Papers by Dounia Mahlouly
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Early research investigating digital activism in relation to the 2011 Arab uprisings intended to ... more Early research investigating digital activism in relation to the 2011 Arab uprisings intended to determine whether digital media played a significant role in consolidating the revolutionary opposition. As a result, this literature essentially focuses on the exact moment of the January 2011 protests and often fails at considering the evolution of digital activism and social media consumption over time. Alternatively, this work goes beyond the context of the January 2011 events and investigates how participative media have been used over the course of the political crisis that led the 2011 Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions to the 2013 military coup d’etat. By doing so, it elaborates the debate on digital activism and assesses how social media has affected public deliberation over the long run and as political leaders attempted to regain legitimacy in the aftermath of the uprisings. In doing so, this research contributes to the evaluation of what extent these emerging forms of politica...
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(Mis)Understanding Political Participation
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This paper explores key Internet search trends for electoral information vis-à-vis the broader me... more This paper explores key Internet search trends for electoral information vis-à-vis the broader media ecology in the UK and the US. An innovative methodology is introduced that maps the informational trajectories of key election events by combining Google Trends data linked to significant news events during the campaigns. While the research found spikes of search that suggested a seemingly trivial event in the US could drive voters to search out deeper information on related policy issues, the study did not find the same phenomenon in the UK. This invites a reflection on the opportunities available to Internet users/voters in the changing informational landscape and how scholars can leverage Google Trends records to better understand how voters seek information in new and evolving media ecologies.
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Religions, laïcités et sociétés au tournant des humanités numériques, 2016
Although the 2011 Egyptian uprisings have been initiated by a minority of activists amongst the o... more Although the 2011 Egyptian uprisings have been initiated by a minority of activists amongst the opposition (Gerbaudo, 2012), they led the middle class (Salem and Mourtada, 2011) and the leading political institutions to invest in alternative forms of political expression. In the aftermath of the revolution, the 2012 presidential and constitutional debates offered Egyptian citizens the opportunity to further experience new forms of deliberation, incidentally bringing political leaders to develop related communication strategies. In this context, the 2012 constitutional assembly commissioned an e-consultative platform, designed to collect citizens' comments on the constitutional draft. Following the success of the Muslim Brotherhood in the parliamentary and presidential elections, this e-consultation project revealed how secular versus Islamist visions of the post-revolutionary Egyptian society would confront themselves over the constitution. In order to investigate some of these deep ideological conflicts, this paper draws on content and discourse analyses conducted on a large sample of comments extracted from the e-consultation platform commissioned by the constituent assembly. It identifies controversial aspects of the constitutional draft, showing how it attempted to redefine the Egyptian society and how this was debated online. Most importantly, this paper will explore how some of the revolutionary ideals – such as the concepts of freedom and democracy – have endorsed different meanings amongst in the post-revolutionary phase, after consolidating the opposition during the 2011 uprisings. It will outline how this debate was affected by the institutional framework in which the 2012 constitutional referendum took place, by reporting two face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders involved in the e-consultation project. Simultaneously, it will introduce a discussion on the implications of online-based deliberation, when it comes to redefine features of national identity in a context of political crisis. In this regard, I will argue that online deliberation facilitates the process, through which revolutionary ideals – such as the concepts of freedom and democracy – are entirely renegotiated and substituted, so as to conform to specific political agendas.
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This review postulates that today's digital environments unveil an era of connectivity, in which ... more This review postulates that today's digital environments unveil an era of connectivity, in which digital communication devices exercise a general influence on social interactions and public deliberation. From this perspective, it argues that connective practices are likely to affect two main components of the normative public sphere, namely rational criticism and ideological sustainability. Drawing on the case of the 2011 Arab revolutions, in which social media proved to have a strategic function, this paper illustrates the ideological heterogeneity of social networks. Additionally, this article considers how issues of rational criticism and ideological sustainability could be improved by regulating online interactions and proposes that the digital divide could act as a natural process of regulation for today's connective and transnational public sphere.
