Home> Archive> 2018> Volume 8 Number 5 (May. 2018)
IJSSH 2018 Vol.8(5): 139-146 ISSN: 2010-3646
doi: 10.18178/ijssh.2018.V8.950

Egypt’s 18-Day Revolution: New Media, Old Struggle

Rania Saleh

Abstract—The Egyptian revolution of January 2011 against President Hosni Mubarak has been dubbed “the Facebook revolution”. Whilst it is true that online social media played a major role in the events of Egypt’s “Arab Spring” this paper shows that a broad range of media, both old and new, played significant roles in political mobilization. People used many forms of cultural messages to express demands, mobilise for action and boost morale in their struggle against the regime. In return, the regime deployed its own media strategy, including both control and closure of media. In this paper, I examine the roles of three diverse media forms: satellite TV, political cartoons and social media, exploring their capacity in mobilizing people for or against the ruling regime. I also consider the role of cultural forms such as protest songs as expressions of inspiration, nostalgia and solidarity. The paper shows that whilst TV was an important channel through which the regime communicated its messages to the public, TV also served as a platform for debate which stimulated opposition. Newspaper cartoons and social media, in contrast, were media largely dominated by opposition voices. Noting the failure of Mubarak’s closure of the internet and mobile phone networks to stop revolutionary action, the paper concludes that no single form of media played a determining role in the revolution. Rather, it was interaction between a diverse range of media, from satellite TV and Facebook to placards and protest songs, which coordinated action and imagination during the revolution.

Index Terms—Egypt, January 25th Revolution, media, Mubarak, protest songs.

Rania Saleh is with the Shandong Normal University, China (e-mail: rania_mr@hotmail.com)

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Cite: Rania Saleh, "Egypt’s 18-Day Revolution: New Media, Old Struggle," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 139-146, 2018.

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