Blogging Bouazizi: The Role of Cyberactivists Before and After Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution

This article examines the changing role of cyberactivists before and after the Jasmine Revolution through case studies of three prominent figures: Houssem Aoudi (Cogite, Wasaibi), Sami Ben Gharbia (Nawaat.org), and Haythem el Mekki (MosaiqueFM, Attessia TV). The main argument presented here is that...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Matt Gordner
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
French
Published: Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies 2016
Subjects:
Tunisia
Democracy
Revolution
Activism
Social Movement Theory
Bouazizi
hist
scipo
sami
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.17192/meta.2016.6.3797
https://doaj.org/article/523373dfa9764d6d8b11f17b24f20922
Description
Summary:This article examines the changing role of cyberactivists before and after the Jasmine Revolution through case studies of three prominent figures: Houssem Aoudi (Cogite, Wasaibi), Sami Ben Gharbia (Nawaat.org), and Haythem el Mekki (MosaiqueFM, Attessia TV). The main argument presented here is that the attainment of freedom of the Internet and the success of the revolt created new opportunities for formal political involvement for the cyberactivists as they transited from dissidents under the Ben Ali regime to citizen-participants of a nascent democratic order. A subsidiary argument is that a new generation of Tunisian leadership came to the fore of Tunisia’s private and public spheres to advance the stated aims of the revolution, including inter alia combating unemployment, securing civil liberties, stemming corruption, and the ever deepening of pro-democracy reforms.

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