Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 10 (2011) 369–374

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Commentary

Commentary: The impact of social networking tools on political change in Egypt’s ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’ Ashraf M. Attia a,⇑, Nergis Aziz a,b,1, Barry Friedman a,b,2, Mahdy F. Elhusseiny c,3 a

Marketing and Management Department, School of Business, State University of New York at Oswego, Oswego, NY 13126, United States Faculty of Business and Management, Suleyman Sah University, Istanbul, Turkey c Department of Accounting and Finance, School of Business and Public Administration, California State University, Bakersfield, United States b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 13 May 2011 Received in revised form 17 May 2011 Accepted 17 May 2011 Available online 21 June 2011 Keywords: Egypt Facebook Political change Revolution Social networking tools Social networks Twitter

a b s t r a c t Social networking is a new driving force that has a significant global impact on political change. Few research studies have been published on the impact of social networking related to political change. This commentary discusses the impacts of social networking tools on the recent political changes in the eighteen-day Egyptian ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’ of 2011. We discuss a number of factors related to social networking that predisposed the people of Egypt to rise up in a revolt that stunned many observers, given its speed and dramatic outcome. Social network-related factors appear to have had a positive impact on Egyptians’ attitudes toward social change, which, in turn, supported their individual and aggregate behavior, leading to the revolution. Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Social networking now seems to be impacting political and social life across the globe. Social networks have affected political elections and induced social changes in the United States and Canada (Cook 2010), Iran (Marandi et al. 2010), Pakistan (Shaheen 2008), China (Guobin 2010), and Malaysia (Smeltzer and Keddy 2010). In the first few months of 2011, Facebook and Twitter played a prominent role in the unrest, uprisings and revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Algeria, and Bahrain. The impacts of social networking tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others in social and political environments of countries, are even more interestingly exemplified in Egypt’s recent ‘‘Revolution 2.0.’’ According to Ho (2011), the Egyptian revolution made other governments consider the appropriateness of censoring social networks. For example, the Chinese government blocked access to

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 315 312 5741; fax: +1 315 312 5440. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A.M. Attia), [email protected] (N. Aziz), [email protected] (B. Friedman), [email protected] (M.F. Elhusseiny). 1 Tel.: +1 315 395 0266. 2 Tel.: +1 315 312 6381. 3 Tel.: +1 661 654 3480; fax: +1 661 654 6697. 1567-4223/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.elerap.2011.05.003

searches for the word ‘‘Egypt’’ on Internet sites in China. The Chinese government apparently feared that the Egyptian protest would inspire unrest in China. Hodge (2009), however, stated that in Moldova in southeastern Europe, government Internet censorship did not stop the protests, but magnified its effects. Given the newness and significant impacts of social networking tools on recent global political changes, there is little research that documents and explain how they support political change, including uprisings and revolutions. We will discuss the impact of social network tools on political changes in the recent Egyptian revolution. First though, we will offer some insights into Egypt’s political, economic, geographic, religious, and technological infrastructure. We also will discuss the chronology of events that took place during and after the eighteen-day Egyptian revolution, stressing the role of social networking factors that appear to have predisposed Egypt to the dramatic and transformational events that it experienced. 2. Egypt’s ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’ To explore the impact of social networks on political change in Egypt’s revolution, a brief perspective of Egypt’s geographic, political, technological infrastructure is offered. Then we will discuss the nature and background of the Egyptian revolution itself.

