Digital activism in the Middle East: mapping issue networks in Egypt, Iran, Syria and Tunisia

Abstract

The shocking image of the young student Neda Salehi dying, after appearing to have been shot by the Iranian government's Security Forces, dominated the global news and online platforms during the 2009 ‘Iran election crisis’. Iranian protestors took to the streets, internet, blogosphere and Twitter to express their discontent about the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the days following the election, the global news attention shifted from the situation on the ground to the role of Twitter in ‘the Iran crisis’. With headlines such as: ‘Iran's Protests: Why Twitter is the Medium of the Movement’ content organisers such as Twitter increasingly become part of reality and the web becomes a space for analysis. Unique to the web and content organizers is that they mediate the formation of online networks and make these networks traceable. Using natively digital research tools, this paper mapped issue networks of digital activism in the Middle East to understand if the internet mediates the organisation of activism for social change in repressive environments. Digital activists are individuals, sometimes organized in social organizations, that actively express or engage online for development and social change.