A Page and Its Politics: Situating Kullinā Khālid Saʿīd in Egypt’s Ideological Landscape at the Time of Revolution

Author(s) Robbert Woltering, Rasha Abdulla, Thomas Poell, Bernhard Rieder, Liesbeth Zack
Contact Robbert Woltering, U. of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam, Netherlands. E-mail: r.a.f.l.woltering@uva.nl
Issue CyberOrient, Vol. 9, Iss. 2, 2015, pp. 65-83
Published November 10, 2015
Type Article
Abstract In discussions concerning the importance of social media in the 25January revolution, a central role is given to the “Kullinā Khālid Saʿīd“ [We’re all Khaled Said] Facebook page. Using an advanced data collection and extraction application called Netvizz, a research team consisting of Arabists and Media studies specialists has collected and analysed all of the posts and comments exchanged through the page. This data set allows for a systematic analysis of the page. This article offers an outline of the ideological nature of “Kullinā Khālid Saʿīd“, with particular emphasis on the “revolutionary” period between 1 January – 11 February 2011. It argues that the page shows no evidence of political bias in the sense of explicit favoring of a political group. Rather, the page constituted a community of users who abstained from using politically factional language. Reflecting the mood and concerns of the revolution’s grassroots masses, it clearly illustrates the disinclination to engage with formal politics.
Keywords activism, cyberactivism, democracy, Internet studies, social media, internet, Arab Spring, Egypt