The book titled “Leading Protests in the Digital Age”, written by Baylor Aslan Özgül, provides details on the contemporary methods of organizing protests and defines mobilization strategies by young activists in the digital age, to identify the tactics that led to tangible and extensive results, both on and off the internet. The book focuses on the protests in Egypt and Syria during the Arab Spring period, 2011. It presents data that combines the experiences and opinions of the main people that participated in these protests, whether in real life or online, through interviewing them, holding discussions and deducing several important observations.
The book then presents a different picture on the prevailing perceptions and perspectives that described the Arab uprisings as leaderless protests formed by non-hierarchical communications of digital technologies. The book also draws attention to the fact that incorporating technology and introducing new means of media, such as social media, into organizing and mobilizing protests was a pivotal step in the protest process. The author presents three types of leaders, who constitute the political communication environment in digitally supported protests, and highlights the significance of their leadership skills and their ability to mobilize, both physically and digitally. The researcher used the inductive approach, involving the observation, collection and presentation of relevant information, as well as the clarification of different sociologists’ theories on social mobility. It also presented opinions and information of experts and revolutionaries who participated in or lived in the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt and Syria, by engaging in personal interviews with them.
The book is structured into eight chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction, and outlines the chapters and a brief presentation of their contents. Next, the second chapter presents different national contexts in Syria and Egypt, where it compares the political, economic, and cultural contexts, in addition to the structures of civil society and the media in these countries, comparing and contrasting between the two countries. The third chapter deals with various actors in the scene, their role in the organizational process of the uprising and the continuity of protests, and then tests modern theories on leadership in digitally supported movements and their development, through incorporating 3 types of leaderships that existed in the Egyptian protests. Moreover, the chapter clarifies that the Egyptians’ previous protest experience, together with their social networks had a crucial impact in providing a consistent organization, unlike what happened in Syria. The fourth chapter presents the “resource mobilization theory” in light of modern movements, tracing efforts of mobilization and coordination among Egyptian protestors, and is concerned with the role of political institutions and NGOs in expanding networks and providing technical resources.
The results show that the activists’ previous protest experience enabled them to effectively use interpersonal communication methods online and offline. The fifth chapter continues to discuss several parties leading protests in Syria, and their role in sustaining the mobilization process. As for the sixth chapter, it reveals the coordination and mobilization capabilities of activists and protestors in Syria. Meanwhile, the seventh chapter compares the capabilities of the leaders in Egypt and Syria, who were mentioned in advance in the previous chapters. Finally, the eighth chapter includes the researcher’s opinions on the chapters of the book, providing a summary on the main issues mentioned, in addition to presenting the opinions of activists in Egypt and Syria, during and after the Arab Spring revolutions.
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