Question:
Think about the rise and rise of the Internet: were its shape, its form and its
function inevitable? Could it have been different? If so, how?

As the development of the Internet, it is meant to be the
primary source of communication, which can be clearly seen in everyday life
around us. It gives us the opportunities for real – time interpersonal
communication and data retrieval without the limitations of time and space
cooperate with offline social interaction (Maratea 2014, p. 3). Moreover, it
delivers news and information to everyone across the globe very quick and on
time (Maratea 2014, p. 3). As part of society today, we are adapting and
engaging in a broad variety of online environment such as we communicate with
people, get news, pay bill and other online activities. The Internet becomes a
central source for us to do these activities in global scope. Notably, within
the development of the Internet day by day, it shapes the way that we
communicate with each other, it provides new spaces for us to do many things
such as pay bill, getting news and information, debate and discussion, and many
more. This essay will argue how the use of the Internet effects on the politic
and economy within Egypt during the Arab Spring 2010.

As Castell (2009, p. 70) argues the information technology
innovation shapes and interacts with economy and society. Indeed, by using the
Internet nowadays, it is a central platform to conduct business, connect people
to people and provides government services. Huang and Sun (2015, p. 94)
demonstrate the relationships between the Internet and globalisation. In this
case, Huang and Sun (2015, p. 94) argue that dispersal of the Internet effects
on economic and financial globalisation, social globalisation and political
globalisation in every nation. Clearly, the Internet influences on trading both
good and services, which Huang and Sun (2015, p. 94) explain that the Internet
technology will effect on the development of global markets for goods possible.
In addition, the trade of services will be influenced as the new services will
receive the transmittable via the Internet that “can now be traded almost at no
cost, irrespective of location” (Huang and Sun 2015, p. 94).

In the political perspective, the Internet is certainly to
decrease the costs of organising and communicating information. Papacharissi
(2002, p. 9) explains that the Internet allows us to access any information;
especially the political discussion that never available on the official media.
Secondly, the Internet gives us a space to discuss between person and person on
far sides of the world; however, it also “frequently fragmented the political
discourse” (Papacharissi 2002, p. 9). Last but not least, in term of the
patterns of global capitalism, the Internet – based technologies will engage
itself in the current political culture, rather than creating a new one
(Papacharissi 2002, p. 9). Undoubtedly, since the Internet appears, it changes
the way that people communicate with each other and the way people accumulate
news and information. We used to live in the development of World Wide Web
(also known as Web 1.0), which allows us to get information such as texts,
sounds, videos, and animations on the websites, interlinked with other websites
(Fuchs 2007, p. 126). Nonetheless, we cannot communicate with each other on
time.

With the development of new technologies, it allows us to
access any information and real – time interpersonal communication, which
connect a person to the public and the social and political arena (Papacharissi
2002, p. 10). The increasing of new platforms such as MySpace, YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter and much more has significant features of the web in term
of communication cooperation (Fuchs 2007, p. 126). As many theorists argue,
communication is an act of the sharing or exchange information. The process of
communication through technology communication can be defined as “the
characteristics of the senders and receivers of information, their cultural
codes of reference and protocols of communication, and the scope of the
communication process” (Castells 2013, p. 78). Given this, the two – way
communicate is established, and people get news and information and response on
the current issue at the same time. For example, Facebook, Twitter and other
social media sites provide spaces for us to communicate with each other and to
get news and information as quickly as possible and easy to access to any
information.

As we acknowledge that the appearance of Facebook and
Twitter had strongly influenced on political issues in the global scope. At
present, the new light on the information technology can be considered as human
engagement and sociality. In this case, the Egypt’ Revolution in 2010 is the
best example when we discuss the relationship between the Internet, political
issue, economic problem and civic engagement.

