'On the ground' in Sidi Bouzid: investigating social media use during the tunisian revolution

Authors:
Volker Wulf;Kaoru Misaki;Meryem Atam;David Randall;Markus Rohde
Affiliations:
University of Siegen, Siegen, & International Institute for Socio Informatics, Bonn, NRW, Germany;International Institute of Socio-Informatics, Bonn, NRW, Germany;International Institute of Socio-Informatics, Bonn, NRW, Germany;University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany;University of Siegen, Siegen, NRW, Germany
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Year:
2013

Citing 7
Cited 2

Managing nomadic knowledge: a case study of the European social forum

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
A vision for technology-mediated support for public participation & assistance in mass emergencies & disasters

Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-BCS Visions of Computer Science Conference
Trace Ethnography: Following Coordination through Documentary Practices

HICSS '11 Proceedings of the 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Engaging with practices: design case studies as a research framework in CSCW

Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Analyzing Political Activists' Organization Practices: Findings from a Long Term Case Study of the European Social Forum

Computer Supported Cooperative Work
(How) will the revolution be retweeted?: information diffusion and the 2011 Egyptian uprising

Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
The Egyptian blogosphere: a counter-narrative of the revolution

Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Fighting against the wall: social media use by political activists in a Palestinian village

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Enriching the distressing reality: social media use by chinese migrant workers

Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

We present a study conducted in Sidi Bouzid, the Tunisian town where the Arab Revolution, also known as 'Arab Spring', started, and where the role of Web 2.0 and social media applications in the people's uprising have been much discussed. We identify four relevant phenomena: (1) the publication of classified materials via WikiLeaks challenged the regime's legitimacy, (2) Web 2.0 connected local activists with Arab satellite TV, (3) social media linked the young activists with actors in other cities in Tunisia, (4) social media allowed organizing resistance inside Sidi Bouzid. Methodologically, we question a too deterministic view of the role of the new media and the representativeness of investigative techniques that uniquely use the new media in order to assess their impact. At the same time, rigorous investigations 'on the ground' are extremely difficult. We present a modest and initial attempt to provide such an 'on the ground' approach, cognizant of necessary limitations. We compare our findings with studies which analyze data downloaded out of social media applications and suggest that studies of the kind we describe offer additional insight and play an essential role in better understanding political uses of social media.