites are met by careful manipulation of the public. 8 These ideas emerged alongside the theories of the Frankfurt School. This tendency will be a central element of this dissertation.
Now the increased digitalization of the media (and society) has brought the prospect of another transformation, raising new questions about the various ways “new media” influences American politics. Internet-based technologies like Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere have changed the media landscape significantly and opened up the possibilities for citizens to become more (actively) politically engaged both on- and offline. Many cyber-optimists such as Yochai Benkler and Clay Shirky have emphasized the democratic potential of the Internet and argue that the “new media” decentralize the distribution of information and provide new possibilities for social activism. 9 Moreover, these “new media” have empowered the citizen to expose the dysfunctions of the American political system. Furthermore the characterization of cyberspace as
7 Kristine A. Oswald, “Mass Media and the Transformation of American Politics,” Marquette Law Review Vol. 77
(1994) 385-414.
8 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
9 Yochai Benkler, “Freedom in the Commons: Towards a Political Economy of Information,” Duke Law Journal
Vol. 52 (2003) 1245-1276, Yochai Benkler and Helen Nissenbaum, “Commons-Based Peer Production and Virtue,”
The Journal of Political Philosophy Vol. 14 Issue 4 (2006) 394-419, Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody (New
a free and accessible space seems ideal for the formation of a new (or true) public sphere. Virtual media platforms enable citizens to share information, present new topics of discussion (that might otherwise be censored by traditional media outlets). Blogging in this respect has the potential to help local news reach national or even international proportions and thus enter the mainstream media. This cyber-optimistic perspective argues that the existing power-relations as described by Herman and Chomsky, have been disrupted as a result of the emergence of “new media.” For many cyber-utopians the democratic potential of the “new media” has been confirmed by the social uprisings of the past three years like the Arab Spring in 2011 and the global Occupy movement that followed.
This leads to the central question that this dissertation seeks to address: how democratic is this new development? Not everyone shares these cyber-utopian views. Mark Graham, for example highlights a limitation to the democratic aspect of global digitalization.10 He points out that existing social inequalities remain the same despite the increased digitalization, or maybe even because of it. He argues that since we are ever more defined by our digital activity and background, the gap between the knowledgeable poor and the knowledgeable rich is continuing to widen. He calls this the “geography of information.” Overall Internet access should solve this power inequality. However, as Graham points out the geographical location of knowledge is centered in the wealthiest regions of the world, subsequently “the information-rich get richer and the information-poor, poorer.” This “uneven distribution of information” hence negatively affects participation in the world by the information-poor. Since the digital and the physical world have become increasingly intertwined this analysis raises doubts about the democratizing potential of the Internet.
This dissertation seeks to join this debate about the democratizing potential of the Internet by arguing that this representation of the increased digitalization of the media as a potential democratizer of American society is too utopian an understanding. The democratic narrative that accompanies technological innovation and progress is often considered to advance democratic development. By extending the public sphere online and increasing its reach of
10 BBC Radio Four talk with Mark Graham, May 18, 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0435j93, Mark
public discussion and by democratizing the spread of information and opening up new ways to effectively organize and mobilize large groups, the Internet’s democratizing potential, at first sight, lives up to these expectations. Moreover the role played by the “new media” has to some extent played a vital role in organizing instances of democratic progression. However the workings of the Internet and the abstraction of cyberspace as a virtual space depict a more complex picture and an analysis of the “new media” in relation to American politics requires a more nuanced approach. This dissertation demonstrates that “new media” and internet-based technologies have not created a democratic or participatory society, but instead represent an adaption of existing notions of democracy into cyberspace. As such, whether or not the advent of the digital environment achieves a democratic end, for that end to be achieved by means of Internet technology we need to be aware of the limitations towards that achievement. In other words, the increased digitalization of the media, has not affected the democratic system to the extent that it dismantles, but rather masks, existing power-relations. Power structures that are expressed in the physical world transpose into the digital.
I will illustrate my argument by a critical analysis of three case studies that each have a distinct character and contribute in a unique way to the debate concerning the role of the Internet in democracy, highlighting the complexity of the position of the Internet-based technologies in contemporary democratic society. All three cases illustrate events of progressive democratization that, by means of “new media” have aided democratic development yet at the same time reveal a set of important limits of these technologies.
The 21st century witnessed a series of revolutions in name of democracy that started in
emphasizes the (often overlooked) limitations of the “new media” and demonstrates that the new technology itself is subjected to censorship and Tharir Square symbolized the revolution.
Inspired by the Egyptian uprisings the second case study analyzes the American equivalent of the Arab Spring: the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in New York City in 2012. Its “occupational” character of public space was a significant trait of OWS. Within the framework of the structural limitations of the “new media” the OWS movement demonstrates that the concept of space is essential. The theoretical ideas of Henri Lefebvre’s Production of Space (1974) and Hannah Arendt’s conception of a “space of appearances” support the perception of questioning authority by means of spatial presence. Existing power structures are challenged by the physical manifestation of the movement. This is confirmed by suppression of the movement out of physical space by the harsh actions of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the legislative responses of the New York City government. Moreover the suppression of the movement back into cyberspace illustrates the dynamic interrelationship between cyberspace and physical space and reveals that cyberspace can weaken the movement by containing OWS’s democratic power in the digital sphere.
