Collectively we unite on Facebook: A case study of Egypt's collective action on Facebook toward social change

Abstract

The development of the famous social networking site, Facebook, has been associated with significant challenges to regimes that are characterized by being repressive to its citizens in terms of freedom of speech and expression, and mostly are third world developing countries that suffer. Egypt provides a good case study of Facebook ability to organize a strike among its citizens. April 6, 2008 is curved in the memories of Egyptians as a "general dissent day" that was initiated through Facebook and then was transmitted to almost every Egyptian citizen using other media sources. This paper shows how Facebook facilitates collective identity for social change. Qualitative research was conducted using a case study method in order to answer six research questions.

Date of Award	2008
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Melanie Mills (Supervisor)