The Egypt Revolution is not new, but it is always mentioned
when we talk about the impact of the Internet and political issues. It remarks
the turning point of the use of the Internet is the use of social media sites.
As Maratea (2014, p. 7 – 10) reveals six key effects of Internet users. The
author demonstrates that by using the Internet, users are free to provide their
claim – makings and protest locations, a large platform to accumulate
information and deliver information to the world. In addition, the Internet
helps activists with greater flexibility and creating claims and managing
protest action that catch the public attention. Furthermore, the Internet
provides a space for every user freely to control and search any news and
information that they choose to read. However, there are some concerns
regarding the credibility of news and information on the Internet as well as
the stability concerns in cyberspace. The movement first starts in January
2011, which all Egyptians call for an uprising across the country to against
poverty, unemployment, government corruption and overthrow the current
president Hosni Mubarak. There are millions of Egyptian in the downtown in
Cairo on the national holiday, and heading to the ruling National Democratic
Party.

 Arthur (2011) reports
that in 2011, there are around 19.2 million of Egypt’s 80 million population
have the Internet access. They usually access through Internet café, mobile
internet or public information technology clubs (Arthur 2011). Thanks to the
development of Internet, the first movement started on January 25, 2011, which
heavily organised on social media sites, are Facebook and Twitter. According to
Attia et.al. (2011, p. 370), they illustrate that Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and
other social media sites are playing the significant role in every country
nowadays. It is because it gives many opportunities to use the power of a
community to engage in the democratic process in order to change or try to make
the world a better place (Purdy 2017, p. 319). In the Egypt Revolution case,
Egyptians have created many pages as well as many events, which tried to catch
Egyptian attention. As consequences, the movements attracted millions Egyptian
on the first day of protest.

Purdy (2017, p. 319) argues since many people view
information on the Internet, the issue becomes more popular, and the Internet
is the democratising agents. In other words, the Internet is an agent to
facilitate participation in many aspects of civic life, organising the online
meeting, the connections between group members in offline communities or even a
tool to monitor data from companies (Purdy 2017, p. 319). In the Egypt’s case,
the use of social media sites, as well as the Internet, had caught many
international attention regarding the Egypt Revolution in 2011. Therefore,
after three days of the protest, the Egyptian authorities had to shut down the
Internet access as the Egyptian use it to access to social media sites such as
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to gather protests. Arthur (2011) reports on the
Guardian newspapers that Egyptians cannot access to Facebook and Twitter as the
authorities of Mubarak’s regime “tried to prevent social media from being used
to foment unrest.” Consequently, Egyptians within the country and people from outside
the country cannot deliver the news and information about the movement on any
social media sites. Despite it happened during the movement, Egyptians found
the other way to access to the Facebook, Twitter and any social media sites by
using some proxy sites, VPN and software such as hotspot shield (Lavrusik
2011).

Indeed, the new tools of social media sites have shaped the
way people organise movements. The occurrence of Facebook, Twitter and so on
has changed the traditional relationship between political authority and their
citizens (Gladwell 2010, p. 2). As revealed by Shirky (2011, p. 28), social
media sites are the mirror of the fact of our civil society worldwide, which is
engaging by many factors such as activists, nongovernmental organisations and
so on. Indeed, Egyptian activists communicated and connected with each other
through Facebook and Twitter to coordinate the rallies. For example, they
indicated the purposes of doing as under Mubarak’s regime; it was controlled
the political process by exchanging phases of relatively, even though limited,
opening, to phases of deepening authoritarian and harsh repression (Paciello
2011, p. 6). As consequences, there are limited civil and political rights,
repressed political opponents, and managed carefully the electoral process
(Paciello 2011, p. 6).

Thanks to the viral of news and information on social media
sites regard to the protests in Egypt, after 18 days of massive protests, Hosni
Mubarak stepped down after more than 30 years being the Egypt’s president.
Obviously, this political transition had significantly influenced the economy
of this nation. In the economics aspect, president Hosni Mubarak controlled
“the implement market – oriented reforms gradually, resisting deep structural
reforms that would have both harmed the ruling’s elites’ economic interests and
entailed disrupting social dislocation.” In this case, it led to the increasing
of inequalities, worsening poverty levels, rising the younger generation
unemployment among educated and so on (Paciello 2011, p. 6).