The final chapter analyzes the NSA disclosures by Edward Snowden in 2013 and the responses of the mainstream media and American government. The disclosures in many ways demonstrate the flourishing and democratizing potential of the Internet but it also reveals a more complex and troubling picture about the ways cyberspace is controlled and managed by the state and major Internet corporations. It reveals the large-scale surveillance programs and increase of state power by means of the Internet-based technologies. This exposes a transposition of existing structural imbalances into cyberspace. Moreover the mainstream media and the American government tended to structurally undermine and delegitimize whistleblowers to reinforce the political status quo by the production of “flak,” one of the filters of the PM. “Flak” describes how groups or individuals work in concert to spread negative responses to deviant views of official statements, laws, and ideas, subsequently “manufacturing consent” and exposing the underlying (and often hidden) power structures that for a large part control the mainstream media.
Egypt’s Revolution in Tharir Square and the Limitations of “New Media”
The Arab Spring refers to the series of uprisings that started in Tunisia when the 26-year-old Tunisian vegetable vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December 2010. Bouazizi was a hard working Tunisian and breadwinner of his family who, like many others of his generation, was frustrated with his poor economic prospects and the continuing impoverishment of the Tunisian people. When his vegetable cart was confiscated again by a police officer due to the lack of a license and that police officer subsequently insulted and humiliated him, he went to the police station to complain about his unfair treatment. Once he arrived at the police station the police would not see him and left Bouazizi frustrated and desperate outside. His self-immolation illustrated his desperation and the powerlessness of the situation. Mohammed Bouazizi, without this ever being his intention, unleashed a sentiment many could identify with across the Arab world. Soon after civil uprisings erupted in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman and Saudi Arabia.11 Insurgencies and civil war are still taking place today, of which Syria remains an evident example. The Arabian protesters addressed the social inequality, corruption, and lack of (political) freedom and demanded regime change that would guarantee a democratic government.
The dissatisfaction of the Arabian people with the authoritarian regimes did not develop overnight. The region’s economic problems and the authorities’ inability to meet the public demands had simmered under the surface for decades. The end of the Second World War marked the end of European colonization and slowly led to national independence for many African and Middle Eastern countries. Although the colonies were eager to gain their independence, it left them politically unstable and created social unrest. The (often) authoritarian regimes that replaced the colonizers repressed group activism and public dissent. Brutal force and other, more discreet forms of coercion like censorship of the media silenced opposition and deviant views. Moreover the constant propagation of fear of retaliation of the regimes made public uprisings a challenging task. During this time of power transition, the United States was one of the world’s superpowers alongside the Soviet Union, “and in the course of the Cold War had established a
11 See more detailed information country by country at the website of BBC World, updated on December 16, 2013.
presence in many parts of the world.”12 Oil resources and the region’s vital military-strategic
importance largely determined American foreign policy in the region, subsequently turning the Middle East into a Cold War battleground. The Carter Doctrine ensured that the region remained under US influence and warned other nations (the USSR in particular) not to interfere.
American foreign policy was ambiguous towards the Middle East, in which political stability was endorsed over democratic or humanitarian rights. Western-backed dictators provided stability and repressed political Islam. While the tendency of Western rhetoric was and remains to advocate democratic values, in the Middle Eastern region this was frequently absent. The political democratic ideal was compromised by the need for political stability in the region and the US’s dependence on oil. The events of 9/11 and the War on Terror policy encouraged spreading democracy and freedom in the region. Yet changing American policy that had supported authoritarian and Islamic dictatorships and regimes for decades was difficult. As a result these regimes remained in power, violating human rights, controlling all aspects of public life and fortifying social inequality. The Arab Spring challenged and ultimately ousted these “friendly-dictators” leaving room for Islamic political forces like the Muslim Brotherhood to fill the power vacuum. Secular democratic movements like Kifaya were present yet not powerful or influential enough to take control.
Many commentators referred to the Arab uprisings as the “Twitter” or “Facebook revolution.”13 Social media and the internet-based technologies were hailed as the digital revolutionaries of the Arab Spring. As Chris Taylor stresses, that the early 21st century was the
first time that we carry around our vast social network “in our pockets,” highlighting the democratic aspect of Facebook and other online platforms that provided an online discussion board. Social media has been credited as a crucial factor that helped topple the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Richard A. Lindsey points out the “new media” worked on many different levels, “affecting public opinion and international support, rapid dissemination of news, widespread messaging, and the ability of the individual to spread information globally,” all of which “are
12 Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber, 1991).
13 Eunice Crook, “Tunisia: The Facebook Revolution,” The British Council, February 11, 2011 Abigail Hauslohner,
relatively new phenomena during revolutions.”14 Moreover, as a study of the Washington
University demonstrates, an analysis of Twitter during the Arab Spring created more democratic discussion among individuals and as Philip Howard (one of the project leaders) states “social media became a critical part of the toolkit for greater freedom.”15 But were “new media” as relevant in these movements as many pundits argued?
This chapter will use Egypt as an example of the Arab Spring to demonstrate that the role of “new media” in the uprisings is limited and both governmental and corporate censorship continues to challenge Internet freedom. The “new media” contributed to the democratizing narrative because they provided a way to easily communicate between different (social) groups and reach a large (western) audience and presented an alternative to the state-run media. Hence democratizing the news and this enabled the protesters to surmount the obstacles of governmental censorship. Yet oral and traditional forms of communication were more important at the spatial epicenter of the revolution, Tharir Square. Moreover the regime also used the “new media” to regain control that countered the revolutionary online attempts. So the “new media” have contributed in the run up to the revolution and realized its democratic potential yet cyberspace was also used for counter-revolutionary purposes by the Egyptian regime that limited the democratizing potential. This is illustrated by firsthand stories of Egyptian revolutionaries and protesters like Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who started the successful Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said” (Kullena Khaled Said) (KKS), as a protest against the brutal mutilation of Khaled Said, who died from his injuries, and by film footage of the Egyptian Arab Spring documentary “The Square” (2013). These accounts alongside the works of Zizi A. Papacharissi, Evgeny Morozov and Paolo Gerbaudo will demonstrate that the “new media” were useful for communicating and mobilizing group activism yet the influence of the digital technology in these democratic uprisings is limited by censorship, subsequently making the protesters rely on traditional ways of communication.16
14 Richard A. Lindsey, “What the Arab Spring Tells Us About the Future of Social Media in Revolutionary
Movements,” Small Wars Journal, July 29, 2013.
