Building Symbolic Capital: Gender, Social networking, and the Politicization of Arab Youth

Paper presented at MESA - Washington, December 2011New media, social networking sites and blogs have played a key role in the mobilization and organization of mass movements of dissent and revolutions in the Arab world. In Egypt, the first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed an escalation of social and political protest movements which were empowered and energized by activists in cyberspace who reported and disseminated information about these movements, breaking the media embargo imposed by Arab regimes. New media, blogs, then Facebook and twitter, became important sources of information about new political groups and new modes of activism. At the same time, new movements, and new political subjects emerged as a consequence of action organized in cyberspace. Young men and women were at the forefront of these new movements, that ultimately, led to radical transformations currently underway and known as the Arab Spring. In this presentation, I argue that young men and women have been empowered by social networking sites to devise new modes for political participation and to accumulate symbolic capital that enabled them to be effective on the ground. I will begin by shedding light on three young women who played an active role in the mobilization of protests demanding radical change. I will reflect on the implications of their actions in relation to gender and citizenship, how their politicization via cyberspace is indicative of the story of a generation of young men and women who gained political awareness and were politically empowered on social networking sites, generation 2.0