Popular Culture & The Civic Imagination: Youth Culture and Civic Imagination After the Arab Spring (1 of 2)
/Youth Culture and Civic Imagination After the Arab Spring
Jessica Yang & Sulafa Zidani
The material you analyze in your chapter is politically sensitive material but was able to bypass censorship because of their nuanced nature. Has the material or the people you talked to ever faced censorship? If so, how did they deal with that situation?
The people creating this material online have deep knowledge of the context in which they are operating. This includes familiarity with the laws and regulations in relation to censorship, and also, perhaps even more importantly, an understanding of the nuanced ways in which the government exercises control over content online outside of these regulations. In other words, people know how far they can stretch their critical messages, and they are usually aware if they create content that might risk getting them into some kind of trouble. This fluency is part of the reason why the content looks the way it does. In our chapter, Yomna and I discuss the different uses for humor and specifically of the disclaimer “just for fun” that categorizes most of these pages. One of the purposes of labeling the content as purely for fun is to place criticism within a frame that is non-threatening or ostensibly non-political. This does not only help with censorship but also marks this content as a space to think about issues and imagine new responses to the current situation.
Given the sensitive nature of these images and jokes, did you see any strategies for avoiding the archival or searchable affordances of platforms like Facebook, such as a specific way of tagging, closed groups, etc.?
Using private settings and unsearchable hashtags are practices that--intentionally or unintentionally--do help protect content from being discovered. They are also practices that, in their lack of coherence, form the type of content that characterizes the creativity of Arab youth after the Arab Spring; a creativity that does not follow the practices set forth by the platforms on which they operate or the dominant cultures around them because they are exploring new and innovative solutions.
Many social media groups and pages are now closed or private, but this shift might be more related to the norms of specific social media platforms than a desire to hide from censors. For example, on Instagram, some meme pages have turned private in the past couple of years as a way to attract followers. When it comes to searchability and archiving, one of the main ways to search for online content is by using hashtags or searching keywords that may appear in a caption. However, most of the content we discuss in the chapter is visual content and it is not categorized using hashtags or keywords, and therefore is not really searchable. Even the names of the pages are not names that would appear if you search for funny or satirical Arabic content. Names like "translation has been made" (Tamt Altagrama) or "distressed" (Mawtoura), although they hint at characteristics of the content on the page, they do not use descriptive words that can trace the content (like "satirical," "funny," "humorous," "Arabic" content).
It is debatable whether this is intentional on part of the creators as a move to avoid censorship. It can also be part of the desire to be creative and continue the process of producing new content and ideas. For example, one of the hashtags used on several Arabic humor pages on instagram is #zaatarinyourteeth. Zaatar, the Middle Eastern herb mix that is usually enjoyed on bread with olive oil, is known to get stuck in teeth because one of its main ingredients, thyme, is ground very thin. Zaatar never appears in the images that are tagged with this hashtag, nor do anyone's zaatar-filled teeth. However this hashtag is still used to signal a particular type of humor and as a way to invite a smile that might perhaps reveal the zaatar in the viewer's teeth. Other similar uses of hashtags and captions include listing a number of different Arab countries or using emojis such as flags of Arab countries or the so-called "Face with Tears of Joy" Emoji (😂). Whether or not these hashtags are used to avoid censorship, they are clearly a creative choice of labelling that is used to signal that this is a particular type of content.
Assuming that much of this material works on a certain level of obscurity or at least opacity from the government, is there any danger to academic attention being homed in on these subjects? Have these spaces moved since this attention?
Research ethics under such circumstances are complex. Certain practices that we are accustomed to--like transparency about sources and sharing data--may in fact put people at risk in certain situations. For example, sharing direct quotes and links to content is considered ethical in that it demonstrates transparency and gives readers the chance to evaluate the data of the study for themselves. However, in many contexts, revealing the author of controversial content or direct links to controversial posts might put the authors in danger of being persecuted. So, the ethics related to research transparency might sometimes conflict with ethics of protecting research participants. While institutional bodies that govern ethics, like the Institutional Review Board (IRB), provide guidelines for ethical research, in fact these guidelines are not always enough for protecting people in complex contexts, especially given the fast-paced changes of technology. Institutions usually change more slowly, and therefore the work of solving ethical conflicts falls often on individual or group decisions of researchers.
Using their knowledge and understanding of the context in which they are operating, researchers estimate what measures would keep their participants safe while maintaining the integrity of their study. In our chapter, Yomna and I draw on ethnographic research for solutions. For example, using (and sometimes shifting) pseudonyms to protect participants, and consulting directly with participants as to how they wish to identify.
Many governments around the world are already observing or serveilling content posted online. Based on my knowledge of the context in China and in Egypt, the government seeks censorship as a way to prevent an organized collective call to action. This chapter as well as other studies show that creative content online acts less as an organized call to action and more as a spontaneous open-ended brainstorm. This creative content is not an explicit unified vision of change, but rather a way of imagining, practicing, or learning. Governments deal with online content in different ways, and some have more extensive or complex censorship systems than others. The way that a government reacts to this content depends on their preexisting censorship and what their concerns are at the present moment. My presumption here is that governments that are interested in these subtle cultural shifts are already keeping an eye on creative content, while governments that are looking exclusively at collective organizing would continue to focus on political activists, social movements, and the like.
In some countries, Egypt being one example, online content and academic content are both closely watched. This may give academics a better understanding of the challenges that content creators have in mind when they post online. Because, as it happens these challenges are always changing. Censorship and citizens are both continually responding to ever changing political, cultural, economic, and other conditions, as well as to each other. Researching how the dynamics operate benefits our understanding of culture and creativity in a certain moment of time or under specific conditions.
Sulafa Zidani is a Doctoral Candidate in Communication at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Her research is concentrated in social, political, and cultural aspects of digital media technology, global and transnational communication, cultural hybridity, and critical pedagogy. You can find her work on sulafazidani.com.
Jing Xian (Jessica) Yang is a second year Masters student in the Cinema and Media Studies department at the University of Southern California. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, double majoring in Psychology and Film Studies. Her research interests include fandom, YouTube, and audience research.