15 Catherine O’Donnell, “New study quantifies use of social media in Arab Spring,” UW Today, September 12,
2011. See for more information on the significance of “new media,” Andy Carvin, Distant Witness – Social Media,
the Arab Spring and Journalism Revolution (New York, Cuny Journalism Press, 2012), Jillian C. York, “The
Revolutionary Force of Facebook and Twitter,” The Nieman Foundation For Journalism At Harvard, Online Exclusives Fall, 2011, Antonio Jose Vargas, “Spring Awakening - How An Egyptian Revolution Began on Facebook,” The New York Times, February 17, 2012.
16 Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets – Social Media and Contemporary Activism (London, Pluto Press, 2012),
Many cyber-utopians emphasize the independence of cyberspace, characterizing it as an objective space, not only free of governmental censorship but also blurring existing boundaries between various social groups. Natana J. DeLong-Bas stresses, for example that “perhaps the greatest sense of empowerment has come through the ability to use cyberspace as a location for doing what could otherwise not be done in reality: assemble to discuss ideas, concerns, and complaints, and to share frustrations, while also providing the social networking opportunity to unite, strategize, and plan for change.”17 In accordance with DeLong-Bas, Linda Herrera gives
an example of a young Egyptian girl Mona, who used Internet platforms to seek out and discuss “controversial subjects” with “other ‘taboo’ groups.”18 This new digital platform is often compared to the democratic public sphere as described by Jürgen Habermas.19 Cyberspace elevated the traditional public sphere into a virtual sphere; an “open” and accessible public space for public debate that enabled participation and direct interaction by the public on a political level.
Blogs, among other digital media, were fundamental for political change in Egypt. Blogging provided an alternative to the news provided by the Egyptian state-controlled media.20 Key in this process was, as Howard and Hussain explain, “‘building down’ the credibility of authoritarian regimes by investigating their corrupt practices. The best and perhaps the only place critics could find for getting their message across was the Internet.” Egyptian bloggers such as Wael Abbas and Malek Mostafa uploaded firsthand information and video footage of the regime’s atrocities as part of “building down” the regime’s credibility. Wael Abbas has a longstanding background as a political dissent and has won many international prizes and honors
Evgeny Morozov, “Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go,” The Guardian, March 7, 2011, Zizi A. Papacharissi, A Private Sphere – Democracy in a Digital Age (Cambridge & Malden (MA), Polity Press, 2010), Zizi A. Papacharissi, “The Virtual Public Sphere – the internet as a public sphere,” New Media and Society Vol. 4 Issue 1 (2002) 9-27.
17 Natana J. DeLong-Bas, “The New Social Media and the Arab Spring,” Oxford Islamic Studies Online,
http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/focus/essay0611_social_media.html.
18 Linda Herrera, Revolution in the Age of Social Media (London and New York: Verso Books, 2014) 13. 19 See Natana J. DeLong-Bas, “The New Social Media and the Arab Spring,” Oxford Islamic Studies Online,
http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/focus/essay0611_social_media.html , Francis L.F. Lee and Louis Lang etc., eds., Frontiers in New Media Research, (New York & London: Routledge, 2013), Clay Shirky, “The Political Power of Social Media,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2011) 1-9.
20 Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain, “The Role of Digital Media,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 22 Issue
for his efforts of human rights activism.21 In an interview at BBC HARDtalk in 2010, Abbas
explains it was the ever-present censorship in the Egyptian media that motivated him to start his blog “Egyptian Awareness” (Al-Waay Al Masry), which is for the greater part written in Arabic. Alongside creating awareness, he wanted to present the public “accurate information.”
Blogs and the Internet in general provided a way to bypass the regime’s censorship.22 During the uprisings in Cairo, Abbas like many other Egyptian protesters uploaded videos and photos onto his blog and international news stations used this material for their news coverage, international exposure of the regime’s barbarities was, again, a crucial factor of online activism (fig. 1).23
Fig. 1. Screenshot of posts of video clips of Cairo protests by Wael Abbas on his blog “Egyptian Awareness” (Al-Waay Al Masry), January 26, 2011, http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com/archive/2011/01/index.html.
21 In 2006 CNN names him “Middle East Person of the Year”,
http://womenslens.blogspot.nl/2008/01/cnn-names-wael-abbas-middle-east-person.html , in 2007 he was awarded the Knight International Journalism Award by the International Center of Journalists, http://www.icfj.org/news/icfj-honor-tom-brokaw-nov-13-dinner-dc-egyptian-blogger-burmese-reporter-also-receive-awards , in 2008 he won the Human Rights Watch’s Hellmann-Hammet Award, www.hrw.org .
22 Video clip presentation Wael Abbas at the University of Michigan, December 23, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAwaWhg-eX8 , informative website of the Tavaana: E-learning Institute for
Iranian Civil Society, “Blogger Wael Abbas: Exposing Corruption in Egypt,” A Project of the E-Collaborative for
Civic Education (2014) http://tavaana.org/en/content/blogger-wael-abbas-exposing-corruption-egypt-0 .