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2.1. Background on Egypt as a Nation Egypt has a strategic geopolitical location and is a major economic power in both Africa and the Arab world (Economy Watch 2011). Egypt borders are on the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya to the west, the Gaza Strip to the east, and Sudan to the south. It has an area of one million square kilometers and a coastline of 2450 km (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2011). Egypt’s capital city, Cairo, is located in the north of the country. It is the 30th largest country in the world, with a population of 82 million, mostly along the Nile basin. The Egyptian population is young, with a median age of 24 years. The official language is Arabic, although other languages are used, including English and French. The literacy and unemployment rates are 71% and 9.7%, respectively. About 20% of the population is below the poverty line (Central Intelligence Agency 2011). Egypt’s economy is largely dependent on petrochemical exports to European nations. The country has trade relations with African nations, the Middle East countries and the members of the European Union (Economy Watch 2011). Egypt has long been the driving force for political, economic, religious and social development in the Arab World. Egypt is the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel. With its Al-Azhar, the oldest and most prestigious Islamic University in the world, Egypt is in the center of Islamic intellectual thought and learning. Egypt also is an arbiter of peace and force of moderation in the Arab world and embodies the ideals and values of moderate Islam, religious tolerance and heritage, and cultural diversity (Shokry 2009). Egypt has been trying to accelerate its technological progress by investing in technological parks. Egypt aims to lessen its dependence on oil exports and reduce poverty. For example, Egypt’s Smart Village is starting to attract foreign entrepreneurs and executives to set up their own companies (Al-Shobakky 2007). Microsoft, Oracle, and Hewlett–Packard are among about 120 technology firms that operate in Egypt’s Smart Village high-tech park. Egypt has developed an important IT outsourcing business with young, well educated, high-tech savvy and English-speaking population. Egypt does not rank high among nations with respect to world governance indicators (Kaufman et al. 2008, 2010; World Bank 2009). The governance indicators aggregate the views governance quality provided by citizens and expert survey respondents. Egypt ranks in the 23rd percentile on voice and accountability, defined the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to select their government, have freedom of speech and association. Egypt ranks in the 25th percentile in political stability, 40th percentile in government effectiveness, 48th percentile in regulatory quality and 30th percentile in control of corruption. Regarding national cultural identity (Hofstede 2001), religion plays a significant role in everyday life. Large power distance is predominant in Egypt, which indicates that differences in power are expected and tolerated among leaders and followers. Egypt is also ranked high in uncertainty avoidance, indicating that strict rules and procedures dictate behavior in an effort to reduce uncertainty. It is not surprising, therefore, that the totalitarian regime and government of President Hosni Mubarak was kept in power and used strict laws to control its citizens for so long a time period. Egypt scores very low on individualism, indicating the strong collectivist national orientation. The combination of a collectivist society long repressed may be fertile ground for political revolution and change. 2.2. Egypt’s ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’: Background and impact of social networks The Egyptian revolution gained momentum as a result of several political and social factors. High-level of corruption, bureaucratic lawlessness, high rates of unemployment, and violations of human

rights are the likely precedents. Egypt has high levels of corruption, little voice attributable to its citizen in the country’s affairs, and perceived government ineffectiveness (World Bank 2009). However, Egyptians have lived with these problems for many years. Patience is a cultural feature of Middle Eastern people, making it difficult for them to mount sufficient social indignation to support significant change and rebellion against power (Yenikeev 2011). Instead, it was the frustration and anger of young people who were forced to be apolitical and apathetic for a long period of time that finally welled up into widespread social dissent (Daragahi 2011). Early demonstrations that occurred in the streets of Cairo were related to Israel’s December 2008 strike and aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Within hours of that attack, more than 2000 people went out to the streets and protested. Such protests in Arab cities were not new; however, the protesters cried out with anger directly at the government of President Mubarak. Egyptians protested their government’s diplomatic relationships with Israel, exports of natural gas to Israel, and limits on movement at Egypt’s border with Gaza. Young people also expressed their anger using a new venue: social networks, including Facebook (Shapiro 2009). The roots of revolution came from past demonstrations and are related to the usage of social networks. Facebook, which is the third most visited website in Egypt after Google and Yahoo, played an important role. There were 800,000 users in Egypt in 2009. Limited freedoms of speech and meetings made Facebook a tool of choice for Egyptians, especially the younger generation, to freely communicate with each other and form groups to oppose Mubarak’s totalitarian regime and government (Shapiro 2009). Egypt witnessed a clash of generations between state power and its older and younger citizens. January 25, 2011 marks the date when the power of social networks facilitated the overthrow of the Mubarak dictatorship. It took only about 18 days. Facebook executives deny the role of their social network tools in the revolution in Egypt, but it is obvious that it had a key role in the mix (Kang and Shapira 2011). A chronology of the events associated with Egypt’s revolution is presented in Table 1. Even after the Internet blackout in Egypt, the youth continued to demonstrate and protest, and their numbers increased. Egyptians managed to have their voices be heard through advanced technical workarounds and old traditional technologies, including word-of-mouth and phones (Muscara 2011). President Mubarak was forced to step down because he did not act in a way that satisfied his constituents. After that, the major demand of the revolution was achieved and as demonstrated in Table 2, a high level of collaboration between the Egyptian revolutionary leaders and the Egyptian Army Supreme Council occurred as a means to build on the demands and the gains of the revolution. People expressed a negative attitude toward the government of Mubarak because of a high level of social distrust. Mortimore (2003) suggests that the attitudes of people can be negative if they distrust disappointment by failing to vote. Furthermore, the public is more prone to believe the worst about politicians.

