Affective News and Networked Publics: The Rhythms of News Storytelling on #Egypt

Networked publics' fusing of activist discourse with traditional news narratives results in an 'affective' flow of information that can speak to the common experiences, concerns, and sympathies of larger publics.

“In particular, networked publics' fusing of activist discourse with traditional news narratives results in an 'affective' flow of information that can speak to the common experiences, concerns, and sympathies of larger publics.”

Such flows of information provide a form of emotional release that simultaneously invigorates and exhausts tension in times of social crisis.

“Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira contend that such flows of information 'provide a form of emotional release that simultaneously invigorates and exhausts tension' in times of social crisis (p.280).”

Twitter can provide a continuous stream of information from the perspective of those closest to crisis events.

“Unlike traditional modes of news reporting and information sharing, they argue, Twitter can provide a continuous stream of information from the perspective of those closest to crisis events.”

Social media in general, and Twitter in particular, have enormous capacity to elevate and sustain counterpublic voices and refocus the attention of the mainstream public sphere.

“While much of so-called 'activism' online is quite inactive in terms of sustained social change, recent work illustrates the enormous capacity for social media in general, and Twitter in particular, to elevate and sustain counterpublic voices and refocus the attention of the mainstream public sphere (Hamdy & Gomaa, 2012;Lewis, Gray, & Meierhenrich, 2014;Papacharissi & de Fatima Oliveira, 2012).”

Crowdsourced elites are a hodgepodge of actors who became prominent network influencers because of how their storytelling during the Egyptian revolution resonated with their networks and the resulting reply and retweet networks, elevating regular citizens to the same status as more traditional information sources.

“They identify crowdsourced elites as a hodgepodge of actors who became prominent network influencers because of how their storytelling during the Egyptian revolution resonated with their networks and the resulting reply and retweet networks -elevating regular citizens to the same status as more traditional information sources.”

Our findings support other works on the potential of public interest to outweigh state interest in setting agendas and creating the terms for debate.

“Our findings support other works on the potential of public interest to outweigh state interest in setting agendas and creating the terms for debate (Benkler et al., 2013;Papacharissi & de Fatima Oliveira, 2012).”