Alongside Wael Abbas, Malek Mustafa had been actively using the Internet to blog his experiences in Egypt and Egypt’s regime as well. He became well known for his post called “Downtown’s Sexual Rabies” in 2006. It was an eyewitness account of the sexual harassment of Egyptian women in Cairo during the Eid Holiday (the end of Ramadan). The post received more than 750 comments and over 60,000 people visited his blog and read the post.24 Since the uprisings Mustafa was politically active on- and offline. During one of the demonstrations, the Egyptian state police fired rubber bullet at the protesters Mustafa was among them. He got shot in the eye and eventually lost his eye because of it. It was breaking news on Twitter and an outpour of reactions reached other international media like the New York Times and The
Guardian.25 As these international newspapers highlighted the story, the eye patch became a
symbol for the protesters.
The Internet technologies facilitated new and easier ways of communication. Rania Al Malky, editor of the Daily News Egypt, wrote on her blog that the use of “new media” by political activists, and more specifically a blog, “was only natural.” She continued, “in a country like Egypt where state control of the media has reached such epidemic proportions that self-censorship has become a worse threat than direct self-censorship, the empowering effect of a blog is undeniable.26 Wael Ghonim, another Egyptian blogger and initiator of the KKS Facebook page, was convinced of the democratic power of the Internet, “if you want to liberate society just give them the Internet,” he stated in an interview with CNN after the resignation of Hosni Mubarak.27 During one of the sit-ins at Tharir Square in 2011, street vendors would sell t-shirt with the words “Facebook” and mural paintings depicted the Facebook logo and “Twitter” was sprayed on shops with graffiti, all stimulating and confirming the cyber-utopian narrative.28
The “Twitter” or “Facebook revolution” reference is embedded in the democratic
24 Mirette F. Mabrouk, “Changing the Channel: Egypt’s Evolving Media and Its Role in Domestic Politics,” The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World Issue 15 (2010) 12, Rania Al Malky, “Blogging for
Reform: The Case of Egypt,” Arab Media and Society Issue 1 (2007)
http://www.arabmediasociety.com/index.php?article=12&printarticle, Blog Malek Mustafa, http://malek-x.net/stafa .
25 Tarek Amr, “Egypt: Have Activists and Journalists Been Targeted in Tharir Square Clearing?,” Global Voices,
November 19, 2011, Julie Tomlin, “How eyepatches became a symbol of Egypt’s revolution,” The Guardian, December 18, 2011.
26 Courtney Radsch, “Core to Commonplace: The Evolution of Egypt’s Blogosphere,” Arab Media & Society
(2008) 8.
27 Interview CNN, February 10, 2011 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/09/egypt.protests.google.exec/
.
28 Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets – Social Media and Contemporary Activism (London: Pluto Press, 2012)
narrative associated with new technology. As Zizi A. Papacharissi explains, “there is this mystical connection between technology and democracy. Yet not all technologies are democratizing or democracy-related. Most technologies have little to do with the condition of democracy. Nevertheless, technologies that afford expressive capabilities tend to trigger narratives of emancipation, autonomy, and freedom in the public imagination.”29 Blogging and Facebook, in the case of Egypt, have opened up the democratic virtual sphere but online freedom is not without government control. In 2003 the Egyptian Telecommunication act was implemented, allowing the government to “control (…) information and communication technologies (…).”30 As a result the Egyptian government could easily monitor their citizens.
Consequently the narrative of the Egyptian uprisings as the “Twitter revolution” should be approached with caution. First of all, as I discuss in greater detail in relation to the Occupy Wall Street movement, online activism is certainly not the same as actual physical occupation of public space (in this case Tharir Square). Secondly, the popular “new media” narrative gives little account of how the structural elements of the Internet and the “new media” are subjected to external influences. Not only are there inherent limitations to the democratic potential inherent to the digital networks such as its market-oriented and capitalistic building blocks that complicate democratic notions of equality and freedom, but statistics demonstrate that the penetration of Internet and “new media” was very low, “in 2011 only 25 per cent of Egyptian households were connected to the Internet, only 4 per cent of Egyptian adults were members of Facebook, and only a miniscule 0.15 per cent of them had a Twitter account.” 31
Alongside governmental censorship, other limits of the “new media” imposed by corporate Internet businesses and company policies thwarted online activism. As the uprisings continued, more and more videos were uploaded onto YouTube, and Facebook pages like KKS became increasingly popular. During the uprisings, Facebook shut down the page of KSS after complaints of abuse of the page (what kind of abuse however is not specified) and the discovery
29 Zizi A. Papacharissi, A Private Sphere – Democracy in a Digital Age (Cambridge & Malden (MA): Polity Press,
2010) 3.
30 “Freedom on the Net 2012,” Freedom House, (2012), 1
http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Egypt%202012.pdf .
31 Dubai School of Government, Arab Social Media Report 2011-2013.
that the page was maintained by fake accounts, violating the company’s policies.32 Strikingly, the
censorship in these cases was not conducted by the Egyptian government but was applied by corporate businesses. Even before the outbreak of the Arab Spring, censorship by American-owned Internet companies happened. In 2007 Wael Abbas experienced a similar form of censorship. His YouTube account was suspended after uploading offensive images of police brutality. Again this was in violation of YouTube’s company guidelines.33 Recently Abbas posted a comment on his blog saying soon he would write a feature on YouTube and Facebook censorship (fig. 2).34 In addition Twitter was shut down by the Egyptian government on the 25th of January 2011, followed by Facebook and the cut off of mobile phones services such as text-messaging.35
Fig. 2. Screenshot of comment Wael Abbas on his blog “Egyptian Awareness” (Al-Waay Al Masry), October 26, 2013.
