Opportunities and constraints of semanticpropaganda in the age of social media: Arab "spring", "revolution", "crisis" or "counterrevolution"

Abstract

The street protests, government overthrows and armed conflicts in some Arab countries since 2010 on are as different in both their roots and development as these countries are from one another. Their peculiarities did not prevent them from being labelled with a homogenizing and supposedly explanatory set of tags, which, however, fulfilled propagandistic needs. These easily replicated tags became popular in social media, although only prevailed in the narratives of the unfolding events when they reached mainstream media. This triggered a phenomenon of transmedia propaganda. Through literature review and case studies we explore the background and evolution of two concepts -spring and revolution- used to categorize the facts and promote them as positive events. In a refined approach to the facts or as semantic counter-propaganda actions, we have also identified the alternative concepts of crisis and counter-revolution. Quantitative analysis, which shows data on the presence and frequency of the tags between January 2010 and January 2022, is a complement to content and discourse analyses that provide insight into the context and meanings with which tags are used. The wider or narrower spread and consolidation of these tags, in Arabic and English, shows the persuasive and categorizing power or weakness of these purposed definitions. It also talks about the real scope of social media, useful for agitation but ineffective tools for deep socio-political transformation.