3. The impact of social networking on the political environment Social networking has been defined as the ‘‘use of specific types of websites focused on creation and growth of online social networks which allow users to interact’’ (Coyle and Vaugh 2008, p. 13). There is little consensus on the definition of social networking and how to measure the effectiveness of these sites (Hartmann et al. 2008). Social networks supply people with opportunities to be part of international communities that enable them to communicate their shared thoughts, information, and recommendations.

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A.M. Attia et al. / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 10 (2011) 369–374 Table 1 A chronology of impact events in the eighteen day 2011 Egypt Revolution 2.0.

Table 2 Post-Egyptian ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’ remedial political actions and collaboration.

Date

Action/Event

Impact

Egypt’s revolution leaders

Egypt’s army supreme council

January 14

The Tunisian Revolution succeeded in forcing the Tunisian President to flee the country, after four weeks of massive demonstrations

January 14–24

Calls for Egyptian demonstrations spread quickly on Facebook and Twitter Tens of thousands of Egyptians protested in the streets of Cairo, and in other cities all over Egypt The Egyptian government decided to block Facebook, and cut Internet and cell phone communications for six days beginning on this day

The Egyptian people’s political passion was ignited by the success of the Tunisian Revolution, which was strongly facilitated by social networks Over 90,000 Facebook subscribers confirmed their participation in the January 25 demonstration The large turnout led to a call on social networks for other massive demonstrations across Egypt on January 28 The Egyptian government’s actions had adverse effects on demonstrators, leading to a decision on their part to demonstrate day and night in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and all over Egypt The demonstrations turned the uprising into ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’ in Egypt. Mubarak addressed the nation and promised to form a new government A large number of Egyptians sympathize

After the revolution, the revolutionary leaders subsequently encouraged peaceful demonstrations that sought to accomplish two key goals:  Safeguard the accomplishments of the revolution; and  Reinforce the revolution demands to be met by positive pressure

Positive actions and decisions were made by the Egyptian Army Supreme Council to meet the demands of the revolution and its leaders to:  Dissolve the parliament, the advisory and local councils and the Mubarak-appointed members of government  Appoint a prime minister, who appoints a government  Form a committee to revise the articles of the constitution  Conduct a referendum on the revised constitution (which had a referendum turnout of 45%)  Dissolve the oppressive national security police  Free most of the country’s political prisoners  Arrest Mubarak, his family, and members of regime, and put them into trial  Dissolve the ruling political party  Change most of Egypt’s regional governors. A number of anticipated changes were to follow:  Cancellation of the country’s emergency laws  New parliamentary, advisory, and local council elections  An election for a new president; and  Development and ratification of a new constitution

January 25 (Day of Revolt) January 26–27

January 28 (Friday of Anger)

1–2 million people began to express their anger, by demonstrating in many places across Egypt

February 1

Mubarak again addressed the nation, promising not to run for president again, but he also announced that he would stay in power until September Also known as Bloody Wednesday, on this day progovernment forces brutally beat and killed many Egyptian demonstrators The demonstrations grew to include 20 million people cross Egypt

February 2 (Battle of the Camel) February 4

February 10

Mubarak refused to step down, but delegated his duties to his vice president

February 11

Mubarak stepped down from the presidency, and the Egyptian Army Supreme Council took over Egyptians celebrate the success of their revolution

February 11–18

The Egyptian demonstrations intensified, with 4–5 million people protesting throughout Egypt As the size of the demonstrations escalated, the people put forth more demands The demonstrators surrounded the parliament, ministries, and national TV, and vowed to surround Mubarak palaces and residences The major objectives of Egypt’s ‘‘Revolution 2.0’’ were achieved by this day A high level of collaboration occurred between the Egyptian revolutionary leaders and the Egyptian Army Supreme Council. The latter was in charge, and acted as positive broker and guarantor of the Egyptian revolution’s gains

