New media and digital activism in the Middle East, case studies: Iranian Green Movement, Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions

The study consists of four main chapters and aims to investigate contemporary and the constant scrutiny issues of new media and digital activism in the Middle Eastern region. At the first stage in the context of the theoretical framework have been examined the concept of democracy in terms of new media, and the differences between the traditional and the new media. Besides, in the context of political processes have been explored the existing theoretical approaches with different views of digital activism and the role of digital media. The study covers the period from the first Internet connection of the Middle East region in the 1990s to the present, and in terms of the new media two important case studies are discussed, which occurred during the period. The first case is the long term massive protests is known as the Iranian Green Movement and have occurred following 2009 Iranian presidential elections. The second example is the large-scale revolutionary wave that took place between 2010 and 2012, called the Arab Spring. The focus of examination in this thesis is on Tunisian and Egyptian developments. It is widely accepted that digital media have played an important role in both cases, but still exists contradictory opinions. The study concentrates over the question – how the digital media affect political and social life in the Middle East in the context of the Iranian Green Movement and the Arab Spring case studies?