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 A Call to Action Twitter’s Power to Mobilize During the Arab Spring Laila Yette Professor Pallavi Kumar COPYRIGHT Laila Michell Yette 2012 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this capstone would not have been possible without the incitement of my friends and family. I would like to thank all of them for supporting me throughout the duration of my project. Thank you for pushing me to work harder everyday and not give up. In addition, I would like to thank Professor Pallavi Kumar for guiding me through this process. Without her support, none of this would have been possible. 3 ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding the effect of social network sites, Twitter in particular, on mobilizing the public to action. There have been believers and naysayers debating the issue. This capstone supports those who believe Twitter was a mobilizing force within the Arab Spring and thus, can be used for mobilization purposes in the future. This capstone project conducted research to determine how the public mobilizes and how social media has effected mobilization. To determine this, a content analysis of three Egyptian Twitter users was conducted over a one-­‐month period. Research findings demonstrate that Twitter was an effective tool in getting the Egyptian public to mobilize. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES 6 LIST OF TABLES 7 INTRODUCTION 8 LITERATURE REVIEW 12 MOBILIZATION AND THE PUBLIC 12 SOCIAL MEDIA’S EFFECTS ON MOBILIZATION 14 SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ARAB SPRING 17 OPINION LEADERS AND THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA 20 RESEARCH METHODS 25 PRESENTATION OF RESULTS 31 MOBILIZATION 36 DISCUSSION 41 THE FIVE ROLES OF SOCIAL NETWORK SITES 41 TWITTER AND THE ARAB SPRING 43 TWITTER’S CONTINUED USE 46 CONCLUSION 47 REFERENCES 49 APPENDIX 52 APPENDIX A: CODING SHEET 52 5 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: TWEETS BY USER FIGURE 2: TWEET LANGUAGE FIGURE 3: TWEET CONTENT BY ALL USERS FIGURE 4: TWEET CONTENT BY USER FIGURE 5: REASON FOR TWEET BY ALL USERS FIGURE 6: REASON FOR TWEET BY USER FIGURE 7: TIME OF TWEET POSTS FIGURE 8: NUMBER OF TWEETS POSTED BY DATE FIGURE 9: INCITEMENT CONTENT FIGURE 10: ANNOUNCEMENT CONTENT FIGURE 11: INCITEMENT AND ANNOUNCEMENT CONTENT 6 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: TWEET CONTENT V. REASON FOR TWEET 7 INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, the number of social network platforms has exploded and every day more people are joining the sites as a way to stay engaged. Social network sites are online platforms that allow individuals to make profiles, either public or private, and share those profiles with other individuals with whom they have established a connection (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). In other words, social network sites allow the public to share information about themselves or current events, online, within their social circles. The purpose and utility of social network sites has evolved since the launch of the very first social network site, SixDegrees.com in, 1997. As the first social network site, “SixDegrees.com promoted itself as a tool to help people connect with and send messages to others” (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). With the apparent success of SixDegrees.com, more social network sites like Ryze.com, Flickr, and YouTube were introduced. As the interest in social network sites grew, the features and functionality of sites improved. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, which, like MySpace before it, allowed users to customize their personal profile pages, and share pictures and video. The Facebook feature users consider most important are the status updates that enable them to alert friends constantly about current happenings. Capitalizing on Facebook’s use of status updates as a means of communication, Twitter was established in 2006 to allow people to “tweet” each other on an anytime, anywhere basis (Hershey, 2012). “Twitter.com is an online social network used by millions of people around the world to stay connected to their friends, family members and coworkers through their computers and mobile phones. The interface allows users to post short messages (up to 140 characters) that can be read by any other Twitter user” 8 (Huberman, Romero, and Wu, 2008). Allowing people to post freely, “Twitter lends itself to cause and action. Every day, we are inspired by stories of people using Twitter to help make the world a better place in unexpected ways” (Twitter, 2012). The self-­‐immolation of Tunisian street vendor Muhammad Bouazizi, on December 17, 2010, sparked the revolution in the Middle East that has become known as the Arab Spring. Bouazizi’s death caused millions of people to invade central squares throughout the country in protest of his death and “an end to corruption, improved living conditions, democracy and the protection of human rights” (Cottle, 2011). These protests resulted in President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fleeing into exile on January 14, 2011 (Dupont & Passy, 2011). The successful protests in Tunisia created a ripple effect and fueled the momentum for others to start their own protests for change. On January 25, 2011, protests started in Egypt to push President Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak out of power. Those protests ended successfully on February 11, 2011. After success in Tunisia and Egypt, protests erupted in Bahrain, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Oman and Saudi Arabia (Dupont & Passy, 2011). Protests have also spread across the Middle East—in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Palestine, and the United Arab Emirates (Blight, Pulham, and Torpey, 2012). Although some of these protests are ongoing, they would not have been possible without the use of social media to give them momentum and get more people involved. In Yemen, for example, the March 18, 2011 uprising resulted in dozens of protesters being killed, many of them shot in the head by snipers. The next day, there was a mass funeral in Change Square, the protest encampment in Yemen’s capital city. Before that day, the protesters had numbered around 20,000. “And then that 9 day at the funeral, it was immense, absolutely immense. And then you just knew. You just had this absolute feeling that there was no going back” (McEvers, 2011). The Arab World set the bar by using Twitter as an effective tool to mobilize the public. Protestors used Twitter to send short status updates about when, where and how to organize and mobilize during the events that have become known as the Arab Spring. Using Twitter as a means of communication, indeed, as a means of motivation and mobilization, allowed protestors to circumvent censorship and detection by government and military authorities. The world beyond the Middle East took notice of both the role that social media, especially Twitter, played during the Arab Spring, and the impact that it had in getting people to mobilize. Invisible Children, Inc. took notice and realized that the most effective way to get the group’s message out was in the online realm. In March 2012, Invisible Children Inc. released Kony 2012, a 30-­‐minute video that “aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice” in order to end his crime of creating child soldiers in Uganda (King5.com, 2012). Releasing the video digitally allowed the video to spread like wildfire. Accumulating almost seven million views on Vimeo within 16 days of its release and over 43 million YouTube views within 72 hours of its release, Kony 2012 quite literally took over the digital world at a speed and in numbers never seen before (Know Your MeMe, 2012). At the end of the video, viewers are encouraged to share the movie online with others to help raise awareness. Taking to Twitter, and using the site as a tool for cause and action, the hashtags #makekonyfamous, #kony2012, and #stopkony were trending globally on March 7 (Know Your Meme, 2012). 