Abstract

Did Al Gore predict the Arab Springs? If so, what does this mean for the remaining authoritarian countries with active internet publics in the Middle East and beyond? What can such processes of Internet enabled change teach us about revolution in the digital age?

This presentation will look at a wide range of interdisciplinary learning on revolution and its meanings. It will wade through competing explanations of how, why and if new media relationships transform publics, politics and power. Explanations will then be applied to current cases of change (or lack thereof) in the Middle East.

Biography

Deborah L. Wheeler is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the American University of Kuwait.  Her publications include:  The Internet and the Middle East:  Global Expectations and Local Imaginations in Kuwait (Albany:  State University of New York Press, 2006) and a wide range of articles and book chapters spaning a decade and a half of research on the development and impact of the Internet in the Middle East.  She has conducted field work in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Turkey, Kuwait and Oman.  She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

The lecture takes place
friday 11 November 2011, kl. 14.15-16.00
Store Auditorium, Incuba Science Park