The Berkman Center is pleased to announce the publication of “Mobilization for Change,” a new series of reports examining the role of the networked public sphere in advancing civic participation and collective action in the Arab region. The online space in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain reflects a growingly polarized and contentious offline political environment, with less consensus than existed five years ago. Fieldwork corroborates insights from social network mapping in this regard and confirms the continued importance of traditional political powerhouses as well as offline networks in mobilization. Yet digital media still offer a comparatively open venue for competing perspectives, providing more freedom for individual expression than traditional media in these countries.