10 Opinion leaders such as Malcolm Gladwell have remained pessimistic that Twitter was a factor in the Arab Spring revolutions. Due to the success of the sit-­‐ins at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, NC and across the South during the 1960s, Gladwell and others argue that the successes seen during these social and political revolutions, where social network sites were nonexistent, demonstrate the use of social networks in the Arab Spring were not necessarily a factor that helped propel the movement. Gladwell believes that it is people who cause revolutions to succeed and not the tools that are available to them (Gladwell, 2010). Conversely, Clay Shirky and other opinion leaders view the Internet as a highly effective organizing tool and value the power that the Internet affords the public (Gladwell, 2010). Given these two differing viewpoints, this study seeks to determine the effectiveness of Twitter in Egypt during the Arab Spring, and its role in causing people to mobilize and ultimately force Hosni Mubarak to resign. To determine Twitter’s effectiveness, this study will examine the reasons that people mobilize and how the use of Twitter for mobilization purposes in the Arab Spring made that particular combination of technology and social activism a unique moment in the history of the Middle East. This research also explores why opinion leaders like Malcolm Gladwell are hesitant to accept the power that social network sites like Twitter hold in causing social change. The correlation between offline and online engagement will help guide the tweets that are analyzed. Based upon this analysis, the study looks to establish how effective a tool Twitter is for fostering political, economic and social discourse and getting people to mobilize around the causes fueling that discourse. 11 LITERATURE REVIEW Mobilization and the Public The Merriam-­‐Webster Dictionary defines mobilization as “the act of mobilizing” or “the state of being mobilized,” which means to put into movement or to assemble and make ready for war. Though the Arab Spring was not a war, violent protests occurred, which resulted in significant political change or radical regime change. The people assembled in large groups and took forceful action against governments they believed to be dictatorial and oppressive. Over the years, conditions that have caused the public to mobilize and the way the public has mobilized have evolved along with the evolution of communication and technology. Mobilization cannot occur without the use of some form of communication. There must be some form of a “call to action”—think of Paul Revere and the American Revolution. The causes that people fight for are spread via the written or spoken word. Before print media, people got their information through word of mouth. Family and friends were the source of news and trusted information. The Pony Express and the telegraph were early means of spreading news. With the invention of the typewriter, newspapers, pamphlets, and brochures could be distributed to provide the public with information about current events. Through these mediums, people were able to find out information about political activity including protests or demonstrations that were being planned or that had recently occurred. In 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone (The History of Communication), he opened up the door for even more messages to be shared and at a faster rate. The telephone enabled people to call each other as soon as they heard 12 something new; they could discuss their thoughts and impressions and share ideas. Eleven years after the telephone was invented, George Eastman patented the Kodak roll film camera (The History of Communication). With this invention, photographs of demonstrations could be distributed along with newspaper updates. Radio and television also allowed people to keep up with breaking news. The public was constantly in the loop, which meant that inspiration for and ideas about mobilization developed easily and quickly. Radio and television stations, newspapers, and other print materials employed some aspect of framing. Based on the concept of prospect theory, “framing influences how audiences think about issues, not by making aspects of the issue more salient, but by invoking interpretive schemas that influence the interpretation of incoming information” (Scheufele, 2000). In other words, framing tells audiences what information to think about and goes a step further to tell people how to think about the shared information. The public looks to these sources for their news, so media outlets put their particular slant on the information, in many cases designed to evoke a certain impression or ideology. Gamson and Modigliani defined the media frame as “a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events…The frame suggests what the controversy is about, the essence of the issue” (Scheufle, 1999). Having the freedom to put their own spin on the story, these outlets and the reporters became opinion leaders. With the development and evolution of the Internet, cyberspace has provided the public with even greater access to sources of information, including opinion leaders. Opinions and messages have become more targeted and the audience’s ability to pay selective attention has become even more prevalent. Selective attention is the process by 13 which “individuals decide to which of the innumerable stimuli in the outside world they address their perceptional system” (Donsbach, 2004). With selective attention, the public can choose when, where, how and from whom they want to get their information. Essentially, the public chooses their opinion leaders. During the Arab Spring, a vast amount of information was broadcast over Twitter. Taking to Twitter to disseminate and receive information, the public had to determine who they were going to turn to for the latest news and listen to on what course of action to take next. As the Internet has become more developed and social media has evolved into a platform for opinion leaders, the public has to create new rules on how to navigate through all of the information to find what is reliable. Social Media’s Effects on Mobilization Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social network sites have all changed how people mobilize. With the ability to connect to social media via the Internet, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other devices, information is more accessible than ever—all with the swipe or the press of a finger. Offering people the ability to communicate constantly and in “real time” about current events, and to post their comments and opinions to various social networks, gives people more over information and allows them to determine what is information is considered newsworthy. Before the start of the Arab Spring, there were an estimated 100,000 Twitter users in Egypt, but as the revolution ended, that number had increased to 1.1 million users (Amer, 2011). A study conducted by the Dubai School of Government determined that more than 80 percent of Facebook usage during the protests in early 2011 in Egypt and Tunisia was “either to raise awareness, share information or organize actions related to the 14 movement and events” (Dubai