From the Blogosphere to the Street: Social Media and the Revolution in Egypt

CHAPEL HILL – Charles Hirschkind, a scholar and professor of social and cultural anthropology at the University of California at Berkley, explored the impact of social media and the internet on the recent uprisings in Cairo and beyond with students and peers in Hyde Hall on Monday.

“The internet, especially the blogosphere, became an outlet for events and controversies that were unable to be seen in the news due to strict censorship laws,” explained Hirschkind.

Hirschkind’s forum-style lecture, “From the Blogosphere to the Street: Social Media and the Revolution in Egypt,” traced the beginning of blogs influencing the people of Egypt to the social media driven protests that sparked what is being called the “Days of Rage.”

It is Hirschkind’s opinion that there were several key events in the years leading up to the major revolution in January of this year with the most prevalent being the release of cell phone videos.

“A blogger was sent a cell phone video of someone being tortured,” said Hirschkind. “This tipped off everyone including the press and even people without access to the internet to the way the government was behaving.”

These types of blog exposures led to a mass of protests and demonstrations originating on the internet and in the social media realm mainly because the internet remained uncensored until very recently in Egypt.

On April 6, 2008, activists and workers inspired and informed by several different social media networks held strikes, protests and demonstrations throughout the country. The “Egyptian Intifida” called for civil disobedience asking workers to remain home and consumers to refrain from purchasing goods.

Blogs at this time highlighted the general violence and even instances of torture committed by the government in Egypt, according to Hirschkind. The newspapers were only allowed to report the good things that the government accomplished and, for a while, bloggers were able to report the facts because the internet was not yet censored.

“There were some examples made out of some of the bloggers that were speaking out against the government and Mubarak [the Egyptian president], but the uncensored nature of the internet fostered these demonstrations and led to the revolution,” said Hirschkind.

Even though examples of unrest were sprouting for years prior to the 2011 revolution, Hirschkind and his fellow scholars were shocked by the events that unfolded in late January.

“The massive protests beginning in 2008 were certainly striking, but no one could have foretold these events,” explained Hirschkind.

Tension had grown so much by the time these demonstrations erupted in 2008 that people were in the streets of some of Egypt’s biggest cities throwing censorship laws to the wind.

“The intensity of the poverty, decline of the subsidies and the really unhealthy conditions were overwhelming,” said Hirschkind. “The people had had enough.”

Another lending hand that the blogosphere in Egypt gave the revolution was presenting information in a language that was familiar to everyone.

The Arabic language is often considered in two forms: the classic written form and the form spoken on the street. These influential blogs used the “street” form of Arabic so that all people could understand their message of the changing regime.

“The adoption of this critical language was one of the reasons several of the blogs were finally shut down,” said Hirschkind. “They greatly threatened the government and what it stood for.”

The influence of social media, especially the blogosphere, came to a head January 25, 2011. On this day, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets to protest poverty, unemployment, government corruption and the autocratic governance of their president, Hosni Mubarak. The uprisings also sparked by social media in Tunisia helped inspire Egyptians to finally protest their tyrannical government.

According to Hirschkind, the blogosphere in Egypt is one of a kind and was necessary to spark the revolution that will change the country forever.

“This is not the blogosphere that I know in the rest of the world,” said Hirschkind. “It had to be unique to spark a revolution that will change not only Egypt, but the rest of the world.”

Hirschkind’s lecture was sponsored jointly by the IAH, Islanicate Graduate Student Association, the Carolina Center for the Study of Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, and the departments of religious studies and anthropology.