Web 2.0 technologies are a collection of social media by which people actively form, organize, edit, integrate, and rate Web content. Social networks help people interact by linking blogs, wikis, social networking hubs (Facebook, MySpace), web-based communication modes (chatting rooms), photo-sharing (Flickr), video casting and sharing (YouTube), audio-sharing (podcasts), virtual worlds, microblogs (Twitter) and others. These technologies support group interaction (Cooke and Buckley 2008). Hundreds of millions of people, mostly the young and middleaged population, use different social network tools. Specifically, Facebook alone has more than 500 million subscribers, which rep-

resents the third largest country in terms of population, behind China and India. The uniqueness and power of Facebook arises from its ability to provide users with an opportunity to tell his or her own story (Vericat 2010). Political leaders and parties recently began to use social networking to achieve political objectives. For example, all of the candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election aggressively used information and communication technologies, such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and others. The major objectives were: (1) to involve voters in ongoing two way communication; (2) to enhance interactions with the campaign; (3) to encourage voters to form online political societies among themselves; (4) to make financial contributions to the campaigns (Robertson et al. 2010); and (5) to provide a lack of third parties by external interests with a decentralized core (Wills and Reeves 2009). Iranians went to the voting polls in the 2009 presidential election. Their voting decision was whether to keep the Iranian president in power for an additional four years or to choose a liberal reformist. The Iranian reform movement, the majority of whose members were young people under 30, attempted to unite behind one candidate, whose campaign was fueled through the use of high technology campaign tactics (Bazzi 2009). During the campaign, mobile phone communications were interrupted and access to Facebook was temporary blocked across the country. Such censorship was utilized because contenders participating in election were using Facebook in their campaigns. Both the 2008 American and 2009 Iranian presidential elections showed the use of mobile marketing to be a strong vehicle for governments and political parties to mobilize their supporters (Cook 2010). Such tools as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube provided individuals with a means to become part of the larger political process (Levy 2008). Recently, academicians have started to conduct studies related to social networking tools, because on-

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line social networking seems to affect every aspect of contemporary human life. The huge user bases, the important amounts of data they provide, and their growing impacts on social and political life attracted the attention of social and political researchers (Wills and Reeves 2009). Just a little is known about psychosocial variables that cause people use social networking, however (Pelling and White 2009). In the last decade, technological advances that were aggressively employed to bring drastic political and social change either fully or partially succeeded. Several examples of successful political and social change are noteworthy. For example, the 2004 demonstrations organized by text messaging led to the quick ouster of Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, who had inaccurately blamed the Madrid transit bombings on Basque separatists. Another example is the Communist Party, which lost power in Moldova in 2009, when massive protests were coordinated in part through text messages, Facebook, and Twitter, in response to perceptions of election fraud. A third example is the Boston Globe’s 2002 global exposure of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which went viral online in a matter of hours, and resulted in lawsuits against the church based on charges that it was a safe harbor for child rapists. There are examples of partial successes or full-failure to though. For example, street protests arranged by e-mail failed to oust the president of Belarus in March 2006, and actually made the president and the government more determined than ever to control social media. Another example occurred during the June 2009 Green Movement uprising in Iran. Activists used every possible technological tool to coordinate protests against the miscounting of votes for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a reformist politician who served as the last prime minister of Iran in the 1980s. His efforts to lead the Iranian reform movement were ultimately brought to heel by a violent crackdown the conservative government. A third example was the Red Shirt Uprising in Thailand in 2010, which followed a similar but quicker path. Protesters who were savvy with social media occupied downtown Bangkok until the Thai government dispersed them, killing dozens in the process (Shirky 2011). Social network tools such as Facebook, Twitter and other media vehicles play a very important role in social life because they engender a lot of involvement from consumers and young people. According to the new Media Metrics ranking, consumers are highly attached to Google search, AOL email, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon.com and other social networking tools than they are to traditional media properties, such as television shows, magazines and other more static websites (Steinberg and Forget 2010). In a new Ad Age/Ipsos Observer survey of the digital media habits of people, Facebook was the clear winner. 41% of respondents said they wanted to receive communications from marketers on Facebook – more than double any other digital platform. Meanwhile, one in three others responded that Facebook was their preferred platform (Carmichael 2011). In addition, when consumers were asked

