How the Facebook Arabic Page “We Are All Khaled Said” Helped Promote the Egyptian Revolution

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Abstract

This study analyzes how the owner of the Facebook Arabic page “We Are All Khaled Said” both catalyzed and took advantage of opportunities in the Egyptian political climate in order to help promote the country’s 2011 revolution. Using a content analysis of posts on the Facebook page before and throughout the Egyptian revolution, the case study finds that the owner of the page, Wael Ghonim, served as a long-term trainer or coach, educating his online followers about the abuses of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime and helping them gradually become more comfortable with political activism, so that when a triggering event—the Tunisian revolution—occurred, he was able to move his followers into the streets to protest. Two other particularly successful tactics were utilized by Ghonim: He capitalized on a powerful personal story—that of a young man brutally killed by the police—in order to elicit emotion and help others identify with the cause, and he used lofty rhetoric to convince his followers that their actions could actually make a difference. The case study disproves Gladwell’s (2010) claim that social media is a platform for shallow and networked interactions, finding both that the grievances and ideas shared on this page were remarkably substantive and that the movement was not a network but rather a hierarchy, led by Ghonim until his imprisonment. The study suggests that social media is a more powerful platform for promoting political change than previously appreciated and offers important lessons for political activists.