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Conferences and Seminars by Dounia Mahlouly
This paper examines the nature of today’s information warfare, as much as it relates to online pr... more This paper examines the nature of today’s information warfare, as much as it relates to online propaganda, by reflecting on how it operates across different agencies. It considers not only how information warfare translates into the strategy of radical insurgency groups but also the extent to which policy-makers and state-owned media engage with it by positioning themselves in relation to the fight against terrorism and emerging forms of radicalisation. Finally, it introduces a discussion on how this issue may be framed to build and maintain the legitimacy of political elites in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, incidentally pulling the once-politicised youth away from the mainstream political sphere.
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Despite the controversial name of “Twitter revolution”, which media referred to during the 2011 T... more Despite the controversial name of “Twitter revolution”, which media referred to during the 2011 Tunisian or Egyptian uprisings, research revealed that only a very small amount of citizens actively used this social platform in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. However, although Facebook and traditional mass media reach a much broader audience, social scientists emphasised the qualitative – rather than quantitative – impact of Twitter, in framing and reporting local media events (Eltantawy and Wiest 2011; Meraz and Papacharissi, 2013). Studies also indicate that Twitter users in the Middle East manifest a particular interest for political topics (Salem and Mourtada, 2011). The strategic features of this communication channel along with the fact that Twitter’s penetration kept increasing over the months that followed the revolutions makes it a significant tool for political campaigns. Drawing on my PhD research, this paper will highlight the way political officials, such as candidates of the 2012 Egyptian presidential campaign, applied Twitter to promote their political programme. I will examine this set of tweets in relation with the way activists and national bloggers have been reporting the 2012-2013 Egyptian crisis. Furthermore, I will address the contribution of Twitter in the presidential campaign, comparing it with other communication devices and campaigning strategies.
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This paper discusses the debate on the role of cyber-activism in the 2011 Arab uprisings in rela... more This paper discusses the debate on the role of cyber-activism in the 2011 Arab uprisings in relation to the transition from orality to literacy and from literacy to digital connectivity. Drawing on recent researchers in the field of media studies, it introduces the notion of connectivity that characterizes digital social interactions contributes to conceptualise this phenomenon by drawing parallels with the collective discursive dynamics of Arab folk traditions.
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The relationship between power and connectivity is highly antithetic. Whereas a Foucauldian conce... more The relationship between power and connectivity is highly antithetic. Whereas a Foucauldian conception of power involves institutional structure, hierarchy, regulations and social cohesion; connective action is meant to be diffuse, unpredictable, unconstrained and driven by a hidden leadership. At this stage of the digital revolution, political action goes along with many forms of paradoxical behaviours. Activist organisations prove to have a significant political impact, while denying any form of political affiliation, and prosumers (Merrin:2008) sink into connective addiction, while protesting against the rise of the digital industry.
In this context, rethinking power from the perspective of connectivity involves determining whether the contradictions of connective societies are temporarily induced by the paradigmatic transition from traditional to connective socio-cultural patterns. Alternatively, this implies evaluating to what extent such inconsistencies are permanent and inherent to the new connective age.
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This paper uses Google Trends data to investigate how voters employ search engines during electio... more This paper uses Google Trends data to investigate how voters employ search engines during elections in established democracies (the UK and the U.S.), challenged democracies (Italy) and transitional states (Egypt). Do voters search for electoral information that mirrors news coverage and official campaign narratives, or focus instead on other issues, generating ‘unexpected’ searches? In other words, do voters use search engines to break free of information hegemony and create an alternative election ‘agenda’? Results suggested that, regardless of context, politicians’ ‘gaffes’ constitute fundamental search triggers, generating greater informational demand than official campaign messages. This trend was examined in detail by focusing on episodes such as Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” remark in the 2012 U.S. presidential race and Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” gaffe during the 2010 UK general election. U.S. data showed that American voters made a “thematic leap,” using Romney’s gaffe as a springboard to research related policy issues including the gender gap and women’s rights. Instead, the same transition failed to materialise in Britain, where interest in “bigot-gate” was not complemented by an increase in searches for related topics, such as immigration. Relevant news coverage, campaign responses, as well as online discussion forums were analysed to reveal the rationale behind this difference and determine associated information trajectories in the ‘new media ecology.’ This paper, which discusses evidence gathered as part of a joint ESRC-Google knowledge transfer programme, adopts a reflective approach to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in integrating traditional methods with search engine accessory applications.
