Egyptian Revolution 2.0 Political Blogging, Civic Engagement, and Citizen Journalism

The Egyptian revolution that took place on January 25th, 2011 and lasted for 18 days, leading to the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, has been inspired and instigated in part by social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. In this context, a senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said: 'Social media didn't cause the revolution but it had three big impacts: it accelerated movement making, made weak ties between people stronger and distributed leadership through networks' (Matthews, 2011). Blogging is the umbrella that entails all other forms of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, since political bloggers oftentimes include links to these other types of social media in their postings and make constant references to them in their blogs. These new media forms exemplify the concept of citizen journalism that had an impact on Egyptian civil society before, during and after the recent Egyptian revolution. This book will shed light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution. In doing so, it examines the relevance and applicability of the concepts of citizen journalism and civic engagement to the discourses and deliberations in five of the most popular political blogs in Egypt, through exploring the potential connection between virtual activism, as represented in the postings on these blogs, and real activism in Egyptian political life, as represented in the calls for social, economic and political reform on the streets.

Mohammed el-Nawawy is a Knight-Crane endowed chair and associate professor in the Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte. His areas of expertise and research interests are focused on the new media in the Middle East, particularly satellite channels and the Internet, and their impact on the Arab public sphere. He is the author and co-author of four books: Islam dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Al-Jazeera: The story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism (Westview Press, 2003); Al-Jazeera: How the free Arab news network scooped the world and changed the Middle East (Westview Press, 2002); and The Israeli-Egyptian peace process in the reporting of Western journalists (Greenwood Publishers, 2002). He has also published in several national and foreign journals in the international communication field. He is the founding and senior editor of the Journal of Middle East Media and serves on the editorial boards of Media, War and Conflict, Journalism Education and Global Media. He is also a board member on the Arab-U.S. Association for Communication Educators. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mass communication at the American University in Cairo. He has a doctorate degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Sahar Khamis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media and the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department at Qatar University. Dr. Khamis holds a Ph.D. in Mass Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Manchester in England. She is the co-author of the book: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and authored chapters in the books Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through Self-Expression (I.B. Tauris, 2004), and New Media and the New Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). She has several publications in both international and regional academic journals and conferences in both English and Arabic. She is the recipient of a number of prestigious academic and professional awards.