Beyond the Technology Debate: A General Introduction

Abstract

More than fi ve years have elapsed since the appearance of the unprec-edented waves of protests that engulfed the Middle East and North Africa (hereinafter referred to as MENA). During these years, revolutions, coun-terrevolutions, civil wars, coup d'états, and political status-quo maneuver-ing have failed so far, with fragile and questionable exceptions here and there, to usher the region into or at least situate it on the track of demo-cratic transition. This is neither very surprising nor exceptional. Scholars in diverse disciplines are still struggling to theorize about the origin of revolutions and uprisings, and have yet to account for their outcome. As Goldstone (2003) reminds us, while the roots of revolutions are located in social, economic, and policy transformations, their processes and outcomes are determined by different factors, including elite conditions, interna-tional conjunctures, and ideological and ideational innovation (pp. 1–5). Adding another layer to this indeterminacy is the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly the Internet in these events, which continues to be a hotly debated and deeply polarized issue. On the one hand, technology-centered perspectives advance, the notion— albeit with different shades of determinism—that the Internet and social media have played a decisive role in engendering the unprecedented wave of uprisings in the region. Skeptics, on the other hand, have raised doubt about the alleged role of technology, with many scholars arguing that technology has played a limited role, if any, in generating and sustaining the revolutions and subsequent political activities. In fact, critics have rightly highlighted the complex confl ation of socioeconomic variables and regional and international conjunctures that have coalesced towards creating the right conditions for the revolutions. The ramifi cations of globalization on the region, failure of development policies, epidemic corruption and cronyism, soaring unemployment rates, especially among young and highly educated people, the expan-sion of middle classes, repression and the abysmal record of basic human rights are among the most-cited factors that have coalesced to produce an optimal setting for radical dissent and popular revolutions to fl our-ish (Castells, 2012 ; Khosrokhavar, 2012 ; Mason, 2012 ; Muasher, 2014 ; Pollack et al., 2014). Undoubtedly, communication technologies do not cause revolutions and uprisings any more than they determine economic and social develop-ment. While commentators are right to criticize technological determin-ism, they seldom provide alternative interpretations on how we can better understand the role of new media in the ongoing revolutions and histori-cal transformation. Communication technologies are tools appropriated by social actors to achieve specifi c goals. When these tools are used they also shape what these actors can do and, in the process, can transform the actors' objectives and their implications. This applies to the fi eld of politi-cal dissent, where social actors' contentious politics is dialectically linked to the repertoires available to them. As Tilly and Tarrow explain (2007), " when people make collective claims, they innovate within limits set by the repertoire already established for their place, time, and pair " (p. 16). That is, while new media such as the Internet and mobile phones have not produced political change in the region, their diffusion has certainly transformed the information and communication ecology in the region, thus facilitating the development of new forms of social movements and a culture of dissent that played a key role in the ongoing uprisings. In fact, the most important issue is not to ascertain whether or not social media are behind the current uprisings; what is more urgent is to analyze how new communication technologies, as socially embedded arti-facts and phenomena, are intersecting with various social structures and 4 M.B. MOUSSA