Egypt’s watchdogs: Citizen journalism before, during and after the 2011 revolution

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Abstract Often, social perspectives of the Arab Revolution give a lot of credit to Facebook as the primary catalyst for political mobilization and citizen journalism. Although Facebook as a platform can be acclaimed for helping to shape this situation, this research argues that the role of Facebook is often exaggerated. In the context of this work, the ‘Arab Revolution’ refers to the period in which former President, Hosni Mubarak, was ousted from power in January 2011 and the term ‘revolution’ is not used to signal a radical transformation of society. Empirically, this article addresses the role of social media and in particular, Facebook, before, during and after this revolution. It examines the impact of this new technology on the rise of online social activism by investigating the effect of citizen journalism on forming public opinion, exploring the relationship between citizen journalism and the acceleration of the events that led to the Egyptian revolution. It also explores the impact of social media on citizen activism after the fall of Mubarak’s regime. In this case citizen journalism refers to the production of media content with the aim of changing public opinion. Empirical data for this research work were both qualitative and quantitative. Four hundred survey questionnaires were distributed to Facebook users to identify their usage before, during and after the 25 January Revolution to find out their views on social media activism and its impact on public opinion. The questionnaires covered the duration from June 2010 to June 2015. In addition, intensive interviews were conducted with media experts and political activists to gain a deeper insight of the role of citizen journalism in social change. Findings demonstrate that during the three stages of the Egyptian revolution, covered by this research, social media remained significant, albeit with a slight difference in its use by protesters. During the revolution, social media networks were primarily the outlets that Egyptians used to report local events to international media. The post revolution period has also witnessed an interest in social media networks. Facebook has made Egyptians more politically and socially conscious and encouraged them to participate in social and political events such as presidential and parliament elections. However, this research work reports that the use of such platforms does not seem to have had much impact on political change in Egypt during the last few years.