Journal of Communication ISSN 0021 9916 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Clicks Cabs and Coffee Houses Social Media and Oppositional Movements in Egypt 2004 2011 Merlyna Lim Consortium of Science Policy Outcomes and the School of Social Transformation Arizona State University Tempe AZ 85281 USA To deepen our understanding of the relationship between social media and political change during the Egyptian uprising of early 2011 events in Tahrir Square must be situated in a larger context of media use and recent history of online activism For several years the most successful social movements in Egypt including Kefaya the April 6th Youth and We are all Khaled Said were those using social media to expand networks of disaffected Egyptians broker relations between activists and globalize the resources and reach of opposition leaders Social media afforded these opposition leaders the means to shape repertoires of contention frame the issues propagate unifying symbols and transform online activism into offline protests doi 10 1111 j 1460 2466 2012 01628 x Hosni Mubarak Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser are having tea in the afterlife Mubarak asks Nasser How did you end up here Poison Nasser answers Mubarak then turns to Sadat What about you he asks An assassin s bullet Sadat says Sadat and Nasser then turn to Mubarak And you To which Mubarak replies Facebook This joke has been making the rounds in Egypt since the resignation of President Mubarak on 11 February 2011 While amusing the joke epitomizes the prevalent perception about the role of social media particularly Facebook in the Arab uprisings Some observers deem social media as the main force behind the popular movement against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North African region Cohen 2011 Webster 2011 Wael Ghonim a marketing manager for Google and an online activist who created the Facebook page that helped organize Corresponding author Merlyna Lim e mail Merlyna Lim asu edu Journal of Communication 62 2012 231 248 2012 International Communication Association 231 Clicks Cabs and Coffee Houses M Lim the protest called the Egypt uprising Revolution 2 0 and said I want to meet Mark Zuckerberg one day and thank him if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet Cooper 2011 However others dismiss the role of social media and argue that the revolution would have happened without the Internet and had little to do with Twitter and Facebook Rich 2011 York 2011 These polarized opinions reflect ongoing debate over the impact of the Internet on politics and democracy Techno utopian scholars view the Internet s expansion in access to information and exchanges of ideas as enhancing political participation civil society and democracy Hague Loader 1999 Kamarck Nye 1999 Locke 1998 In contrast techno dystopians see the Internet as posing a threat to democracy through the ways in which governments and corporations use it to manipulate users and legitimize their identities Barber 1996 Fox 1994 and by demeaning political discourse Gutstein 1999 Moore 1999 Wilhelm 1998 In The Net Delusion Morozov 2011 for instance argues that the Internet easily lends itself to the repressive control and the abuse of power by authoritarian governments It is an oversimplification to frame the Egyptian revolt exclusively as either a Facebook revolution or a people s revolution People and social media are not detached from each other Zhuo Wellman Yu 2011 To provide a context for understanding media use and recent history of online activism in Egypt Figure 1 offers a timeline of the most important social movement actions street protests online mobilizations policy successes and strategic defeats for the Egyptian opposition Informed by a wide range of scholarly sources archival materials and personal communications this figure helps fill out the narrative of social media use and political change in Egypt Most important it illustrates that social media have been an integral part of political activism of the Egyptian for years showing for instance that 54 out of 70 recorded street protests from 2004 to 2011 substantially involved online activism Hence the power of networked individuals and groups who toppled Mubarak presidency cannot be separated from the power of social media that facilitated the formation and the expansion of the networks themselves To fully understand phenomena such as the Tahrir revolt we need to look beyond the period of late January and early February 2011 and beyond Facebook and Twitter Every moment has a history including the Tahrir Square The Arab uprisings were built on years of civil society movements in the region online and offline Although this article focuses specifically on Egypt the Tunisian revolt did not happen instantaneously either It also had deep historical roots in years in the hard work of Tunisian civil society and in the long established digital activism in the country especially the vibrant activism of the online anticensorship movement Randeree 2011 The genesis of online activism in Egypt can be traced to the rise of the Kefaya movement in 2004 followed by the emergence of oppositional activists in the Egyptian blogosphere This was well before Facebook and Twitter became available in the country By delving into the history of online activism in Egypt from 2004 to 2011 Figure 1 my goal is to locate the actual role of social media in mobilizing populist 232 Journal of Communication 62 2012 231 248 2012 International Communication Association Clicks Cabs and Coffee Houses Figure 1 Timeline of street activisms in Egypt 2003 2011 Substantially organized online M Lim Journal of Communication 62 2012 231 248 2012 International Communication Association 233 Clicks Cabs and Coffee Houses M Lim movements over a broad geography and longer space of time I contend that the role of social media in the Egypt revolt was not merely technological but also sociopolitical Social media represent tools and spaces in which various communication networks that make up social movement emerge connect collapse and expand Grievances movements and social networks Social media were not the singular cause of the Egypt uprising and Arab Spring in general Longstanding grievances concerning corrupt and oppressive government growing inequalities looming unemployment and the rising cost of living were the roots for contention in the region With comparatively lower political rights and civil liberties ratings Freedom House 2011 widespread perception of