125. Name: M.C.T. Samuel Title: The Egyptian Revolution, Al Jazeera, Twitter and Facebook: The Interaction Effect of New Media on the Egyptian Revolution Institution: Leiden University Country: Netherlands Date: 2012 Language: English Abstract: This study investigates the role of new media in the 2011 revolutionary movement in Egypt. The central argument is that the so-called new media, including pan-Arab satellite television and social media, represent, but also contribute to, and facilitate social developments. Al Jazeera and other pan-Arab satellite channels have changed the way the Arab public view social and political events in their own region and have given them a voice of their own. These news channels provide digital activists with an effective platform and break away from the monopoly of state- controlled news media. New media played an indispensable role in connecting people and places, transforming loose individual activists into organized groups, and finally bringing the masses to the streets resulting eventually in the fall of Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak. This research is a crossover of several fields of study including political science, communication studies and international relations. It applies political theories on social movements (Tilly et al) and modular revolutions (Beissinger et al), as well as Katz and Lazarsfield’s theory on the two-step process of opinion formation and several theories on media and democratization.
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