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Paper short abstract:

This paper questions the romanticised perspective of the role New Online Social Media played in the Arab Spring by identifying the different agencies making use of them (local and international), their synergies with conventional media and the way they get articulated with offline political processes.

Paper long abstract:

Analyses on the uprisings and democratization processes taking place in the

Arab region, since December 2010, have claimed the centrality of the New Online

Social Media (NOSM) in the organization of the protests, identifying them

as the crucial actor in propagating and mobilizing the people to contest

the repressive political regimes in power. However, this perspective on the

NOSM tends to be highly romanticised, neglecting to explore the

different national and international actors which in fact make use of the NOSM, as well as the articulations and linkages with other instruments of mobilization. . This paper aims to

analyse the role the NOSM in the recent Arab uprising and democratization

processes by (1) identifying and analyzing the different agencies making

use of the NOSM; (2) exploring the articulation between online and offline

political processes; (3) understanding the synergies between conventional

media and NOSM; and (4) exploring the NOSM as a platform for international

intervention.