The origin of social media effects on countries' fundamental changes
This chapter sets out to establish why the penetration rate of social media is not the same from one country to the next. Are there any psychological and social factors which give rise to the different penetration rates? The research available surrounding the impact of social media technologies in Arabic countries is at present limited. Any current evidence which presents analysis of this matter affords little coverage of its impact in recent revolutions; however, this book is based on the assumption that social media tools are effective at different rates at a variety of levels. Five countries – Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Yemen and Tunisia – will be taken into consideration, in addition to countries such as Iran. Factors such as national identity, legitimacy crises, social capital and soft war, which may affect the penetration of social media in a country, will be examined. To achieve results comparable with those from other countries where revolution is not expected, questionnaires were distributed in the home of online social media, the USA. This chapter tries to familiarise readers with the general process of the research and some of the important terms.
Keywords
cultural exchange; freedom; information literacy; social capital; soft war
Factors promoting social media penetration
What needs to be borne in mind when reading this chapter is that, rather than the rate of penetration, it is the pace of penetration of social media that is under examination here. For example, although the US has the highest rate of social media and Internet usage, this leading position was achieved not in a short time but over a period of years. However, rapid penetration by the Internet and social media has occurred in the Middle East – especially Arabic countries – between 2010 and 2013; so, all discussion here is centred on the pace of penetration. Moreover, while the role of the telecommunications infrastructure and even the mobile phone is undeniable, the social and psychological factors that can trigger a revolution are also dealt with in my analysis.
Control of the popular media (radio, television and newsprint) by certain world powers is a common thread woven throughout history and countries such as the USA, the UK, etc. use it to induce deep changes in other countries for their benefit. However, this has made us forget the two-sided and twofold effects of social media. It is true that the term ‘media’ commonly refers to a special group of people, broadly speaking, media leaders; however, when the term ‘social’ is applied, we can claim that the beliefs, cultures and societal assumptions of certain groups guide these platforms.
This is not be interpreted as saying that leaders of certain social media organisations do not have the power to steer the public – they do. The fact is that the power of the public predominates.
On a larger scale, one may claim that those media developed by western countries to further political / non-political interests in some societies could not only attain predicted goals, but also cut their ties for ever. In other words, the traditional top-down management style (both in business and politics) is slowly shifting towards government by the bottom (where the public have a bigger voice to question and challenge leaders). Thus in this book the term ‘social media’ will be used for any Internet-based tool where the public mind plays a pivotal role in its development, deployment and governance.
Sense of freedom
The first factor that empowers social media to play a determining role in the revolution is the sense of freedom. When freedom of speech is denied, the social media become a more attractive vehicle through which the public may express ideas. When a post is ‘liked’ by others, the author may develop the idea that there are people outside his current network whom he or she can lead. From a psychological viewpoint, this imparts a sense that they can be more effective than before. On the other hand, the followers develop the sense that they are not alone in the ideas they hold. That is, in the absence of social media, people may think that their liberal ideas are personal and thus may not reveal them, but it is the calm before the storm. So finding followers to support freedom and making massive networks are features of the social media. Two needs are then met: one is the need for freedom of expression of pro-democracy attitudes and the other is the sense of being seen and having power. Of the five countries studied in this book, Tunisia holds the record for demands for freedom. Social media activists there reported that lack of respect for freedom of speech was one of the important causes that led them to the online social media. Meanwhile, in another part of world, people in the USA tend to use social media as a way to connect with friends, escape routine life and share their hobbies, such as videos, music, photographs.
Concealment
Another point concerning the effect of social media on a public movement is that they can identify the roots of that movement. Looking for a needle in a haystack is an apt analogy, highlighting some positive and negative dimensions. On the one hand, it is not easy for those who might be upset by a public movement to find the trigger point, as many political activists adopt a fake online identity. On the other hand, however, an arrogant government may commission other groups to take control of a public movement and feed it misleading information. The history of Iran’s revolution (1978–9) demonstrated social media in the form of flyers with no signature and cassettes that were disseminated as rapidly as their source disappeared. However, what makes Iran’s revolution distinguishable from the recent revolutions, between 2011 and 2013, in other Arabic countries, is that the former was not a ‘headless’ revolution, as the social media were formed and developed in harmony with the goals of one leader: Imam Khomeini. Revolutions in the Arabic countries, including those in the Middle East and North Africa are headless and their leaders, if any, are unknown. One definition of a headless revolution is a social movement with no specific and centralised leadership (Serag, 2011). Lack of a leader brings in worries that the movement might be misled. That is, although social media facilitate the initiation of movements, authoritarian groups may further manipulate the demands of those movements when they gain power. The first step to finding the right path is to identify and distinguish between real and fake revolutionary groups. An intriguing case of the penetration of government-supported groups in social media happened in North Sudan. When the different groups made arrangements to meet each other during demonstrations against Omar el-Bashir, many were arrested by the police forces. The fact was that the regime had penetrated the social networks to find about the future moves of the protesters (Comninos, 2011).
