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Brokerage Roles and Strategic Positions in Twitter Networks of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution
Author(s) -
AbulFottouh Deena
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
policy and internet
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.281
H-Index - 26
ISSN - 1944-2866
DOI - 10.1002/poi3.169
Subject(s) - schism , mirroring , solidarity , ideology , social movement , sociology , social network analysis , online community , social network (sociolinguistics) , perplexity , political science , media studies , social media , public relations , law , computer science , politics , communication , artificial intelligence , language model
The Egyptian revolution of 2011 presents an important case study for research on digital activism and online mobilization, however, most of the research has focused on the online tools available to activists, without empirically examining their online social networks, or whether they reflect networks on the ground. This article uses social network theory of brokerage, social movements theory of coalition building, and social network analysis to examine the Egyptian revolution at two different time points, representing movement solidarity and schism. I examine the Twitter network structures of Egyptian activists, identifying those who occupied strategic positions connecting activists of different ideological backgrounds. I then test whether these online brokers correspond to brokers on the ground. I find that, similarly to offline activism, online brokers who connected different ideological groups were more prevalent during periods of movement solidarity than schism. However, online brokers did not match on‐the‐ground brokers, with the two groups playing different activism roles, and complementing rather than mirroring each other in advancing the revolutionary movement.