Media representations of technology in Egypt's 2011 pro-democracy protests

Abstract

News reporting on the 2011 Egyptian revolution made much of protesters’ use of new communication technologies, including Twitter, Facebook and text messaging. The ‘Revolution 2.0’ version of events, however contested, is representative of the policy discourse on new technologies and democratisation exemplified in interventions such as the US State Department's promotion of ‘Internet Freedom’. This article uses reports from Western and Arab/Middle East region news sources to identify and measure the prevalence of frames on the use of technology during the revolution.