
How Information Warfare Shaped the Arab Spring
The Politics of Narrative in Egypt and Tunisia
Nathaniel Greenberg(Author)
Edinburgh University Press
Published on 14. June 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-1-4744-5396-7 (ISBN)
Description
On January 28 2011 WikiLeaks released documents from a cache of US State Department cables stolen the previous year. The Daily Telegraph in London published one of the memos with an article headlined 'Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising'. The effect of the revelation was immediate, helping set in motion an aggressive counter-narrative to the nascent story of the Arab Spring. The article featured a cluster of virulent commentators all pushing the same story: the CIA, George Soros and Hillary Clinton were attempting to take over Egypt. Many of these commentators were trolls, some of whom reappeared in 2016 to help elect Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. This book tells the story of how a proxy-communications war ignited and hijacked the Arab uprisings and how individuals on the ground, on air and online worked to shape history.
Reviews / Votes
[breaks] valuable ground by offering a detailed exploration of activism, media, and information warfare in relation to the "Arab Spring." He complicates straightforward accounts of the Internet empowering revolutionaries across the Middle East and bridgesmultiple lines of intellectual inquiry, including narratives and counter-narratives, digital dissent and surveillance, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary currents. Greenberg's writing, moreover, is engaging.[...] the book is well written and would make an excellent addition to courses on journalism, media, and the "ArabSpring." -- Andrew Simon, Dartmouth College * International Journal of Middle East Studies (2020), 1-2 * Like all good stories, his book makes the events of the Arab Spring come alive once again, in all their human drama and unpredictability. -- Robyn Creswell, Yale University * Journal of Arabic Literature 51 (2020) * Remarkable in its deft use of various strands of scholarship, its engaging style and its command of the subject... it is intellectually alert and uncompromising, yet it remains empathetic to the human dimension of the Arab Spring. * Philippe-Joseph Salazar, Distinguished Professor in Rhetoric, Faculty of Law, Cape Town *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
20 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
416 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-5396-7 (9781474453967)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Nathaniel Greenberg is the author of 'The Aesthetic of Revolution in the Film and Literature of Naguib Mahfouz (1952-1967)' and 'Islamists of the Maghreb' with Jeffry R. Halverson. He lives in Northern Virginia where he works as an Assistant Professor and Head of the Arabic programme at George Mason University.
Author
Assistant Professor and Head of the Arabic ProgrammeGeorge Mason University
Content
Introduction: The Hurricane and the Butterfly
Chapter One: Information Warfare 2.0: A Methodological Critique
Chapter Two: News of a Revolution
Chapter Three: Abu Ayadh: l'homme revolte
Chapter Four: Media Wars part I: Egypt
Chapter Five: Media Wars part II: Tunisia
Chapter Six: Philosophy and Revolution
Chapter Seven: Jihad and Revolution
Chapter Eight: The Speculative Fiction of Now
Endnotes
Bibliography
Chapter One: Information Warfare 2.0: A Methodological Critique
Chapter Two: News of a Revolution
Chapter Three: Abu Ayadh: l'homme revolte
Chapter Four: Media Wars part I: Egypt
Chapter Five: Media Wars part II: Tunisia
Chapter Six: Philosophy and Revolution
Chapter Seven: Jihad and Revolution
Chapter Eight: The Speculative Fiction of Now
Endnotes
Bibliography