School of Government Governance and Innovation Program, M., R., Salem, F., 2011). These statistics demonstrate that the increase in the number of social network users and the accessibility of these sites on various mediums, allowed more people to stay informed and to receive information at a faster rate. With easier and more widespread access to the Internet and more social network sites, people have come to identify opinion leaders using different criteria. Keller and Berry noted that as people have grown “increasingly distrustful of both news and advertising, [they] prefer instead recommendations from friends, family, coworkers, and peers” (Nisbet & Kotcher, 2009). Now that social network sites have gained a lot of prominence, the public now looks on Facebook and Twitter to see who has the most friends or followers and those people become the new opinion leaders. Facebook friends and Twitter followers think: “If a lot of people are going to this person as a source of information, then what they have to say has to be of some value—right?” The people who have the most friends and followers, more often than not, are celebrities. Even though they may not be directly affected by an event or situation, when celebrities talk about it, their fans pay attention and think the cause is worth their time and support. Having this “connection” to the celebrity by following him or her on Twitter allows for instant decision-­‐making and immediate action. With up-­‐to-­‐the minute information and posts, taking action is now “easier, faster, and more universal” (Fisher & Boekkooi, 2010). But the easy, fast and universal activity that Twitter inspires also means that participation in or support for causes can remain online. People now have options other than “taking to the streets.” They do not have to leave their homes, schools, or offices to support a cause. They can use their status updates on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, videos 15 on YouTube, and pictures on Flickr to promote their ideas and express their support. The ideas of low cost/risk v. high cost/risk activity and networked individualism operate in these situations. The cost associated with activities refers to “the expenditures of time, money, and energy that are required of a person engaged in any particular form of activism” (McAdam, 1986). Risks are thought of as “anticipated dangers-­‐whether legal, social, physical, financial, and so forth-­‐of engaging in a particular type of activity” (McAdam, 1986). Now that people have the option of participating in political and social movements through social network sites, they can engage in low cost and low risk activity by clicking the ‘like’ button on Facebook in support of a demonstration, as opposed to going out into the streets with the possibility of being arrested and engaging in high risk and high cost activity. Networked individualism means “communication through the Internet does not isolate individuals; rather, it reinforces the disconnection from local community that was already taking place and provides the means through which individuals can connect with like-­‐minded people who are not geographically proximate” (Fisher & Boekkooi, 2010). For example, people who supported finding Joseph Kony and who watched Kony 2012, were able to tweet with one of the three popular hashtags and join a discussion with other Twitter users around the world. Though these tweeters may not be located in the same city, they are able to engage in conversations regarding Joseph Kony and Invisible Children, because of the platform that Twitter provided. Similar to the low cost and low risk activity, of people who show support via social network sites, those who engage in networked individualism want to support and participate in the movement, but are unable to do so, 16 because of their geographic location. Engaging in discourse over social network sites gives people the ability to be part of an event that occurs anywhere in the world. This idea of networked individualism also affords people the option of engaging in multiple communities with which they identify. People are able to constantly switch between these communities and remain connected with all of them via technology (Wellman, B., Quan-­‐Haase, A., Boase, J., Chen, W., Hampton, K., Isla de Diaz, I., Miyata, K., 2003). Regardless of location, groups around the world are able to form based on similar interests or causes that form a bond among a particular group of people. If it were not for the presence of social network sites, people in distant and diverse locations would not necessarily be able to participate in causes that they deem important. Through the use of these sites, they are able to participate by providing moral support, giving donations (monetary or otherwise), and spreading the word to others to raise awareness. These tools helped raise awareness around the world during the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Social Media and the Arab Spring “Egypt” and “Jan25” were the number one and number eight most tweeted hashtags, respectively, of 2011 (Schonfeld, 2011). January 25, 2011 marked the start of the revolution in Egypt, but it is also the national holiday to commemorate the Egyptian police forces. The revolution in Egypt, sparked by the successful revolution in Tunisia, would not have been possible without social network sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. These “social media networks were used in the Arab Spring in two distinct ways: as organizing tools and as broadcasting platforms” (Moore, 2011). In Tunisia, “it took less than a day to start the Internet-­‐aided massive movement” 17 after Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-­‐immolation (Chokoshvili, 2011). There is about “85 percent cellphone penetration in Tunisia, with around 30 percent of Tunisian citizens are on the Internet” (Howard, 2011). As social network sites are available on smartphones and the Internet, there is no doubt about how the news about Mohamed Bouazizi spread so quickly (Chokoshvili, 2011). Facebook pages, such as ‘Ben Ali, Out’ were created to express the emotions of the people and their discontent with their living conditions. The popular Tunisian blog, Nawaat, served as a major information source for many during the uprisings. With over 39,000 followers on Twitter, Nawaat used the blog and Twitter page to disperse information that “played a key role in pushing events forward, providing relevant information and content to the journalists” (Randeree, 2011). According to Tunisian techie Rim Nour, there are four ways in which social media played a role in the Tunisian Revolution (Howard, 2011): 1. Grassroots mobilization. Organizing some of the protests on Facebook allowed the social network site to play the role of a community-­‐organizing platform. 2. Organized the rise of civil society and active citizenship. The public used social network sites to identify positions of snipers, police and looters, and to alert one another to other violence. In addition, different networks formed to clean streets, protect shops and organize bread lines. 3. Countered rumors and propaganda. Information was shared via Facebook to dispel rumors, such as poisonous water. Reports of massive shootings in a neighborhood, were also deemed untrue a few minutes later, by a few dozen people. 