Illegal Opposition Groups Dominate Egypt's Online Public Sphere
Project on Information Technology and Political Islam, Research Memo 2010.3. Seattle, University of Washington
5 Pages Posted: 25 Feb 2015
Date Written: 2010
Abstract
In Egypt’s online political networks, illegal political parties use the web more actively than either Mubarak’s ruling party or the licensed opposition, while Western blogging platforms and news services are central, shared sources of information.
In Egypt online public sphere, the most prominent links between licensed and unlicensed political parties are brokered by blogs and Western news services.
Even more surprising, the officially licensed have the smallest amounts of digital content for voters and some of the licensed political groups barely have an online presence at all. Many licensed parties only have an online presence through the government catalogue of recognized parties. These pages offer only a short description of the party and the name of the party leader. In contrast, the unlicensed parties have large websites with diverse content and lots of external links.
External links are often used by political parties to build affinities with other groups and provide sources for ideas.
Keywords: Egypt, online political network
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