Social capital
This is another aspect of the penetration rate of social media. Because of the importance of the subject, the issue is dealt with in detail in a separate chapter. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that specific high-quality social relations may develop stable and sustainable societies. Sustainable social relations need a high rate of trust in the constituent interrelationships (Jamali and Abedin, 2013). According to the literature, social capital can be classified into seven dimensions, namely: ‘group characteristics; generalised norms; togetherness; everyday sociability; neighborhood connections; volunteerism and trust’ (Narayan and Cassidy, 2001). Using this classification system, according to my research, trust is the most effective factor in attracting individuals to participate in a network. Trust among members of groups and trust in government improve the efficiency of government expenditures. Trust is a determining factor in the pace of revolution in different countries. Where there is trust among the people and between the people and the government, improvement of general welfare can be expected. On the other hand, when the trust among the people increases between groups and the trust between the people and the government decreases, public power is redirected to social media and extends to the streets when their solidarity grows. There is another situation, which arises when the sense of trust deteriorates both among the people and between the people and their government. In this case, the probability of regime change will increase but divergent groups may infiltrate the movement and attempt to subvert the revolution as the overthrow of the government begins. This was emphatically the case in Egypt. For example, Moaddel (2012) believes that the roots of the movement in Egypt were ‘corruption, lack of freedom and police brutality’. Blatant corruption is reflected in the people’s deterioration of trust in the government. Lack of freedom also leads to a deterioration in trust between the people and the government, and police brutality is a mark of government efforts to repress social movements and the deterioration of their trust in the people.
Another feasible situation is the development of trust between the government and the public while trust among the people is breaking down. However, there is no instance of this among the countries studied here, and there is probably not enough evidence in other countries. So this last case is unlikely, as revolution, by its nature, happens when trust between the public and the government is diminishing. Another point is that a trustworthy government usually acts as a conciliator when political parties and social groups run into disputes. This is one way that governments add to their legitimacy. My studies confirmed that Egyptian society is split and different groups have lost their trust in one another, though intra-group trust is surging. This situation dictates that whatever party comes to power, the others will line up in opposition. This is because the other parties feel threatened by the possibility of a totalitarian government. This, along with problems caused by foreign powers which add to the challenges, shortens the life of the government. An interesting discovery is that the USA has an average score with regard to trust.
To promote a sense of social trust and solidarity Imam Khomeini used the term ‘Basij’ (mobilisation) during Iran’s revolution. This neutralised the foreign factors trying to divert the revolution from its intended path. Here we can see the role of leadership in the promotion of a sense of trust and social solidarity. As mentioned earlier, however, a headless revolution lacks the factor that creates solidarity and trust. To put it another way, while revolutions in the past were triggered by a leader who was followed by the people, modern revolutions are triggered and powered by the people to bring their preferred leader into power. This is somehow an inversion in the revolutionary process. At any rate, an undeniable feature of social networks is their power to mobilise social movements, the opposition campaign launched in Arabic countries to change the regime being an instance.
Information literacy and media literacy
Another factor which makes social media more worthy of interest is the development of information literacy. There are reports that people in many countries tend to check the news websites in the first few hours of daily work. This hints at the great demand for up-to-date information. Before the expansion of the Internet and social media networks, information was exclusively controlled by totalitarian governments through a system of top-down bureaucracy. People, nowadays, no longer receive information from one source but have access to news sources online that support or oppose the government message. In the past, it was easy for governments to put more emphasis on their achievements and restrict the output of negative news or prevent it from being heard at all. But, nowadays, easy access to a wide range of news, including stories that are highly critical of the current regime, powers the revolution. Dissemination of information regarding the luxury lifestyle of the Mubarak family while many Egyptians live in poverty gradually empowered the protesters in Egypt. Information literacy is now even more critical when we take media literacy into account. According to Martin (2011): ‘Information literacy is the intellectual process of recognizing the need for information to solve a problem or issue regardless of setting while working through a process that provides information which fulfills the given need to the satisfaction of the seeker’. But there are some differences to media literacy. Media literacy is more comprehensive than information literacy and is based on Nijboer and Hammelburg (2010): ‘The term media literacy is used to incorporate various forms of literacy. The most important are information literacy, visual literacy, textual literacy, new media literacies, and news/mass media literacy’.
