https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/07/how-social-media-undermined-egypts-democratic-transition/
"During the heady days of revolution, social media seemed to unify
Egyptians across disparate ideological trends around a limited, shared
goal. That didn’t last. As time went on, social media encouraged
political society to self-segregate into communities of the like-minded,
intensifying connections among members of the same group while
increasing the distance among different groups."
"The mobilization of fear was concentrated more in the politically
activist communities than in the broader public. One of the most
striking findings in the statistical analysis is the extremely low
incidence of “fear basket” terms in the Couch Party cluster. Contrary to
the common portrayal of Egypt as a society consumed by fear and chaos
during this time, the apolitical group was not consumed by
fear, or at least not talking about it on Twitter. Instead, fear basket
terms seem to be most found within the activist cluster and the Islamist
cluster, the most politicized of the groupings."
So people form cliques. I see this every day on social media. But I guess that's their point - what happens to a revolution when the cliques start forming? Can you still maintain a revolution or is this a sign of the end?
Internet Collective Action is people organizing in a nonhierarchical manner to accomplish a particular goal. The reward is in the doing, and how much or how little anyone participates is completely voluntary, depending on their abilities and commitment to the goal. By this process amazing things can be accomplished. ICA will grow so long as the Internet is free. http://www.lisamcpherson.org/pc.htm is an example of ICA.
