Social Media and Citizen Social Movement Process for Political Change: The Case of 2011 Egyptian Revolution

The power and role played by social media in developing social and political movements for political changes in North Africa and the Middle East have transformed how social media viewed and used. To date, few IS studies have investigated the role of Information Systems in the context of politics. The goal of this paper is to understand the role of social media including micro-blogs and social networking sites in activism, social movement, and revolutionary political change using the 2011 Cairo Revolts as part of narrative research. Particularly, we are interested in answering the research question: What is the process by which social media influence online activism and shape social movement for revolutionary political change? We develop a process-oriented view of the case of the Egyptian revolution and fall of Mubarak and present the story of the event that occurred in 2011 as an emergent and less than predictable event.