These policies of YouTube and Facebook make online political dissent increasingly difficult. Morozov stresses the economic and corporate perspective of these technologies, that continues to make the Net “more transparent, efficient, connected but also less anonymous.” New technologies that use “facial recognition” and regulations that prohibit the use of aliases that
32 Wael Ghonim, Revolution 2.0 – The Power of the People is Greater than the People in Power, (London: Fourth
Estate, 2012) 118.
33 YouTube Community Guidelines, www.youtube.com/community_guidelines . 34 Blog Wael Abbas, October 26, 2013 http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com/.
35 One of many newspaper articles, Nathan Loivarez-Giles, “Twitter Blocked in Egypt as thousands of Protesters
increase control of the corporate world on the users of the Net, subsequently empowering the corporate businesses and tightening their grip and control on communication and information of citizens. 36
Moreover the “new media” were used as a counter-revolutionary tool. After the fall of Hosni Mubarak the Muslim Brotherhood eventually filled the power vacuum. To gain support an influence public opinion they infiltrated the online communication networks by pretending to be protesters or as administrators of pro-revolutionary Facebook pages or websites. Herrera calls these online warriors: e-militias.37 Under false pretenses these e-militias acquired information about the activists and discovered their plans of action, “networks” and “correspondence” with other activists. This information determined the opposition’s strategy to undermine and sabotage “the activists on the ground.”
Digital anonymity proved to be another challenge of the “new media” that Egyptian online activists encountered. Initiators of protest such as Wael Ghonim were unsure if the turn out of an organized demonstration would represent the same amount of people who had responded positively online. He stresses the difficulty in determining if the people’s enthusiasm and spirit would transfer to reality where the people would be exposed and not able to hide behind their (anonymous) Facebook accounts, because, as he puts it, “real activism was in real life not in virtual worlds.”38 This renders precisely one of the challenges that the Internet encompasses. In the run up to the “Day of Rage” (January 25, 2011) Ghonim organized several protests (by means of the KKS page) called “Silent Stands.” Ghonim recounts, “more than 100,000 members were reached through the page” and “10,000 men and women said they were coming.”39 Yet only a few hundred turned up.40 It was not until the third “Silent Stand” that it became more popular. It demonstrates that the interplay between the online organization and the physical aspect is important and that it is difficult for online activism to cross the boundaries of cyberspace into physical space.
The “new media” were ideal for to revolutionaries to reach regional and eventually international (western) audiences, yet eyewitness stories and reports as documented in the
36 Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion – The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (New York: Public Affairs, 2012) 323. 37 Linda Herrera, Revolution in the Age of Social Media (London and New York: Verso Books, 2014) 120-133. 38 Wael Ghonim, Revolution 2.0 – The Power of the People is Greater than the People in Power, (London: Fourth
Estate, 2012) 47.
documentary film The Square (2013) present another view on the “new media.”41 The
documentary directed by Jehane Noujaim tells the political story of the beginning of democratic uprisings at Tharir Square in Cairo in 2011. The camera takes us into streets and onto the Square, where we meet different characters with different social backgrounds ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to the young revolutionaries. All storylines are intertwined and create a comprehensive image of the different hopes and ideals that many Egyptians have for the future of their country. These different storylines demonstrate that it is not just one revolution in Tharir Square but that there are multiple struggles for power. Not only the tech-savvy Egyptian Facebook Youth (shabab-al-Facebook) was reached but other groups less involved in the new technology as well.
The documentary demonstrates the limited role of “new media” in the uprisings. On the “Day of Rage” thousands marched through the streets of Cairo and protested at state buildings. Eventually the protest arrived at Tharir Square where the relatively calm march turned into battle with the state police.42 Demonstrators were attacked with water canons and hit with batons. In the run up to this day, the “new media” were a vital element in organizing the demonstrations and create solidarity, or in Paolo Gerbaudo’s words, “emotional condensation.”43 The KKS page exploded as a result of the “Silent Stands” events, reaching 37,000 “likes” and the amount of comments surpassed the average of 7,000 to 120,000, demonstrating the significant dynamic between off- and online activity. 44 At the heart of the “revolution” in Tharir Square the main form of communication and way to convey messages was by chanting slogans, singing of self-composed songs and wall paintings or graffiti. Hence slogans, posters and flyers were used to spread the revolutionary message. Headlines that all social groups could identity with, like “el-shaab ureed iskat el-nisam (the people want the fall of the regime),” created a strong mutual bond between the varieties of social groups in Egypt. Moreover television remained the primary
41 Ahmed Hassan, Khalid Abdalla and Magdy Ashour, The Square (Al Midan), DVD, Directed by Jehane Noujaim,
(New York: Noujaim Films and Worldview Entertaiment, 2013).
42 “Timeline: Egypt’s revolution,” Al Jazeera, updated February 14, 2011
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.html .
43 Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets – Social Media and Contemporary Activism (London: Pluto Press, 2012)
50.
