Redefining Publics

Mosireen, State Crime and the Rise of a Digital Public Sphere

Bibliographic Data

ID13009151
AuthorsSaeb Kasm (Queen Mary University of London, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume7
Issue1
Publication date2018-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueState Crime Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2046-6056 • E-ISSN: 2046-6064
PublisherPluto Journals (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.13169/statecrime.7.1.0100
OpenAlexW2893944430
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited61

The article traces the rise of Mosireen , a non-profit media collective, within the parameters of revolutionary and post-revolutionary Egypt's public sphere. It highlights how the Mosireen Collective strategically co-opted the infrastructure of the internet during critical periods of the Egyptian revolution as a tool of resistance to fight injustice, expose human rights violations and restore some semblance of accountability. Moreover, it explores Mosireen 's innovative online/offline digital activism which enabled formerly marginalized publics to access new modes of information and challenge elite-driven discourses, thereby contributing to the “democratization” of the public sphere. The article further investigates Mosireen's emancipatory use of technology where the creation of an oppositional framework not only sustained “resistance from below” movements but also seemed to open up new potentialities for counter-hegemonic spaces and alternative discursive frameworks of society. The article provides a rich case study in how ideological struggles and questions of power are interpreted within the broader realm of Egyptian civil society with a particular focus on the power of visual production and its effect on the development of digital counter-publics. Finally, the limitations of the public sphere under neo-liberal capitalism are contextualized and critiqued within the context of the Mosireen Collective and broader digital resistance movements

Civil society · Hegemony · Ideology · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Public sphere · Resistance (ecology · Social movement · Sociology · Law · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Social Media and Politics