Hi, People interested in the role of netizens in the recent events in Egypt might be interested in the article, "Netizens in Egypt and the Republic of Tahrir Square" written in March 2011 and online at: http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/03/16/netizens_egypt_tahrir_square/ This article traces some of the history of online activities which contributed to the strength of the revolt that Xiaolin Zhuo, Justine Yu and Barry Wellman analyze. The references in this article are helpful in more fully understanding the relatively long time that netizens have been active in Egypt. Take care. Jay

------------------------------

Message: 5 Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2011 16:19:27 -0400 From: Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca> To: communication and information technology section asa <citasa@list.citasa.org>, aoir list <air-l@aoir.org>, social networks list <socnet@lists.ufl.edu> Cc: Justine Abigail Yu <justine.abigail@gmail.com>, Jo-Lynn Zhuo <zhuo.jolin@gmail.com> Subject: [Air-L] Egypt: The First Internet Revolt? Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.4.64.1107011611360.52051460@origin.chass.utoronto.ca> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

FOlks,

Xiaolin Zhuo, me, Justine Yu have just published the abovenamed article in the July 2011 Peace Magazine.

http://www.peacemagazine.org/archive/v27n3p06.htm

It discusses the many ways in which ICTs did -- and did not -- facilitate the Jan-Feb 2011 Egyptian revolt. It argues that Facebook etc provided a sense of modernity, and shows some of the external connections that the activists had years before the revolt. It also does a Tilly-esque discussion of internal networks -- this was NOT a spontaneous gathering of 1M Egyptians in Tahrir Square.

And we carefully call it a Revolt, and not a Revolution (too premature to say that) or the newspaper-hype "Arab Spring" (premature in circumstances and calendar in January-Feb 2011??)

The colour pix in the magazine are great (thank you Zeynep Tufekci and Karim Marold). Alas, Peace Magazine's own website doesn't show them -- text only.

But if you ask nicely, we'll send you a full pdf, complete with pix. Email first author Jo-Lynn Zhuo <zhuo.jolin@gmail.com>, (It's her and Justine's first publication, btw.)

PS: This 4.5 pager developed out of a discussion in the forthcoming Rainie-Wellman Networked book (Jan 2012)

Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________