{"title":"回顾民主的第四次浪潮?数字媒体与阿拉伯之春","authors":"Kimberly Meltzer","doi":"10.1080/15348423.2015.1116276","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"“Information infrastructure is politics,” write the authors of this book (p. 87). Philip Howard and Muzammil Hussain have crafted a data-driven and well-reasoned account of the interplay among information and communication technologies, civil society actors, authoritarian regimes, and the political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa—what has become known as “the Arab Spring.” Many will find the crux of their argument to be sensible: neither social media and mobile technologies alone, nor civil society actors alone, caused the succession of political revolutions across the region since December 2010. Rather, the explanations are conjoined, and the book is about “the context of political mobilization” in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, and 16 other countries. In other words, this is a study of what the affordances of digital technologies enabled people to do. But here for all who are not technological determinists, this is a story about how people made use of technology, which was not a given. As Howard and Hussain put it, “digital media helped to accelerate the pace of revolution and build its constituency” (p. 18). The very important and complicated description of the methods used to collect and analyze the Twitter and blog data on which the book bases its claims can be found, after searching, in the Notes at the end of the book. Data were collected by Howard’s Project on Information Technology and Political Islam (www.pitpi.org) based at the University of Washington and funded by the National Science Foundation and Intel. The data analyzed span November 2010 to May 2011. Although it does not go into as much depth or detail on all of the countries, the book compares features and outcomes across 22 countries within the region. This alone is impressive, and a feat difficult to achieve for all but experts and insiders. Chapter 1 provides a recap of the sequence of events during the Arab Spring, highlighting the major moments, particularly where digital media had a role. Chapter 2 of the book provides a brief historical overview of the various technological environments and activism in the years leading up to the Arab Spring. The data analysis of the structure, sources, and content of digital media use on the part of activists and citizens during the Arab Spring is found in chapter 3. This is focused on Tunisia and then Egypt, with discussion of the roles played by Twitter,","PeriodicalId":55954,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Media and Religion","volume":"106 1","pages":"245 - 247"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2015-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"A Review of Democracy's Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring\",\"authors\":\"Kimberly Meltzer\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/15348423.2015.1116276\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"“Information infrastructure is politics,” write the authors of this book (p. 87). Philip Howard and Muzammil Hussain have crafted a data-driven and well-reasoned account of the interplay among information and communication technologies, civil society actors, authoritarian regimes, and the political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa—what has become known as “the Arab Spring.” Many will find the crux of their argument to be sensible: neither social media and mobile technologies alone, nor civil society actors alone, caused the succession of political revolutions across the region since December 2010. Rather, the explanations are conjoined, and the book is about “the context of political mobilization” in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, and 16 other countries. In other words, this is a study of what the affordances of digital technologies enabled people to do. But here for all who are not technological determinists, this is a story about how people made use of technology, which was not a given. As Howard and Hussain put it, “digital media helped to accelerate the pace of revolution and build its constituency” (p. 18). The very important and complicated description of the methods used to collect and analyze the Twitter and blog data on which the book bases its claims can be found, after searching, in the Notes at the end of the book. Data were collected by Howard’s Project on Information Technology and Political Islam (www.pitpi.org) based at the University of Washington and funded by the National Science Foundation and Intel. The data analyzed span November 2010 to May 2011. Although it does not go into as much depth or detail on all of the countries, the book compares features and outcomes across 22 countries within the region. This alone is impressive, and a feat difficult to achieve for all but experts and insiders. Chapter 1 provides a recap of the sequence of events during the Arab Spring, highlighting the major moments, particularly where digital media had a role. Chapter 2 of the book provides a brief historical overview of the various technological environments and activism in the years leading up to the Arab Spring. The data analysis of the structure, sources, and content of digital media use on the part of activists and citizens during the Arab Spring is found in chapter 3. 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A Review of Democracy's Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring
“Information infrastructure is politics,” write the authors of this book (p. 87). Philip Howard and Muzammil Hussain have crafted a data-driven and well-reasoned account of the interplay among information and communication technologies, civil society actors, authoritarian regimes, and the political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa—what has become known as “the Arab Spring.” Many will find the crux of their argument to be sensible: neither social media and mobile technologies alone, nor civil society actors alone, caused the succession of political revolutions across the region since December 2010. Rather, the explanations are conjoined, and the book is about “the context of political mobilization” in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, and 16 other countries. In other words, this is a study of what the affordances of digital technologies enabled people to do. But here for all who are not technological determinists, this is a story about how people made use of technology, which was not a given. As Howard and Hussain put it, “digital media helped to accelerate the pace of revolution and build its constituency” (p. 18). The very important and complicated description of the methods used to collect and analyze the Twitter and blog data on which the book bases its claims can be found, after searching, in the Notes at the end of the book. Data were collected by Howard’s Project on Information Technology and Political Islam (www.pitpi.org) based at the University of Washington and funded by the National Science Foundation and Intel. The data analyzed span November 2010 to May 2011. Although it does not go into as much depth or detail on all of the countries, the book compares features and outcomes across 22 countries within the region. This alone is impressive, and a feat difficult to achieve for all but experts and insiders. Chapter 1 provides a recap of the sequence of events during the Arab Spring, highlighting the major moments, particularly where digital media had a role. Chapter 2 of the book provides a brief historical overview of the various technological environments and activism in the years leading up to the Arab Spring. The data analysis of the structure, sources, and content of digital media use on the part of activists and citizens during the Arab Spring is found in chapter 3. This is focused on Tunisia and then Egypt, with discussion of the roles played by Twitter,