18 4. Helped people analyze government statements. When government went on TV, people went online to analyze what the president said and to form a consensus on whether the positions met their requirements. Ultimately, they did not. Though the tools of social media can play a role in other contexts, they were especially helpful in generating success in Tunisia (Howard, 2011). The Egyptian public saw the success that Tunisians had using these tactics, so they implemented similar tactics to help bring about change. It is apparent that the revolution in Egypt gained more public attention than the revolution in Tunisia because, #Egypt and #Jan25 were in the top eight hashtags of 2011. The use of social network sites, especially Facebook, in Egypt was increasingly prevalent during the uprisings according to the second annual Arab Social Media Report by the Dubai School of Government. A quarter of all Facebook users in the Middle East are Egyptian, and “from January to April [2011] – the height of the Tahrir uprising – membership on the social site increased by 2 million” (Moore, 2011). In the days leading up to the protest, “more than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook page for the ‘Day of Revolution’” (Fahim & El-­‐Naggar, 2011). The various social network sites “formed an online public space for political discussion where opinions were shaped and at times decision were taken” (Aouragh & Alexander, 2011). “By cutting off Egypt’s Internet and wireless service…in the face of huge street protests, President Hosni Mubarak betrayed his own fear — that Facebook, Twitter, laptops and smartphones could empower his opponents, expose his weakness to the world and topple his regime” (Shane, 2011). Despite enduring an Internet blackout for a few days, the Egyptian people were determined to get their rights back and found other methods to 19 get their message out to the public. The cancellation of Internet on January 27, 2011 had two mobilizing effects on the people: (1) it infuriated many who felt it was time to take a stand, forcing some who had been involved only in cyberspace to join the street protests and (2) it sent an important signal about the balance of power: namely that the regime was threatened (Aouragh & Alexander, 2011). Despite the Internet blackout for a few days, the Egyptian people found ways to continue getting their message out to their fellow Egyptians, as well as to international audiences. Twitter was an effective communication tool and allowed the revolution to move forward with momentum. Twitter had just launched their Arabic interface in early 2011; thus, the impact that Twitter had (and will continue to have) during the revolutions was astounding. In the report, Social Media in the Arab World, writer Jeffrey Ghannam, states, “the Arab world has witnessed the rise of an independent vibrant social media and steadily increasing citizen engagement on the Internet that is expected to attract 100 million Arab users by 2015…These social networks inform, mobilize, entertain, create communities, increase transparency, and seek to hold governments accountable” (Ghannam, 2011). With the power that Twitter has held and the changes that it brought about, along with the participation that it is expected to gain over the next few years, it is incomprehensible as to why some opinion leaders would refute that power. Opinion Leaders and the Power of Social Media Perhaps the most vocal opinion leader who is opposed to the idea that Twitter and other social network sites fueled the Arab Spring is Malcolm Gladwell. In Gladwell’s piece, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted,” Gladwell discusses different 20 events in American history that were successful without the assistance of social network sites (2010). With his main focus on the Greensboro Four and the sit-­‐ins at the Woolworth counter in the 1960s, Gladwell discusses the ability of the movement to spread “to Winston-­‐Salem, twenty-­‐five miles away, and Durham, fifty miles away…These events in the early sixties became a civil-­‐rights war that engulfed the South for the rest of the decade —
and it happened without e-­‐mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter” (Gladwell, 2010). Though these sit-­‐ins were successful and brought about change, they occurred during a time where social networks sites were not available. People mobilized using means of communication that were available, appropriate and safe for the time. For example, the black church was often the venue for spreading news and information about demonstrations because congregations were large and close-­‐knit, the pastors were effective communicators, and until the Birmingham bombings, were considered safe. The relationship ties associated with social networks are weak in Gladwell’s perspective. And weak ties rarely lead to high-­‐risk activity. Gladwell states: Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could in real life (2010). Despite Gladwell’s belief that weak ties rarely lead to high-­‐risk activity, sociologist Mark Granovetter has observed that our greatest source of news information is from acquaintances—not friends (Gladwell, 2010). With the source of most news and the organization of protests being managed on social networks where most people were not friends, social networks were the best way to get news out to the public. Consider how even during the sixties, civil rights workers who were not friends, and had no connection to 21 the Jim Crow South except their compassion for southern blacks and their moral outrage over social and political conditions there, got on buses and often rode to their deaths at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Gladwell believes that “Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires” (2010). Participation in the protests in Egypt was high, as was the motivation to get involved. People were insistent that Mubarak step down from power, so they were willing to do whatever it took to achieve that goal, including participating in street protests. Engagement occurred over the Internet in the form of low cost and low risk activity by those who supported the Egyptian people, but were not physically able to participate in the protests. Even those who participated in high-­‐risk activity through protests in Tahrir and other parts of Egypt stayed engaged with social networks by showing their dislike of Mubarak and his regime. Gladwell remains unconvinced however, “because networks don’t have a centralized leadership structure and clear lines of authority, they have real difficulty reaching consensus and setting goals. They can’t think strategically; they are chronically prone to conflict and error” (Gladwell, 2010). Not understanding how choices about tactics or strategy or philosophical direction can be made when everyone has an equal say is another reason Gladwell remains unconvinced (Gladwell, 2010). Although Gladwell’s piece was written a year before the Arab Spring occurred, after success was seen in Tunisia and the protests had begun in Egypt, Gladwell’s opinion did not change. In his blog “Does Egypt Need Twitter?” Gladwell wrote, “People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other. How they choose to do it is less interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place” (2011). In 22 Gladwell’s opinion, social media will never be a factor in disseminating a message and getting people to mobilize. If people are passionate enough about a cause, they will communicate in whatever ways are necessary. Gladwell’s reluctance to acknowledge Twitter’s power to mobilize people to action is countered by the opinion of Clay Shirky and other opinion leaders. In discussing the effectiveness of social media in political protests, Shirky examines India in 2009, South Korea in 2008, and Chile in 2006. Shirky acknowledges that social media is not a replacement for real-­‐world action but a way to coordinate it (Shirky, 2011). By taking to Twitter and Facebook to discuss meeting locations and spread information to provide up-­‐