According to the Harding (2016), it states that before the
revolution, Egypt’s economy was quite healthy. At the mid – the 2000s, the
development of the gross domestic product (GDP) was 7% annually and by 2010,
Egypt got foreign currency up to $35 billion and stood at $2,600 GDP per
capita. In contrast, after the revolution in 2011, Egypt became a lower
middle-income country due to the political transition (Overview 2016). Kingsley
(2013) demonstrates that after the political crisis, Egypt had experienced a
dramatic fall in both foreign investment and tourism revenues. Kingsley (2013)
indicates that “60% drop in foreign exchange reserves, a 3% drop in growth, and
a rapid devaluation of the Egyptian pound.” It led to the increasing of food
prices, unemployment for the younger generation and a shortage of fuel and
cooking gas (Kingsley 2013). Afterwards, the economy in Egypt is slowly
improving from 2014 according to the World Bank’s report in 2016. It indicates
that “the annual rates of GDP increases up to 4 percent in 2014/2015 and
2015/2016 up from an average of only 2 percent during the period 2010/2011 –
2013/2014” (Overview 2016).

In conclusion, the Egypt Revolution is the great example to
illustrate the impact of the Internet on both politics and economics within the
nation. The Internet is an agent for activists and other citizens to
communicate and connect with each other to coordinate movements. In other
words, it shapes the way people contact with each other. The development of the
Internet means the rise of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube, which provides new spaces for everyone communicate with each other. In
the political perspective, it delivers news and information regarding the
political issues inside and outside the country. Consequently, citizens have
new spaces to discuss, debate and rise their own voices. Likewise, in January
2010, the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton states that the United States
would promote Internet freedom abroad, which means “the freedom to access
information, the freedom of ordinary citizens to produce their own public
media, and the freedom of citizens to converse with one another” (Shirky 2011,
p. 30 – 31). In the economic aspect, it influences in term of declining the GDP,
unemployment in the younger generation, food prices and the prices of fuel and
gas if the crisis happened within the country.

References     

• Arthur, C 2011, ‘Egypt blocks social media websites in attempted clampdown on unrest’, The Guardian, January 27.
• Attia, AM, Aziz, N, Friedman, B & Elhusseiny, MF 2011, ‘Commentary: The Impact of social          networking tools on political change in Egypt’s “Revolution 2.0”’, Electronic Commerce Research & Applications, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 369 – 374.
• Castells, M 2009, The rise of the Network Society, with a New Preface: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Volume I, Honoken: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.
• Castell, M 2013, Communication Power, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fuchs, C 2008, Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age, New York: Routledge.
• Gladwell, M 2010, ‘Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted’, Annals of innovation.
• Harding, H 2016, ‘Analysis: Egypt’s Economy five years after the revolution’, Middle East Eye, January 23.
• Huang, TT & Sun BQ 2015, ‘The impact of the Internet on Global Industry: New Evidence of Internet Measurement’, Research in International Business and Finance, vol. 37, pp. 93 – 112.
• Kingsley, P 2013, ‘Egypt’ suffering worst economic crisis since 1930s’, The Guardian, May 16.
• Lavrusk, V 2011, ‘How users in Egypt are bypassing Twitter & Facebook Blocks’, Mashable Australia, January 28.
• Maratea, RJ 2014, The politics of the Internet: political claims-making in cyber space and its effect on modern political activism, Lanham Lexington Books.
• ‘Overview’ 2016, World Bank, October 1.
• Paciello, MC 2011, ‘Egypt: Changes and Challenges of Political Transition. MEDPRO Technical Report No. 4/May 2011.’
• Papacharissi, Z 2002, ‘The virtual sphere: the Internet as a public sphere’, New Media & Society, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 9.
• Purdy, SJ 2017, ‘Internet use and civic engagement: A structural equation approach’, Computers in Human Behaviour, p. 318.
• Shirky, C 2011, ‘Political Power of Social media – Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change, The [Comments]’, Foreign Affairs, no. 1, p. 28.