Moreover, in information literacy you are only an information seeker, but when you enrich yourself with media literacy, you may analyse and even create data, information and messages. When a society’s knowledge fails to improve to a greater extent than its information literacy, the society may not be able to decipher the media’s complexity and as a result its culture might be easily affected. Information literacy is not enough for detailed analysis, while media literacy corresponds with the ability to think critically so that one is able to choose between different alternatives. Suppose you encounter this message in a social medium: ‘Our leaders are symbols of corruption in the country. We all need to fight and kill them. Killing them is lawful (halal)’. Results from my research show that reactions to such messages are affected by gender and level of education. Women and highly educated people in a study sample tend to post comments on such messages rather than simply ‘liking’ or ‘tagging’, that is, they do not jump to conclusions. In other words, they prefer not to decide immediately, and so mostly maintain a moderate approach. Although there is no evident relation between the reaction of an individual and their level of media literacy in such situations, in a later chapter I will show that educated people and those with high levels of media literacy have the capacity to analyse issues from different perspectives and tend to take into account aspects such as justice, aesthetic concerns and even religion. On the one hand, people with greater information literacy alone do not hesitate to accept the message. Although they have a nagging sense of the injustice being done in their society, they fail to see that killing the rulers without taking them to court is also a case of injustice. This makes them nothing but followers and good targets for movement leaders. On the other hand, those empowered with media literacy and highly educated people tend to think about the issues and are not merely followers. An interesting point is that in spite of the termination of the monopoly on information using information literacy, there is still a threat of cyber-monopoly. The first group that lacks media literacy grows, making massive networks, and gradually forms another type of autocratic society where the elites of cyber society are forced into isolation. This brings in to play another issue. As proved by history, the isolation of elites in society and the increase of focus on average people have been among the main causes of revolutions. Thus where the mob is the main power of modern revolutions and movements in virtual networks, apparently the elite will be once again forced into isolation. To break the vicious circle of failure of revolutions, it is critical to improve media literacy among the public and enable people to play an active rather than a passive role in virtual networks. In fact, an effective and fruitful revolution needs an improvement in media literacy in society on a large scale.
Mono-nationality and cultural exchanges
The next factors contributing to the pace of social media among different nations are mono-nationality and cultural exchange. Of the countries in the Middle East, Iran, Turkey and Iraq can be considered multinational. On the other hand, the majority of the Arabic countries in that region are considered to be mono-national. When it comes to social media, there is a dominant culture which feeds the main portion of the material and consequently influences other subcultures – and of course is influenced by them in return. The cultural exchange is a relatively gradual process. However, for mono-national countries, the formation of focal points which appeal to everyone is rather faster. In such a scenario, there is usually no need for fundamental changes as people are quick to agree on an issue and join social groups. The problem of regime is raised when the governing power is challenged by a crisis of legitimacy and national identity. By crisis of legitimacy we are referring to the situation where the ruling power, in the eyes of the public, is deemed to have no authority to rule, which usually results in a gap between the actual system and the preferred one. Such a situation might be a cause or a consequence of the national identity of the people. In this regard the question is about the extent of the acceptance of authority. Do the people find themselves mentally belonging to the system? My research regarding national identity in Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Yemen and Tunisia shows that, in spite of recent revolution and the initiation of a transition phase, people still have a poor sense of national identity. This might trigger the next major movement against the ruling power. It is noticeable that these countries score differently with regard to their national identity and that the different aspects of national identity are not the same in each country. Therefore each aspect needs to be dealt with separately (and is the subject of another chapter). For now, we need to keep in mind that mono-nationality facilitates the formation of massive groups in the social media, and when this happens at the same time as a weak sense of national identity and a crisis of legitimacy, social movements are inevitable.
Soft war
When it comes to social media online, we need to keep in mind that the origins of these media stories are typically in western countries such as the USA and throughout Europe. Therefore it is not beyond reasonable expectations that western countries, to a large extent, benefit directly from these uprisings. They use these media channels to move towards the attainment of the goals they have already made desirable in Arabic countries, in order to increase their power and influence. Thus, when a ‘soft war’ is waged against a country, social media tend to penetrate at a faster pace. International public relations nowadays are one of the most effective weapons of soft war. Clearly, tools such as social networks play a determining role in this regard.
In the literature we find that the term ‘soft power’ is actually used more than the term ‘soft war’. But in recent years some countries, such as Iran, have extended the use of soft war. Price (2012) noted: ‘For the Islamic Republic, soft-war was defined as the strategic and focused use of nonmilitary means to achieve objectives, such as regime change, that might otherwise be obtained through conventional weaponry’.