to-­‐the-­‐minute news, the Egyptian people were able to organize their protests. Shirky also believes that although all movements may not need social media to be successful, a majority of them will use social networks as a tool to coordinate and document real world action (Shirky, 2011). Given the debate about the mobilizing power of social network sites, Schipul and Keeney, wanted to discover for themselves the impact that websites like Facebook and Twitter were having on the Arab World. From their research, Schipul and Keeney concluded that social network sites have five roles in inciting revolutionary change (2011). The five roles that are apparent include: 1. Findability. Social network sites allow people with similar interests and experiences to find each other and connect. 2. Education. Access to information and the ability to share information provides insight into the lives of others. 23 3. Exposure. Anyone who is interested in finding information on a topic can find it and at rapid speeds. Existing power structures have a harder time anticipating change that social technologies provide. 4. Expansion. Social network sites are ubiquitous and more people are taking part in them and becoming citizen journalists. Information is spread out through various networks and passed around through various connections. 5. Virtuality. Leaders are able to guide movements from anywhere that they choose. With the knowledge that the Egyptian public wanted freedom from oppression, Twitter was the form of communication used to achieve that goal. Because the desire for change was stronger than the differences and conflicts that may have arisen along the way, the people were able to mobilize for change. Reviewing the current literature, it is clear that there are naysayers and believers on determining whether Twitter was an effective tool in causing the Egyptian people to mobilize, and that it will continue to be an effective tool in getting people to mobilize around future issues. This paper will determine what correlation exists, if any, between Twitter and the events that led to the fall of the government in Egypt through an analysis of tweets that show the intersection between online and offline engagement. A content analysis will show what messages were dispersed to the public, why they mobilized people and how they resulted in regime change. 24 RESEARCH METHODS To complete the content analysis and analyze the effectiveness of Twitter in getting people to mobilize around the events constituting the Arab Spring, specifically the events occurring in Egypt, three Twitter accounts were selected for analysis. The Twitter accounts of Wael Ghonim (@Ghonim), Mohamed ElBaradei (@ElBaradei), and Haisam Abu-­‐Samra (@Haisam) were analyzed from January 18, 2011 to February 18, 2011. The three accounts that were selected were chosen for the following two reasons: 1. Status in Egyptian Community 2. Number of Twitter followers on January 18, 2011 (Wildfire, 2012) Wael Ghonim, served as Google’s head of marketing in the Middle East and was one of the creators of the Facebook page ‘We Are All Khaled Said.’ The Facebook page has been noted as helping spark the revolution in Egypt and was also a factor in Ghonim’s 11-­‐day arrest during the protests (Vargas, 2012). Despite his arrest, Ghonim was able to increase his following from 3,480 followers on January 18, 2011 to 86,064 followers on February 18, 2011 (Wildfire, 2012). Since 2009, Egyptian Nobel Prize Winner, Mohamed ElBaradei, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for presidency. In April 2010, while speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, ElBaradei announced that he was seeking to be an agent of change and advocate for democracy. As a believer of equal rights for all Egyptians, ElBaradei returned to Egypt two days after the protests started to lead supporters of the revolution. On January 18, 2011, ElBaradei had a Twitter following of 19,186 people and on February 18, 2011 he had increased his following to 70,728 (Wildfire, 2012). Increasing his 25 following by more than 50,000 in the course of a month, ElBaradei was able to spread news to a number of Egyptians and non-­‐Egyptians alike about the uprising. Haisam Abu-­‐Samra was selected for this study due to the fact that he is a popular Egyptian blogger and comedy writer. Not seen as a political figure or involved in sparking the protest, he was viewed as more of a common connection among the Egyptian people. Wildfire does not have any data on the change in Abu-­‐Samra’s following, but with over 1,000 followers, Abu-­‐Samra’s tweets were more descriptive of the events and his feelings than were the tweets that either ElBaradei or Ghonim posted. By analyzing the accounts of Ghonim, ElBaradei, and Abu-­‐Samra, on Twitter.com, all of the tweets posted by these users from January 18, 2011 to February 18, 2011 were collected. These dates were chosen, because they are one week before the first protest occurred, on January 25, 2011, and one week after Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, on February 11, 2011. The one-­‐week period before January 25 allows one to get a sense of what discourse was occurring leading up to the January 25 protest. Similarly, the one-­‐week time period after Mubarak’s resignation provides a sense of the direction in which the Egyptian people planned to move after they achieved regime change. Collecting tweets from Egyptian people presented tweets that were written in English and Arabic. The researcher used TransPerfect Translations, an international and multilingual translation and interpreting services organization based in Washington, DC, in order to obtain valid translations of the Arabic language tweets into English. Once all the tweets were collected, they were coded based on several variables. A copy of the coding sheet is located in Appendix A. One of the variables used was the hashtag. Thirty-­‐one different hashtags were used over the month period that was 26 examined. For coding purposes, the following variantions of hashtags were considered the same: 1. Jan25, 25Jan 2. Egypt, Egypte 3. Facebook, FB In addition, to determine during what time periods the majority of tweets were posted, two dummy points were included to get an equal division of four sections. The dummy points added were 0:00 and 24:00. This division allowed for the time periods to be analyzed in 6-­‐hour segments. Once all of the data was collected and coded, it was entered into SPSS for analysis. To determine whether mobilization was caused or influenced by the tweets, the content of the tweets was broken down into 15 categories. The categories were determined through analysis of the tweets to see what they discussed. The researcher selected these categories because they were the most discussed in the tweets. Mobilization occurred when a specific intersection occurred between the content of the tweet and reason for the tweet. The content categories included: 1. Irrelevant 2. Mubarak 3. Youth 4. Egyptian People 5. Freedom 6. Religion 7. Government/Police 27 8. Tunisia 9. Future/Hope 10. Locations 11. Death/Injury 12. Internet 13. Protest 14. Outside World 15. Economy Another variable that helped determine mobilization was the reason for the tweets. There were seven categories in which the tweet could fall: 1. Irrelevant 2. A Warning 3. An Announcement 4. Tweet to another user 5. Incitement 6. An Opinion 7. A Question An announcement was classified as a tweet that included details about where the user was or what activities were happening, while incitement tweets called for people to meet the user at a specific location or to take specific