Passionate Publics: Events & Emotions through Social Media in the #Jan25 Revolution
Yasmeen Mekawy
University of Chicago
My dissertation examines the role of social media in mobilization processes in the Arab Uprisings. I argue that discourses of indignation and dignity (specifically regarding police abuse) circulating through the virtual public sphere over the past decade in several ways emotionally primedearly movers for collective action in the 2011 Egyptian uprising. However, indignation blended with cynicism and feelings of hopelessness and fear, which tempered enthusiasm for collective action.This emotional habitus of indignation, cynicism, and fear was disrupted by transformative, emotionally charged events. The digital public sphere was the medium through which these events—such as Khaled Said’s death and the success of the Tunisian uprising—were collectively constructed and disseminated, and in fact constituted as events.These events provided both the emotional impetus for a critical mass of individuals to overcome fear and mobilize, and also helped produce crucial feelings of solidarity and togetherness in the absence of organizational and ideological coherence. Finally, the nationalist revolutionary narrative articulated and disseminated through the virtual public sphere (as well as on the ground during those 18 days) provided a framework through which different groups and latecomers could code their activities as part of a unified revolutionary project, despite conflicting interests and political agendas. To a significant degree, the virtual public sphere facilitated a discursive and affective unity no one organization could have imposed.
I contend that attention to local events and patterns of emotions can help explain why critical masses mobilize when they do, and why attempts to mobilize at certain times fail.This emotional habitus isnot only observable on,but in fact reinforced through social media and digital networks. I therefore use social media discourse as a primary source to interpret emotional habitus, in conjunction with interviews I conducted. I use these sources to reconstruct the discursive templates, and their associated affective valences, through which protesting came to make sense as a possible and desirable course of action for a critical mass of Egyptians in 2011.To identify what kinds of emotional logics were being produced, I undertake a close reading of affective markers in text and speech, tracking trends in tone and content, with close attention to viral media and memes.