The Emergence of Libyan Networked Publics: Social Media Use during and after the Libyan Uprising

It is often claimed that social media sites such as Facebook played a key role during the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. Yet there have been few attempts to track what happened during and after the Libyan uprising, and how social media are – and are not - contributing to the development of revolutionary and post-revolutionary public sphere in the Libyan context. In Libya, there was an explosive growth in social media use during the post-uprising period. This rapid growth could be seen to potentially form the basis for the emergence of a new democratic, networked public sphere. By engaging with different conceptualizations and various critiques of Habermas’[1] public sphere concept, this study aims to explore the nature of emergent Libyan digital publics, and their possible role in transforming the Libyan public sphere