action. Once the content and reason for tweets were established, the researcher could determine what tweets should be classified as mobilization tweets. For the purpose of this study, mobilization occurred in tweets whose content included: 28 1. Mubarak 2. Youth 3. Egyptian People 4. Freedom 5. Government 6. Future/Hope 7. Locations 8. Internet 9. Protests. The tweet also had to be classified as an announcement or incitement tweet. Where this intersection occurred, the purpose of the tweet was mobilization. In doing the analysis, some limitations existed. Tweets were posted in English and Arabic. Because all of the tweets were not in English, translation services had to be used to ensure reliability. In addition, Twitter keeps record of only the 3,200 most recent tweets per user. If tweets from January 18, 2011 were not available for analysis, data would have been skewed. To avoid tweets becoming unavailable, screenshots of each users Twitter pages were taken to maintain a database. During the month that was analyzed, an Internet blackout occurred in Egypt, so tweets were not posted from January 28, 2011 to February 1, 2011, or on February 4, 2011. For these six days of censorship, Twitter data is missing. Arrested on January 28, 2011—the day the Internet went black—and held captive for 12 days, Ghonim was unable to tweet, but still played an integral part in the revolution. As the administrator of the ‘We Are All Khaled Said’ Facebook group, it was important for 29 Ghonim’s tweets to be included in the study. Though each user’s circumstances were different, making each user unique, the tweets that were posted provided useful data for analysis. 30 PRESENTATION OF RESULTS A total of 443 tweets were collected and analyzed for the period between January 18, 2011 and February 18, 2011. Of these tweets, 50.1 percent were from Ghonim, 8.4 percent were from ElBaradei, and 41.5 percent were from Haisam. FIGURE 1: TWEETS BY USER Haisam 42% Ghonim 50% ElBaradei 8% The tweets were written in English, Arabic, and a combination of the two languages. The following chart shows the language breakdown that occurred amongst all three users. FIGURE 2: TWEET LANGUAGE English and Arabic 1% Arabic 27% English 72% 31 As demonstrated in the chart, the majority of tweets were written in English, although Arabic is widely spoken by the Egyptian public. The content of the tweets was broken down into 15 categories, with some tweets falling into multiple categories. The chart below shows the frequency in which all three users discussed these topics in tweets. FIGURE 3: TWEET CONTENT BY ALL USERS 140 120 119 118 104 100 80 80 60 40 20 63 44 46 40 20 24 23 3 26 21 4 0 A majority of the tweets did not fit into the categories that were established. For example, television shows was a popular discussion topic that was classified as irrelevant; 119 tweets (26.6 percent) dealt with the Egyptian people and provided updates about what was occurring or were addressed to all of the people in a community; and 104 tweets (23.5 percent) dealt with the government/police. Tweet content is also broken down by user, as follows: 32 FIGURE 4: TWEET CONTENT BY USER 70 60 50 40 30 Ghonim 20 ElBaradei 10 Haisam 0 The reason for the tweet varied widely, with some tweets falling into multiple categories. The majority of tweets, 259, were announcements (58.5 percent), 158 opinions (35.7 percent), and 101 (22.8 percent) were irrelevant to the protests. The reason for the tweet by all three users is as follows: FIGURE 5: REASON FOR TWEET BY ALL USERS 300 259 250 200 150 158 101 92 100 50 12 20 26 0 33 The breakdown by users for reasons for tweet is as follows: FIGURE 6: REASON FOR TWEET BY USER 180 160 140 120 100 80 Ghonim 60 40 ElBaradei 20 Haisam 0 Hashtags were used 288 times in all of the tweets, with some tweets containing multiple hashtags. Over half of the tweets from January 18 to February 18 contained hashtags. Jan25, or variations thereof, and Egypt, and variations of that, were the two most commonly used. Jan25 was used in 91.6 percent of tweets that contained hashtags, while Egypt was used 18.2 percent. Tweets were posted continuously throughout the day. The majority of tweets were posted late morning around 11 am and also around 5 pm. Over the course of the day tweets were regularly posted to keep people informed. The following chart shows the times that all 443 tweets were posted. 34 FIGURE 7: TIME OF TWEET POSTS The important dates in Egypt from January 18, 2011 to February 18, 2011 include (Blight, Pulham, and Torpey, 2012): DATE January 18, 2011 OCCURRENCE February 8, 2011 Mohmaed ElBaradei warns of ‘Tunisia-­‐style explosion’ in Egypt First coordinated protests (largest demonstration in a generation). Public calls for resignation of Hosni Mubarak. Government blocks Twitter and shuts down mobile and Internet networks Mohamed ElBaradei returns to Egypt and joins protests Mubarak makes his first TV appearance and pledges his commitment to democracy, but refuses to step down. Wael Ghonim arrested Mubarak appoints Omar Suleiman as first ever vice president. Death toll reaches 100 Army makes first explicit statement: ‘The armed forces will not resort to use of force against our great people’ Mubarak pledges to step down at next election ‘Day of Departure’ protest in Tahrir Square is the biggest demonstration yet. This protest was an attempt to get Mubarak to out of office that day Wael Ghonim released from prison February 11, 2011 Mubarak resigns February 13, 2011 Military rejects protestors demands for swift transfer or power to civilian administration January 25, 2011 January 27, 2011 January 28, 2011 January 29, 2011 January 31,2011 February 1, 2011 February 4, 2011 35 On February 11, 2011, the day that Hosni Mubarak resigned, tweets amongst the three users reached a high of 47 tweets. Tweets were also at a significant high in the days following the start of protests on, January 25, 2011. From January 28, 2011 to February 1, 2011, no tweets were posted due to the Internet blackout. In addition, no tweets were posted on February 4, 2011, which has become known as the “Day of Departure.” FIGURE 8: NUMBER OF TWEETS POSTED BY DATE 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Mobilization To determine how many of the tweets can be viewed as calling Egyptians to action, the following chart was constructed. This chart was constructed by doing a cross tabulation of the content of the tweets and the reason for the tweet. In doing the tweet analysis, some tweets fell into multiple content categories and multiple reason categories. The cross sections between tweet content and reason for tweet are displayed. 36 It is apparent from this chart that there are numerous tweets that called for mobilization of the Egyptian people. Mobilization occurred in tweets whose content included: Mubarak, Youth, Egyptian people, Freedom, Government/Police, Future/Hope,
Locations, Internet, and Protest, and also classified as Announcements or Incitement. Of these tweets, 45 were incitement and 393 announcements. The following charts depic
what percentage of content was discussed by incitement, announcement, or a combinatio
of the two. FIGURE 9: INCITEMENT CONTENT Youth 2% Protests 25% Internet 2% Location 11% Future/Hope 16% People 33% Government/
Police 11% FIGURE 10: ANNOUNCEMENT CONTENT Mubarak 4% Youth 4% Protest 17% Internet 5% Location 8% Egyptian People 25% Future/
Hope 12% Freedom 8% Government/
Police 17% FIGURE 11: INCITEMENT AND ANNOUNCEMENT CONTENT Mubarak 4% Youth 4% Protest 18% Internet 4% Location 9% Egyptian People 26% Future/
Hope 12% Government/