via which platforms they want to receive communication from marketers in general, 41% said Facebook, 18% Twitter, 17% MySpace, 13% others, and 48% none. 4. Facilitating variables for political change Research shows that a match between people’s interests and those projected by a website should result in a more powerful tie between the website and the user. Credibility also plays a role in involvement, and website credibility seems to be activated by the strength of ties between it and other sites that are known and trusted (Brown et al. 2007). We evaluated the social network literature and found that a number of different variables affect people’s behaviors. They include trust (Lai and Turban 2008, McKnight and Chervany 2002), relationships (Coyle and Vaugh 2008, Ellison et al. 2007), loyalty (Shen et al. 2010, Lin 2008, Casalo et al. 2010), value (Dholakia et al. 2004, McKenna and Bargh 1999) and word-of-mouth (Bickart and Schindler 2001, Smith et al. 2007) affect people’s behaviors. Perceptions of trust, relationships, loyalty and value also are likely to affect individual use of social network tools, attitude formation, and intended and actual behavior toward political change. To characterize this argument, we present Fig. 1. In the case of the revolution in Egypt, people perceived that they could trust the words of others who were calling for the uprising. Trust reduces social ambiguity (Gefen and Straub 2004) and people’s suspicions related to interactions and relationships (Grabner-Krauter 2002, 2010). Information provided by peers in social networks is often viewed as credible and trustworthy also (Gil-Or 2010, Smith et al. 2007). Word-of-mouth communication becomes much more powerful in a country when its citizens lose their trust in the official statements and pronouncements of the government. During the Egyptian revolution, users of online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter stopped believing the government. Instead, they trusted the messages and information they obtained from these tools, and their widespread popularity reinforced these sentiments. Users of social networks in Egypt also developed relationships with each other in their struggle for change. Research has shown that people, especially young people, use social networking tools to maintain existing relationships (Coyle and Vaugh 2008, Ellison et al. 2007). This often results in increased interpersonal discussion that fosters, in turn, civic participation and political activism (Zhang et al. 2010). This was the case in Egypt. Cardon et al. (2009) investigated online and offline social ties of social network website users. They found that social network users in Egypt, a collectivist society, had significant social ties with people whom they had never met in person. People can have relationships, even though they do not have an opportunity to physically meet each other, and the prevalence of this is related to cultural characteristics. Perceived relationships also affected the preferences of Egyptians. The need for change led them to develop committed

Fig. 1. Social network variables that facilitate political change.

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partnerships that led, in turn, to widespread perceptions of loyalty and commitment related to the idea of political change. According to Harridge-March and Quinton (2009), social network users may develop loyalty among themselves, related to the dimensions of their attitudes and behaviors. In addition, social networking tools were perceived as a resource of value because they provided information for users. Stephen and Toubia (2010) have argued that social commerce provides economic value for market-owning companies and sellers in the marketplace. In the case of the revolution in Egypt, the people aggressively used the available social networking tools to understand what was going on in the country, and to support each other in their efforts to bring political change. When people communicate through social networking tools, they are likely to perceive the suggestions of people whom they know as credible and trustworthy (Harridge-March and Quinton 2009). Social network users also develop relationships with those that have similar interests rather easily (Bickart and Schindler 2001), and they show loyalty to the networks they choose to use (Harridge-March and Quinton 2009). During the Egyptian revolution, people also changed their attitudes easily because they were not loyal to the Mubarak government. If they had been loyal, their attitudes would not have changed, and there would not have been any uprising at all. But new attitudes, confidence, and persistence developed in Egypt during this time. The result was that people’s attitude toward political change were strong enough to overcome censorship by the government of the Internet until Mubarak resigned. Behavioral intentions are indicators that signal whether citizens will stay with or defect from the government, which means that behavioral intention can be favorable or unfavorable (Zeithaml et al. 1996). If Mubarak’s government had provided outstanding services, its citizens would have favorable intention towards the government. However, Egyptians’ views were suppressed, they were removed from the political process, and they were not receiving good services. As a result, they held unfavorable behavioral intentions toward the government, which resulted in an uprising against the Mubarak regime. The favorable behavioral intention of the people toward political change affected their behavior. 5. Conclusion In the case of Egypt’s ‘‘Revolution 2.0,’’ social networking tool users showed trust, developed and maintained strong relationships, expressed loyalty, obtained value and aggressively used word-of-mouth to further their cause. All these social network variables facilitated the formation of a positive attitude towards political change among Egyptian youth, which gave them positive feelings toward participating in the uprising and revolting. This led to positive behavioral intentions to bring change to the country, which subsequently supporting changes in the political conditions in the country necessary to create and sustain individual and collective uprising and revolt. It was remarkable that young people formed positive attitudes toward political change on the basis of the information obtained from social networks. The communication that occurred showed that people were giving one another social support. Even censorship and controls put on Internet-based communications in the country did not prevent people from continuing to communicate with each other, which made it possible for them to rise up and revolt. The revolution brought political and economic instability in the short term. Businesses were affected, and the protests caused many of them to have to close. In addition, employees of Egypt’s stock market did not report, causing it to close also. In addition, public safety was undermined when many police officers deserted

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