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This paper uses Google Trends data to investigate how voters employ search engines during electio... more This paper uses Google Trends data to investigate how voters employ search engines during elections in established democracies (the UK and the U.S.), challenged democracies (Italy) and transitional states (Egypt). Do voters search for electoral information that mirrors news coverage and official campaign narratives, or focus instead on other issues, generating ‘unexpected’ searches? In other words, do voters use search engines to break free of information hegemony and create an alternative election ‘agenda’? Results suggested that, regardless of context, politicians’ ‘gaffes’ constitute fundamental search triggers, generating greater informational demand than official campaign messages. This trend was examined in detail by focusing on episodes such as Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” remark in the 2012 U.S. presidential race and Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” gaffe during the 2010 UK general election. U.S. data showed that American voters made a “thematic leap,” using Romney’s gaffe as a springboard to research related policy issues including the gender gap and women’s rights. Instead, the same transition failed to materialise in Britain, where interest in “bigot-gate” was not complemented by an increase in searches for related topics, such as immigration. Relevant news coverage, campaign responses, as well as online discussion forums were analysed to reveal the rationale behind this difference and determine associated information trajectories in the ‘new media ecology.’ This paper, which discusses evidence gathered as part of a joint ESRC-Google knowledge transfer programme, adopts a reflective approach to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in integrating traditional methods with search engine accessory applications.
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Despite the hegemony of online businesses, search engines and digital corporations, the paradigm ... more Despite the hegemony of online businesses, search engines and digital corporations, the paradigm of connectivity inevitably leads us to rethink individuals’ involvement in public discourses. In a connective environment, the process through which citizens gain power and legitimisation does not entirely conform to the normative concept of public sphere (Habermas, 1962). By using digital communicative patterns, consumers claim ownership of the Foucauldian discourses initially produced by private and public institutions (Jenkins; 2006). This neoliberal technoculture (Dean; 2003) is likely to disrupt the traditional equilibrium between State powers and citizenship. Drawing on the case of the Egyptian post- revolutionary crisis, this paper underlines ideological similarities between connectivity and anarchy. While promoting new forms of connective expressions over State’s authority, the ongoing Egyptian protests illustrate some of Proudhon’s and Bakunine’s political ideals.
From January 2011 to July 2013, the combination of cyberactivism and street protests progressively established the dominance of the people over public institutions. By studying the correlation between offline and online Egyptian post-revolutionary forms of public expression, from the 2012 referendum on the Egyptian constitution to the 2012 coup d’état, this paper will argue that the instability and flexibility of today’s Egyptian politics evokes the emergence of a more fluid social structure, in which every single individual is potentially more powerful than any private or public organisation. Beyond the Egyptian example, analysing the relationship between connectivity and anarchy allows us to foresee the impact of future connective societies on representative democracy and state security worldwide.
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This paper draws on comparative cross-country research (UK, US, Italy and Egypt) of search engine... more This paper draws on comparative cross-country research (UK, US, Italy and Egypt) of search engine behaviour, primarily gathered via Google Trends, to examine how and when people are choosing to gather information in a range of elections. The project (voterecology.com) compares the searches of Internet users seeking information on a range of issues including: candidates, parties, political scandals and media events. This paper addresses the Egyptian case and examines search data from the 2012 Egyptian presidential campaign as part of a reconstruction of the chronology of the campaign in the context of the wider Egyptian media ecology. It aims to emphasise the particularity of Egypt as a democracy in transition and to interrogate trends and patterns that could help explain online searches and the shaping of public opinion in today's digital environments.
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Website by Dounia Mahlouly
The Cultural Value Project: Cultural Relations in 'Societies in Transition’ (2017-2018) is a coll... more The Cultural Value Project: Cultural Relations in 'Societies in Transition’ (2017-2018) is a collaboration between the Open University and The Hertie School of Governance, commissioned by the British Council and the Goethe-Institut. The Cultural Value Project (CVP) project explores the different features of the UK and Germany’s approaches to cultural relations. The CVP contributes to a better understanding of the nature and value of such activities in terms of their ability to make a difference – in particular to supporting stability and prosperity and to strengthening civil society in societies going through substantial change.
