Arab Uprisings and Technology

Middle East Media

16 Nov 2022

(Real Body) Professor Laila Shereen Sakr

(Data Body) @vj_um_amel

• How might a design thinking approach to analyzing patterns of data humanize its scholarship?
   
• How do digital media disrupt our understanding of geographic boundaries
   

• In what ways do feminist digital practices work to interrupt the dominant ideology of maximum efficiency?
   

• What new knowledge or insights emerge from the study of the operational logic of social media from the Middle East uprisings?

Guiding Questions

• The history of the algorithm predates computation
   

• Algorithms are more than computation
   

• Algorithms are specifically computational
   
• ​Algorithmic Bias

The Algorithm as Cultural Object

GUIDING QUESTIONS

What happened from my perspective?

I. Building Networks

II. Glitching systems (political, capital, and technological)

III. Failure of the glitch/ that pathway forever closed

IV. Rise of the right globally

V. Towards a reparative, critical feminist geography

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)
• Software Arabization
  • Open Craft
  • Drupal
  • Torture in Egypt​

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)
• Software Arabization
  • ​​Open Craft
  • Torture in Egypt
  • Drupal
• Facebook launched in 2004

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)
• Software Arabization
  • Open Craft
  • Drupal
  • Torture in Egypt​
• Facebook launched in 2004
• Twitter launched in 2006

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)
• Software Arabization
  • Open Craft
  • Drupal
  • Torture in Egypt​
• Facebook launched in 2004
• Twitter launched in 2006
• Bloggers jailed in 2006

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)
• Software Arabization
  • Open Craft
  • Drupal
  • Torture in Egypt 
• Facebook launched in 2004
• Twitter launched in 2006
• Bloggers jailed in 2006
• Berkman Center maps blogsphere

History of Open Source in Egypt (2004-2010)

• The Muslim Brotherhood launch website in 2004
• The Kefaya Movement (a grassroots coalition which prior to the 2011)
• Software Arabization
  • Open Craft
  • Drupal
  • Torture in Egypt 
• Facebook launched in 2004
• Twitter launched in 2006
• Bloggers jailed in 2006
• Berkman Center maps blogsphere in 2009
• Largest discussion forum on internet in 2009 - Fatafat

"Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent"
Etling, B. Katherine MacKinnon, and Ethan Zuckerman. (link)

Real-time analytics since 2010

Over 30 billion social media posts

In more than 70 languages

R-Shief 5.0

#Jan25, #Egypt

#Libya, #Zawiya

2011 Arab Uprisings by Hashtag

Data Visualizations

Failure

Immersion and Aesthetics in Visualization

Tweet World