44 Wael Ghonim, Revolution 2.0 – The Power of the People is Greater than the People in Power, (London: Fourth
source for international news for most Arabians.45 It was not until, “the movement ‘landed’ on
the streets” that “its communication shifted drastically.”46 No longer was the use of Internet and Facebook of importance; it was “face to face communication” that became the main way to convey the message. One of the protesters commented that, even when the regime had shut off all communication on the 25th of January 2011, “People simply knew they needed to go to Tharir.”47
The presence of the revolution in Tharir Square was more powerful in reality than in cyberspace. The importance of the Square and its symbolic value dominated the narrative of the revolution and is a reoccurring theme throughout the different storylines in the documentary. The first scene of the film gives a clear illustration of the importance of the physical aspect of the revolution, when one of the protagonists of the film exclaims in excitement to see everyone on the streets. The Square unified the different social, political and religious groups of Cairo. Differences were set aside to unite as “one hand.” The Square opened up the dialogue between these different groups, some of whom might otherwise be excluded from the Internet due to not having the technology to be online. The documentary shows the unlikely friendship between Ahmed, a young revolutionary, and Magdy a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who met at the Square. On Twitter a picture depicting a group of Muslims in prayer in Tharir Square being protected by a chain of Christians holding hands, reached the international news.48 Moreover “possession” of the Square was vital for the spirit of the revolutionaries. As a revolutionary stressed, “Tharir is symbolic land, if you’ve got control of it, you have power.” Although the online activism continued online, this demonstrates that the Egyptians could only challenge the regime by acting in physical space.
Yet the influences “new media” are not completely absent and are indeed part of the revolution. Scenes that take place living rooms often have a computer in the background with Facebook, Twitter or YouTube pages and clips opened. In addition images of the actual revolution on the streets depict revolutionaries with smartphones in their hands filming the
45 Shibley Telhami, “2011 Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey,” Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development,
University of Maryland, October 2011.
46 Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets – Social Media and Contemporary Activism (London: Pluto Press, 2012)
63.
47 Ibid, 68.
48 Ann Alexander, “Egypt’s Muslims and Christians join hands in protest,” BBC, February 10, 2011, Helen
movement. Moreover Khalid Abdalla one of the main characters of the film is often filmed skyping with his father in the United Kingdom. Another scene depicts the formation of a “new media” group that encouraged revolutionaries to use the new technologies to record (abuse) of the Egyptian army against protesters and to post and upload this video footage online as a way to expose the regime to the rest of the world.
In summary, the “new media” played a part in the organizational aspect of this on-going revolution. Facebook was frequently used in the run up to the actual demonstrations. Yet at the same time the “new media” were as a counter-revolutionary tool as well demonstrating one of the limits of the democratizing potential of the new technology. Moreover the transposition of online enthusiasm power into physical space turned out to be a more gradual process than the vibrant online activity. Subsequently oral and more traditional ways of communication became more important the Tharir Square.
Occupy Wall Street: Power and Public Space
#OccupyWallStreet: “Are you Ready for a Tharir Moment? / On Sep 17th flood into lower
Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street.”49
Adbusters magazine, a Canadian anti-consumerist magazine, posted this message on their website in the summer of 2011 and called for the occupation of Wall Street in New York. The reference to Tharir Square reveals Adbusters’ inspiration by the Egyptian uprisings for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Although the Egypt uprisings were aimed at changing the dictatorial regime, OWS targeted the financial system by online activism. Similar to Egypt, in the run up to the actual occupation of Wall Street, online activism and communication dominated the organizational aspect of the movement. Moreover as Tharir Square was the movement’s revolutionary heart, so did Zuccotti Park become the nerve center of OWS.
The aim of Adbusters is “to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century.”50 The magazine tries to get its readers to actively engage in
the world around them: “we want folks to get mad about corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy, and any industry that pollutes our physical or mental commons.”51 The corruption of democracy, according to the magazine, was centered at Wall Street, “the financial Gomorrah of America.” In the run up to September 17th, expectations were high and very optimistic. On the Adbusters website one columnist stated that at least 20,000 protesters were expected and this might even, like at Tharir Square, amount to more than 90,000.52 The
movement was in essence an anti-capitalist movement, protesting against the increasingly powerful corporate business society and their influence on American politics. It was a protest against social inequality, greed and corruption within the most powerful layers of American society, namely the corporate world and the political elite. It was not only a protest against economic inequality but also “against the lack – or failure – of political representation.”53 The OWS slogan “We are the 99%,” points out exactly this. The “Declaration of the Occupation of
49 Adbusters website https://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html . 50 “About” Adbusters, https://www.adbusters.org/about/adbusters .
51 Ibid.
52 Paul B. Farrell, “America’s Tharir Moment,” Adbusters, September 6, 2011.
New York City” illustrated several of these grievances, pointing out the inadequacy of the governmental institutions in addressing the wishes and needs of the public.54
Two months after the Adbusters’ call to occupy, OWS was a fact and Zuccotti Park became its beating heart. Zuccotti Park (or as the protesters called it “Liberty Plaza”) was centered in New York’s financial district, a park that was in essence a public space but was privately owned by Brookfield Properties. This meant the park had to be “accessible to the public twenty-four hours a day,” yet was subjected to the rules and laws of the corporation. 55 In the
park a mini community was set up with a library, kitchens, Wi-Fi and first-aid posts. The OWS community was structured along the social lines of horizontalism. On a daily basis there would be a General Assembly during which anyone could speak up and bring forward questions or topics of discussion. This was done, since the use of megaphones or voice amplifiers were prohibited in the park, via the people’s microphone.56 The movement grew exponentially. The Guardian attempted to map all the occupy locations worldwide including those of the US, giving an indication of the reach of the movement. 57
The media initially ignored the movement.58 It was not until five days after the occupation that the New York Times reported on the movement.59 The use of mobile phones and digital activity done by the occupiers themselves stimulated and aided the movement, demonstrating the (often) harsh actions of the NYPD. David Graeber, an American anthropologist, anarchist and one of the movement’s leading activists, highlights the importance of the “new media” to support their cause and give it national media attention. For example, in the Democracy Project he describes an online video that went viral, depicting a NYPD police officer harassing and pepper spraying two female occupiers trapped behind a barricade, and
54 Occupy Wall Street General Assembly, “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” September 30, 2011
http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupy-wall-street/ .
