IJoC "The Arab Spring & the Role of ICTs"

The International Journal of Communication (IJoC) is pleased to announce the publication of a special feature section, "The Arab Spring & the Role of ICTs."

The world is witnessing the rise of millions of people in Arab countries against the autocratic regimes under which they had to struggle to live for so long. Tunisia and Egypt were the first nations to each force a president out of office, and Western media outlets were quick to attribute their overthrow to digital media, particularly to social media and Facebook. This special section, guest-edited by Johanne Kuebler and Ilhem Alagui, presents 16 articles that put this notion to the test and illuminate the discussion of the role of digital media in the ongoing changes in the Arab world.

These articles, submitted within a very short time frame, present initial thoughts by scholars on the current social transformations. They cover a broad array of issues, including studies of how the Internet drives political mobilization and affects journalism coverage, empirical data sets, and analyses of specific online practices. The relationships between online and offline political action are explored, and a number of relevant social examples of participatory and social media are examined, including the influence of video logs and the writing of collective memories through the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The introduction, by Kuebler and Allagui, argues that the complexity of the current transformations is overlooked when the overthrow of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and of Egypt’s Mubarak is attributed to digital media. Instead, a thorough analysis of the revolution’s organization by networks—and particularly social networks—is essential to our understanding.

While further research and careful examination is needed, these articles offer a first attempt by scholars in the field to make sense of the recent uprisings.

Read this new Feature Section published September 2011 at http://ijoc.org, and thank you for your continuing interest in our work.

Manuel Castells
Larry Gross
Editors

Arlene Luck

Managing Editor