According to the Arab Knowledge Report (2009), there are approximately 60 million Internet users living in Arabic countries and that number will reach 100 million by 2015; this indicates that there will be more members of the local population online and using social networks who value transparency and responsiveness as a characteristic to be sought from governmental bodies (Ghannam, 2011). The statistics of Internet use are more interesting in Egypt: in August 2010, 5.2 million Egyptians had a Facebook account, and this figure reached 6.6 and 7.3 million respectively in February 2011 and August 2011 (Chorev, 2011) – almost ten per cent of the population. Although ten per cent may not be considered a high level of representation, it does show there is a growing trend in the importance of the role of social networks in the everyday life of the nation. On the other hand, there are also Internet users who are seeking to use the Internet to lead the revolution in search of a better life, so it is a substantial force. The same is true in other Arabic countries. In August 2011, for instance, 24 per cent of Tunisians, 23.6 per cent of Bahrainis, 15 per cent of Saudi Arabians and 29 per cent of Lebanese were on Facebook. However, in countries such as Libya (0.8 per cent) and Yemen (1.4 per cent) a much smaller number of the population are members of virtual networks. The point is, however, that the role such small groups play in social networks is undeniable (Chorev, 2011). While this segment of the population may have no physical presence, can only be accessed online and consists mainly of the youth, who are usually dissatisfied with the status quo, it is vulnerable to soft war. Almost all the features of soft war find social media useful as a development platform:
• Actors from different groups. There is a wide range of players in soft war, each imposing a threat to specific social, cultural and political aspects of the society. Of the different aspects, cultural effects are the most evident. One may say that cultural changes are the most effective factors in soft war, as the phenomenon deals with thoughts. In fact, soft power forces rivals to confront each other and shake hands, as they think they are in agreement with the enemy.
• Avoiding violence. Whereas hard war features destruction, physical elimination and territorial expansion, soft war moves forward by influencing elections and selection processes, decision-making processes and behavioural patterns so that eventually the rival surrenders (after metamorphosis) by accepting what has been imposed. The problem is that the subjects of soft war – the citizens of a country – fail to see the objectives behind the gradual changes and even evaluate them as positive as they have come to the conclusion that such changes are in their favour.
• Complexity. The phenomenon is complicated, multilayered and multi-aspect. It is also hard to measure, as it is the product of the minds of the elite. In the case of hard war, on the other hand, physical appearance and tangible features make it easy to measure.
• Ambiguity. Actors in a soft war pose as friends and follow the goals of their conspiracy while pretending to help their rivals. This makes them unnoticeable in the eyes of the public and even to groups of elites.
• Inclusiveness. While traditional wars attack a specific group in a society (in most cases the armed forces), soft war deals with all social groups. (Naeini, 2010)
However, thinking that soft war is merely an external factor is wrong, as it may be led by the citizens against the government, which gives it a two-dimensional nature. In fact, when protesters employ soft-war tactics in social media to bring about fundamental changes, they have waged a soft war to lead the masses toward their goals. However, while the ambiguous nature of soft war makes it impossible to devise an accurate measure of the phenomenon across social networks, it is noteworthy that 81 per cent of respondents in the five countries in the study believed that the social media would hold the upper hand in soft war and 39 per cent believed that their revolution was the result of some kind of soft war. On the other hand, 61 per cent believed that their revolution was the will of their nation and had not been triggered by a foreign power; this group also responded that their revolution had not been manipulated by groups other than revolutionary actors and protesters. Figure 1.1 illustrates the penetration of Facebook into Arab countries in 2012, according to the Arab Social Media Report.
Iran, Turkey and Israel are discussed here for the sake of comparison with Arabic countries. However, we point out that statistics from Iran cannot be considered accurate as Facebook is filtered by the Iranian government and there is no accurate data about Iranian users of Facebook – some statistics even report there are no Iranian users of Facebook at all. Figure 1.1 clearly shows that Syrians and Egyptians, by far, constitute the greatest number of new Facebook users in Arabic countries. The greater popularity of Facebook in these two countries is coincident with the protest movements. In the case of Saudi Arabia (KSA), we see a high rate of penetration of social networks; this, along with the rise of information transparency, imposes a more serious threat to the Saudi regime, and this country may well be the next host of the Arab Spring. There are plenty of instances of a surge in the use of social media during public movements in different countries. For instance, Chappelle (2010) reports that on 12 June 2009 during the presidential election in Iran, there were a record 2,500 tweets per hour regarding the result of the election; this level hit 16,000 tweets per hour on 20 June. This illustrates that social media may also be considered a predictive tool and their use can be an alarm signal. When a surge in the use of social media occurs, it shows general agreement among the people and we have to be prepared to see protesters in the streets at any moment.