The Open University adapted the Cultural Value Model for this research – a participatory approach which brings together diverse perspectives on a programme and assesses its value according to expectations forged at the outset. The research involved five in-depth case studies of cultural relations programmes. The data gathering process included participatory workshops at British Council and Goethe-Institut offices in Cairo and Kyiv with beneficiaries of the programmes, the staff delivering the programmes, and the strategy and policy teams within those two organisations; stakeholder surveys; and in-depth expert interviews.
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Reports by Dounia Mahlouly
British Council and Goethe-Institut, 2018
The Cultural Value Project (CVP) is a joint research project commissioned by the British Council ... more The Cultural Value Project (CVP) is a joint research project commissioned by the British Council and the Goethe-Institut (January 2017-June 2018). It aims to build a better understanding of the value of cultural relations (CR) in societies facing difficult challenges – in particular, in Egypt and Ukraine. The project identified the difference cultural relations activities make to important international challenges, including supporting stability and prosperity in societies going through substantial change. The findings contribute to current political, policy and academic debates about the role of culture in conflict, diplomacy and development.
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Papers by Dounia Mahlouly
Conferences and Seminars by Dounia Mahlouly
In this context, rethinking power from the perspective of connectivity involves determining whether the contradictions of connective societies are temporarily induced by the paradigmatic transition from traditional to connective socio-cultural patterns. Alternatively, this implies evaluating to what extent such inconsistencies are permanent and inherent to the new connective age.
From January 2011 to July 2013, the combination of cyberactivism and street protests progressively established the dominance of the people over public institutions. By studying the correlation between offline and online Egyptian post-revolutionary forms of public expression, from the 2012 referendum on the Egyptian constitution to the 2012 coup d’état, this paper will argue that the instability and flexibility of today’s Egyptian politics evokes the emergence of a more fluid social structure, in which every single individual is potentially more powerful than any private or public organisation. Beyond the Egyptian example, analysing the relationship between connectivity and anarchy allows us to foresee the impact of future connective societies on representative democracy and state security worldwide.
Website by Dounia Mahlouly
The Open University adapted the Cultural Value Model for this research – a participatory approach which brings together diverse perspectives on a programme and assesses its value according to expectations forged at the outset. The research involved five in-depth case studies of cultural relations programmes. The data gathering process included participatory workshops at British Council and Goethe-Institut offices in Cairo and Kyiv with beneficiaries of the programmes, the staff delivering the programmes, and the strategy and policy teams within those two organisations; stakeholder surveys; and in-depth expert interviews.
Reports by Dounia Mahlouly
In this context, rethinking power from the perspective of connectivity involves determining whether the contradictions of connective societies are temporarily induced by the paradigmatic transition from traditional to connective socio-cultural patterns. Alternatively, this implies evaluating to what extent such inconsistencies are permanent and inherent to the new connective age.
From January 2011 to July 2013, the combination of cyberactivism and street protests progressively established the dominance of the people over public institutions. By studying the correlation between offline and online Egyptian post-revolutionary forms of public expression, from the 2012 referendum on the Egyptian constitution to the 2012 coup d’état, this paper will argue that the instability and flexibility of today’s Egyptian politics evokes the emergence of a more fluid social structure, in which every single individual is potentially more powerful than any private or public organisation. Beyond the Egyptian example, analysing the relationship between connectivity and anarchy allows us to foresee the impact of future connective societies on representative democracy and state security worldwide.
The Open University adapted the Cultural Value Model for this research – a participatory approach which brings together diverse perspectives on a programme and assesses its value according to expectations forged at the outset. The research involved five in-depth case studies of cultural relations programmes. The data gathering process included participatory workshops at British Council and Goethe-Institut offices in Cairo and Kyiv with beneficiaries of the programmes, the staff delivering the programmes, and the strategy and policy teams within those two organisations; stakeholder surveys; and in-depth expert interviews.