55 David Graeber, The Democracy Project (London: Allen Lane, 2013) 55, New York Civil Liberties Union,
http://www.occupyyourrights.org/ .
56People’s microphone: a speaker would get the audience’s attention by saying “mic check,” the group would then
respond with the same phrase. Then the speaker would speak in short phrases or sentences that would be repeated by the group.
57 Simon Rogers, “Occupy protests around the world: full list visualized,” The Guardian, November 14, 2011. 58 David Graeber, The Democracy Project (London: Allen Lane, 2013) 59, DJ Pangburn, “Occupy Wall Street
Protests Being Systematically Ignored by Mainstream Media,” Death and Taxes, September 23, 2011, Eric Randall, “Media Non-Coverage of Occupy Wall Street Gets Lots of Media Coverage,” The Wire, September 28, 2011, Kat Stoeffel, “Occupy Wall Street’s Media Problems,” New York Observer, September 26, 2011.
attracted the media’s attention.60 Moreover Twitter and Facebook were used to organize and
direct the protests (fig. 3-5).
Fig. 3. One of the first tweets by #Occupywallst (July 15, 2012).
Fig. 5. Comment on OWS Facebook page (October 15, 2011).
Fig. 4. Comment on OWS Facebook page (September 6, 2011) .
However, traditional media coverage was not in support of the movement.61 Protesters
were often depicted as dirty, homeless, or as hippies. Former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, referred to the movement as “Woodstock in the park,” being more fun “than finding a job.”62 News coverage depicted Zuccotti Park as a criminalized zone where sexual harassment and theft would take place and the hygienic conditions were poor. ABC News and The New York Post, among other, extensively covered the sexual assaults that had happened in the encampments, subsequently “making the city less safe,” according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.63 Moreover the protesters were not taken seriously and often ridiculed and criticized for the lack of clear-cut demands. CNN reporter Alison Kosik, describing the “purpose” of OWS, tweeted “Purpose in 140 or less: bang on the bongos, smoke weed!” A compilation of Fox News broadcasts (assembled by RT News) demonstrates Fox News tv-hosts referring to the movement as “a joke. They just want to have a party. It’s their lame excuse for burning man, right? It’s a joke.”64
After only two short months, the occupation of Zuccotti Park was brutally ended by the NYPD on November 15th, 2011 by order of Mayor Bloomberg. Motives for the eviction were the poor hygienic conditions and public safety concerns. On the night of the 15th a battalion of over a hundred police officers in riot gear were present at the park to evict the remaining occupiers. The NYPD did not shy away from force and many videos (later posted on YouTube) demonstrate the police’s harsh and violent approaches when trying to evict protesters armed with video cameras.65 Similar to the Egyptian protesters, the digital footage was used to “name and shame”
and expose police abuse, “making the police fear” the protesters.66 Many of the videos depict the
61 L. Gordon Crovitz, “Social Media March on Wall Street,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2011. 62 YouTube clip posted on Occupy Cyberspace, November 4, 2011
http://occupycyberspace.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/idiots-on-parade-rudy-giuliani-and-sarah-palin-attempt-to-ridicule-the-occupy-movement/ .
63 Helen Freund, “Zuccotti protesters set up women-only tent to prevent sexual aussalts,” The New York Post,
November 5, 2011, Alyssa Newcomb, “Sexual Assault Reported in Occupy Camps,” ABC News, November 3, 2011.
64 Ginia Bellafante, “Gunning for Wall Street, With Faulty Aim,” New York Times, September 23, 2011, P.J.
O’Rourke, “Are the Peasants Revolting?,” World Affairs Journal (January/February 2012) 6-14, RT News Staff, “Mainstream media vs. Occupy Wall Street – the battle,” RT News, October 13, 2011.
65 David Seifman, “Bloomberg Calls NYPD his ‘own army’ at MIT Speech,” New York Post, November 30, 2011.
Several video’s of the eviction of Zuccotti Park made by protesters and posted on YouTube: Cameron Barnes, “Occupy Wall Street Zuccotti Park Evicted(cleaned),” November 18, 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO1HM6VN6e8, Chris D’Apice, “2 am 11/15/11 occupy wall street eviction. Police brutality!!!!,” November 15, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yUUvEp_taw, Andy Newman and J. David Goodman, New York Times City Room http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/updates-on-the-clearing-of-zuccotti-park/ .
grim and warlike atmosphere between the protesters and the police, and show many protesters chanting, “Who are you protecting?” and “Whose side are you on?” At the end of the day, almost two hundred occupiers were arrested and the park was cleared and cleaned. After an “appeal from the National Lawyers Guild” the next day, the court ruled that “the occupiers could re-enter the park” but encampment and sleeping in the park would be prohibited.67
This chapter demonstrates that within the structure of limitations of the “new media” (as established in the previous chapter) the concept of space and the dynamic interplay between physical and cyberspace is of vital importance for OWS to exert democratic power. Similar to the importance of Tharir Square during the Egyptian uprisings, the continuing battle of OWS over Zuccotti Park (even after its eviction) and the suppression of the movement illustrate the continuing reality of the distribution of power in democratic capitalist society. The Internet as a communication medium altered the process of mobilizing large groups yet the power of the movement is physically challenged outside of cyberspace. New rules and laws that complicated their stay in Zuccotti Park obstructed the movement. OWS became about occupying public and physical space. Comparable to the Egyptian uprisings the Internet facilitated the organization of protest and occupation but is not itself nor does it represents a space where meaningful or productive resistance can take place. When conceptualizing cyberspace it erases all the aspects of space that we have in the physical geographical world and can even contain democratic power. The movement derives its political power from coming together in what Hannah Arendt has called a “space of appearances” (which will be explained more extensively in this chapter). Alongside the movement’s online activity its physical presence served as a focus point for protesters and non-protesters but also the media. Moreover a decline in the movement’s “success” and influence can be noted after the eviction from Zuccotti Park. As the firsthand accounts and analyses of David Graeber, Paolo Gerbaudo and Michael Taussig (among others) demonstrate.