Police 16% Freedom 7% In analyzing these charts, it is evident that there are differences in content importance between tweets of incitement and announcements. The majority of incitement tweets dealt with the Egyptian people (33 percent), then contained information regarding 39 protests (25 percent) and the future/hope (16 percent). Similarly, announcement tweets, made Egyptian people (25 percent) and protests (17 percent) top priorities, but tweets regarding the government/police (17 percent) were more important than tweets regarding the future/hope (12 percent). Overall, the tweets that contained comments about the Egyptian people (26 percent), protest information (18 percent), information about the government/police (16 percent), and allusions to the future/hope (12 percent), were effective in getting people to mobilize. Tweets that contained information about locations (9 percent) and freedom (7 percent) were also important to mobilization. 40 DISCUSSION The research conducted was for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of Twitter in getting the Egyptian public to mobilize during the Arab Spring. This section will interpret the research findings to show the correlation that was present between online and offline engagement and how the tweets moved people to action. The Five Roles of Social Network Sites Schipul and Keeney concluded that the five roles of social network sites are: (1) Findability, (2) Education, (3) Exposure, (4) Expansion, and (5) Virtuality (2011). These five roles were evident in the events that took place on Twitter between January 18, 2011 and February 18, 2011. Findability Consistent with Shirky’s view that social network sites are a way to coordinate action, Facebook groups and Twitter hashtags connected people who had never met before. By using a common hashtag, the public was able to see who was tweeting about similar topics and come together for a cause. Those who held revolutionary views, like Wael Ghonim, started Facebook groups for people to gather and discuss a strategy to cause change, which eventually led to the overthrew of the government. Education Sharing information via Twitter allowed the Egyptian public and the outside world to remain abreast of the current events. The three users examined in this study, as well as others who re-­‐tweeted the three users’ tweets, shared information with people on their social network sites. Thoughts shared through social network sites were not those 41 constructed by government-­‐controlled media to keep up appearances, but were the true emotions and thoughts of the people. Exposure Using hashtags in tweets, with #Egypt and #Jan25 becoming two of the top hashtags of 2011, a database of all the tweets containing hashtags was collected. Entering hashtags into the search box pulls up all the tweets that contain the hashtag and shows who is discussing the topic, giving instant exposure to both the tweeter and the topic under discussion. Instantly being able to determine who is discussing a certain topic also supports Shirky’s element of “findability.” The three users took the liberty of using #Jan25 91.6 percent of the time, while #Egypt was used 18.2 percent of the time. Hashtags make it easier to locate people who are engaged in a certain topic more rapidly. In addition, using social network sites to disseminate information makes it harder for the government to control what is occurring. Because information was getting out that the government wanted to suppress, the government shut off the Internet to try and prevent the revolution’s momentum. Suppression is the very opposite of the exposure that the revolution was receiving on Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet. Expansion As Chokoshvili pointed out, social network sites are available on smartphones, which are portable, and on the Internet (2011). The availability of social network sites right at the user’s fingertips, allows for non-­‐stop reporting of information. Being able to report on events from their own perspective has turned ordinary people into citizen journalists. Once information was posted on Twitter, it was available to be retweeted by users, which allowed for news to be spread through various networks. 42 Virtuality Before the protests began on January 25, 2011, Wael Ghonim, who was living in Dubai at the time, started the Facebook group ‘We Are All Khaled Said’. Ghonim was not discouraged by the distance between him and the protestors in Egypt; he did not let the distance stop him from standing up for what he believed. The expansion of social network sites allowed him to use the tools as a “virtual organizer.” All five roles that Schipul and Keeney established for social network sites were present during the revolution in Egypt and operated effectively. In particular, Twitter played all the roles effectively, and as a means of communication reached its maximum potential as a mobilizing force. Twitter and the Arab Spring From the literature review, as well as the data collection, and the five roles of social network sites established by Schipul and Keeney, it is apparent that Twitter was used as a major form of communication amongst the Egyptian people during the Arab Spring. Before the start of the Arab Spring, there were an estimated 100,000 Twitter users in Egypt, but as the revolution ended, that number had increased to 1.1 million users (Amer, 2011). With over 400 tweets from ElBaradei, Ghonim, and Haisam being posted in a 30-­‐day period, which equates to an average of over 14 tweets per day, and Ghonim and ElBaradei gaining over 130,000 followers collectively, the public was kept apprised of the latest happenings and was encouraged to mobilize. The following tweets are examples of the tweets that were posted by each user to encourage mobilization, leading up to the resignation of Mubarak: 43 @Ghonim “Everyone come to Tahrir now we need you we are no less than 10,000 and no more police #JAN25” Posted January 25, 2011 at 9:42 am “From Khaled Said group: Mass protests are scheduled after Friday prayers all over Egypt. Please spread the word. #Jan25 #Egypt” Posted January 26, 2011 at 8:23 am “My call to every Egyptian living abroad. Its time to come back NOW and join your fellow brothers and sisters #Egypt #Jan25” Posted February 8, 2011 at 7:44 pm “I want to thank Muhamed @ElBaradei as his arrival to Egypt was what got me interested in changing #Egypt #Jan25” Posted February 11, 2011 at 1:06 pm @ElBaradei “We shall continue to exercise our right of peaceful demonstration and restore our freedom & dignity. Regime violence will backfire badly” Posted January 26, 2011 at 7:16 pm “Entire nation is on the streets. Only way out is for regime to go. People power can’t be crushed. We shall prevail. Still hope army can join” Posted February 11, 2011 at 6:36 am @Haisam “Honestly, whoever is in Egypt and did not go today, needs to stop fooling around and go tomorrow #Jan25” Posted January 25, 2011 at 9:15 pm (Translated by Transperfect) “I am renewing Khalid ElSawy’s call, 8:00 pm in front of the Actors Guild Club, Albahr Alazam, you’ll find Egypt’s actors who sympathize with the demands of the people, spread the news quickly” Posted January 27, 2011 at 10:27 am (Translated by Transperfect) “To all the people at #Tahrir square, your strength & resilience is a beacon of hope & freedom. Don’t ever let anyone tell u otherwise #Jan25” Posted February 5, 2011 at 7:02 am In analyzing the tweets, it is apparent that the contents contained information about the locations of protests, were direct pleas to the Egyptian people, and mentioned Mubarak and the current military—each a reminder of the oppression under which Egyptians were living. All of these were factors in establishing mobilization. The tweets stated clearly and directly the “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “how” in order to make it easy for people to make a decision, and the why made people want to act even more. The day the protests started, January 25, 2011, Ghonim kept the public updated by providing information about his whereabouts, as well as how many people had taken to the streets. Showing how many 44 people were joining together was a motivational tool used in getting others to join. In addition to Ghonim, Haisam tweeted in the evening encouraging those who did not attend protests that day to come out the following day. He even told the people who did not come that they were “fooling around,” as a means to let them know that they are silly not to stand up for their rights. ElBaradei posted a tweet early in the morning on February, 11, 2011, the day that Mubarak announced his resignation, and announced that the regime has to go and as long as the people stand up for their rights they will not lose. With encouraging tweets that got people out and also kept them abreast of the latest details, Twitter was used effectively. The following tweets are tweets that were posted by the users in an effort to continue change following the resignation of Mubarak: @Ghonim “This revolution is not over until democracy is enforced & until unemployment & poverty rates reaches the same levels of developed countries” Posted February 15, 2011 at 10:57 am @ElBaradei “Peoples’ demands for a fresh start are crystal clear & should not be derailed. Let us not repeat the blunders of the past.” Posted February 18, 2011 at 10:52 am @Haisam “You want an Islamic country? Go to Saudi. You want a communist country? Go to Cuba. You want a democratic one? Stay here and work for it.” Posted February 15, 2011 at 3:17 am Despite Mubarak’s resignation, Ghonim, ElBaradei, and Haisam recognized that the fight was not over. People still needed to be encouraged to push for change, and to work to repair their country. Continuing to use Twitter as a way to encourage the public and make announcements, shows that Ghonim, ElBaradei, and Haisam realized that Twitter could still be used as a means to coordinate action, like Shirky said it should be used. 45 Twitter’s Continued Use The effectiveness and power of Twitter and other social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube may continue to be underestimated and underappreciated by those who share opinions similar to Gladwell’s, but movements like Kony 2012 will continue to shed light on the power of social media. The people behind Kony 2012 released a second part to their video—again using social media. Seeing the effectiveness of the first release through social media outlets, it did not make sense to change tactics. In the future, as more social network sites emerge and technology continues to evolve, the way that people mobilize may shift. It is possible that 50 years from now, the next Malcolm Gladwell will emerge and say that whatever has replaced Twitter is not necessary or effective in getting people to mobilize around the cause of the day. But for right now, it is apparent that Twitter was an effective tool in getting the Egyptian people mobile to cause change. Even if Gladwell does not recognize Twitter’s effectiveness, the Egyptian government did, otherwise there would have been no need to black out the Internet during the Arab Spring. 46 CONCLUSION This study provided insight into Twitter’s mobilization effects during the Arab Spring. More specifically, the study examined how Twitter was used to communicate the day-­‐to-­‐day political events to the Egyptian people, and how it was a factor in regime change. Conducting a content analysis of three prominent opinion leaders in Egypt, this research showed how those leaders used Twitter to inform people about the need for regime change and to motivate them to join the protest movement. By analyzing the Twitter feeds of Ghonim, ElBaradei, and Haisam, this researcher has deemed Twitter an effective means of communication. Of course, if the Twitter feeds of different Egyptian Twitter users had been analyzed, this study may not have reached the same conclusions. In addition, if a second coder had been used for content analysis, that coder may have established different categories, and drawn different conclusions. The findings of this study validate the conclusions of opinion leaders such as Shirky, Schipul, and Keeney, who share the view that Twitter is effective in helping to bring about social and political change. Future research can build upon this study to analyze the effects of social network sites on mobilization. In particular, the work that is being done on Kony 2012 and how awareness has been brought to that cause through the use of social media will be an interesting study. Another case study might examine social network sites as tools to mobilize the public and bring about change in other countries in the Middle East. Bahrain would be a good example for purposes of comparison because of the common language and culture, and also because of its proximity in time to the revolution in Egypt. In particular, it would be interesting to explore Twitter and other content to try to determine why social and political change has been slower in coming in Bahrain than in 47 Tunisia and Egypt. The research might even consider whether the use of social network sites was an aid or a hindrance to the Bahrain uprising. As more studies are conducted about the power of social network sites, future opinion leaders might collaborate with Gladwell and other naysayers to develop research methods to account for some of the factors—demographic, economic, cultural, technological—that the naysayers find problematic in the research of Shirky and others. Such collaboration would be in the spirit of social networks, which is to share information in a way that calls people to action. That is the real power of Twitter, a power the likes of which is yet to be fully harnessed for social and political change. 48 REFERENCES Amer, P. (2011). Twitter Nation. The Watch. from http://egypttoday.com/news/display/article/artId:316/twitter-­‐nation/secId:3 Aouragh, M., Alexander, A. (2011). "The Egyptian Experience: Sense and Nonsense of the Internet Revolution." 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ghonim-­‐vs-­‐haisam-­‐on-­‐twitter#&data=cumulative&range=all. 51 APPENDIX Appendix A—Coding Sheet CONTENT 1—Irrelevant 2—Mubarak 3—Youth 4—Egyptian People 5—Freedom 6—Religion 7—Government/Police 8—Tunisia 9—Future/Hope 10—Locations 11—Death/Injury 12—Internet 13—Protest 14—Outside World 15—Economy REASON 1—Irrelevant 2—Warning 3—Announcement 4—Tweet to Another User 5—Incitement 6—Opinion 7—Question LINK 1—Yes 2—No LANGUAGE 1—English 2—Arabic 3—English and Arabic 4—Other HASHTAG 1—Egypt 2—Jan25 3—CleanEgypt 4—AlJazeeraForum 52 5—Frustrated 6—Twitter 7—Facebook 8—Fail 9—Algeria 10—BetterEgypt 11—SidiBouzid 12—WhatsNext 13—Revolution 14—Bahrain 15—Tahrir 16—NewMovie 17—EgyptsModernHistory 18—AmnElDawlaLeaks 19—Censorship 20—Jan28 21—PoliceAbuse 22—HumanRights 23—Love 24—Hope 25—Police 26—Sarcasm 27—Joke 28—Mubarak 29—EgyptIsFree 30—NewEgypt 31—ManBehindOmarSuleiman 53 0 18 5 0 29 3 Warning Announcement Tweet to Another User Incitement Opinion Question Mubarak TWEET CONTENT REASON FOR TWEET Youth 0 10 1 0 16 0 Egyptian People 7 57 15 11 98 4 Freedom 2 15 0 2 33 1 Religion 0 13 0 2 17 2 Government/ Police 12 52 5 11 66 8 Tunisia 0 1 0 0 2 0 Future/ Hope 4 42 7 3 44 1 Locations 3 13 5 3 33 2 Death/ Injury 1 9 1 4 17 5 2 11 1 1 19 0 Internet TABLE 1: TWEET CONTENT V. REASON FOR TWEET Protest 5 28 11 6 66 6 Outside World 1 11 1 1 20 0 0 1 1 3 0 0 Economy 
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