Although the occupation of space is a crucial element in the OWS protests, some argue that even after the eviction from Zuccotti Park, OWS is still very much alive.68 After the
removal from Zuccotti park initiatives of social activism and aid programs were developed,
67 Colleen Long and Vera Dobnick, “Zuccotti Park Eviction: Police Arrest 200 Occupy Wall Street Protesters,” Huffington Post, November 15, 2011.
68 Cara Buckley, “Beyond Seizing Parks, New Paths to Influence,” New York Times, November 15, 2011,
focusing on education, sustainability and financial support and reform. For example “Occupy University,” a cooperative that organized “educational encounters.”69 Occupy’s financial department focused on influencing government regulations concerning, among other issues, student debt and aims “to ensure that financial regulators act in the public interest.”70 Moreover during the super storm Sandy that hit New York City in October 2012, the movement demonstrated its mobilized capabilities and organizational skills in setting up medical centers, organizing food supplies and volunteering wherever possible.71 Occupiers themselves underline
the vitality of the movement is represented in its subgroups. Marni Halasa “believes Occupy’s success can be measured in the ongoing community activism that continues to unfold under the Occupy banner.”72
The role played by the “new media” focused on organizing and communicating the online and offline activity. As mentioned earlier Twitter and Facebook were useful as a communication tool to direct the protests. Moreover websites like Tumblr were used to spread OWS’s message and express discontent via pictures and images that depicted individuals with a handwritten note explaining why were part of the 99%.73 This way the movement could communicate with a larger audience. In addition the encampment in Zuccotti Park could be streamed live on the Internet. According to one of initiators of the livestream, the livestream was easily accessible and “enabled further democratization of the media.”74 The many YouTube clips made by protesters are a good example of this process and illustrate that citizen journalism flourished during the movement.
Alongside the influences of “new media” the relation of (cyber)space and power is striking in OWS. Henri Lefebvre (1974) conceptualizes the power of space and the relation to the hegemonic class.75 In his conception, space is “a social product” and is understood as a process in which society produces its own space through social relations and “spatial practices.” The power structures within social space are produced by a capitalist mode of production, meaning
69 Ruth Milkman, Stephanie Luce and Penny Lewis, “Changing the Subject: A Bottom-Up Account of Occupy Wall
Street in New York City,” CUNY, 2013, 35, Occupy University Working Group http://university.nycga.net/.
70 Occupy the SEC http://www.occupythesec.org/ .
71 Associated Press, “Occupy Wall Street activists mark 2nd anniversary,” USA Today, September 17, 2013. 72 Christopher Zara, “Occupy Wall Street 2013: In Zuccotti Park, Frustration Over Lack Of Leadership, But
Confidence That The Message Isn’t Dead,” International Business Times, September 17, 2013.
73 OWS Tumblr http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/archive .
that space is shaped by the hegemonic class and therefore “is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power.”76 By actively engaging in social activities or interaction between the members of society, society as a whole produces its own space of existence. Space is a social construction built on ideology and social understanding or culture. Within it the cultural values of its society are constructed, acknowledged and upheld. This space of existence makes one intelligible to one another (by acknowledging each other as part of society) and allows power to be exerted; in Lefebvre’s words, “space serves as a tool of thought and action.”77
In accordance with Lefebvre’s interpretation of the power of space, Hannah Arendt’s conception of a “space of appearances” also emphasizes the relationship between visibility and (democratic) power. It identifies public space as a place where men can become intelligible to each other and act together in concert. In Arendt’s words, the “space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action.”78 This is where its democratic power lies, through consent and togetherness aiming to achieve common interest or goals through communication, acting in concert. Against this backdrop the OWS movement can be seen as a way of conducting power through appearance in an Arendtian way. However, when the movement loses its visibility and central point from which this power is exercised, so does its power. Online platforms provide a platform for discussion yet the potential to exercise power through these democratic discussions is limited. Often (as demonstrated in the previous chapter) online political activity does not translate into reality.
The movement derived its democratic power from its physical presence. Similar to its inspiration, the uprisings in Egypt, “occupation” was one of its defining elements. The real change of society for many occupiers started with the occupation of Zuccotti Park. Paolo Gerbaudo has argued for the importance of physical space on both the Egyptian uprisings and the case of Occupy Wall Street.79 The centering of a fixed location in these “new” social movements continues to be of relevance. The permanence of a movement by occupying a public space illustrates the importance of a “center” and visibility to engage with people “outside of the movement.” As one occupier recounted the satisfying feeling, “when a passer-by would lock
76 Ibid, 26.
77 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Blackwell Publishing: Malden (MA), 1991), 26.
78 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition,(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), Anthony Boese, “Hannah
Arendt on Cairo and Occupy,” Media Commons Project, February 20, 2012.
79 Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets – Social Media and Contemporary Activism (Pluto Press: London, 2013)
