Blogging in Beirut: An Ethnography of a Digital Media Practice 9783839441428

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Sarah Jurkiewicz Blogging in Beirut

Culture and Social Practice

Sarah Jurkiewicz (PhD) is a post-doc researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. Her research interests lie in media as well as urban anthropology, with a particular focus on translocal entanglements and migration.

Sarah Jurkiewicz

Blogging in Beirut An Ethnography of a Digital Media Practice

With kind support of the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2018 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Cover illustration: Photo by Sarah Jurkiewicz, Hamra, Beirut, March 2012 Printed by docupoint GmbH, Magdeburg Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4142-4 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4142-8

Table of contents

Acknowledgements | vii Note on transliteration | ix Note on illustrations and copyrights | xi Foreword | xiii Introduction | 1

Positioning my study | 4 Research perspectives: blogs as media practice and the public sphere | 11 Methods and ethics off- and online | 21

I. THE FIELD |

31 The Field – Introduction | 33 1. Lebanese blogging in context, history, and comparison | 39

1.1 Context: media and internet in Lebanon | 39 1.2 A short history of blogging | 50 1.3 Lebanese blogging in a comparative perspective | 62 1.4 Internal differentiation online | 67 2. The local field of blogging | 79

2.1 Searching for the ‘field’, waiting for the actors | 79 2.2 Practitioners, localities and offline dynamics | 93

II. ACTORS AND PRACTICES |

115 Actors and Practices – Introduction | 117 3. Seven ways to be a blogger: bloggers in context | 121

3.1 Hanibaael: an alternative content producer | 123 3.2 Liliane aka FunkyOzzi: a developer with various online engagements | 128 3.3 Assaad: freelancer between activism and journalism | 132 3.4 Rami: a continually connected IT professional | 136 3.5 Khodor aka Jou3an: a political writer | 140 3.6 Maya Zankoul: a designer and comic artist | 143 3.7 Adon: a young academic with an “agenda” | 147

4. When “thoughts burst into writing”: practices and modes of blog production | 155

4.1 Temporality and organisation of blog production | 157 4.2 Modes of blog production | 163 4.3 Produsage and media convergence | 184 5. Blogging as practice | 191

5.1 Blogging as integrative and recombinant practice | 192 5.2 The rewards of blogging | 206

III. PUBLICNESS |

215 Publicness – Introduction | 217 6. Audiences and locality | 219

6.1 Producing locality | 221 6.2 Approaching the audience | 228 6.3 Ways of addressing: language and intended audiences | 234 6.4 Imagining the audience | 244 7. The ethos of blogging | 249

7.1 Standards for successful blogging | 251 7.2 Impartiality and credibility negotiated: blogging ethos in practice | 257 7.3 ‘Cosmologies’ of blogging in Lebanon | 268 8. The dynamics of publicness | 273

8.1 Publicness and self-disclosure | 273 8.2 Counter-publicness | 292 Conclusion: Blogging as field, practice and mode of publicness | 319 Appendix | 329

Bibliography | 329 List of interviews | 346 List of blogs and websites | 348

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank all the research participants in Lebanon for sharing their thoughts and experiences with me. Thank you for taking the time for interviews, meetings and questions despite your busy schedules and various commitments. A further thanks goes to them for being open for me to participate in blogger meetings and training sessions, and also for showing me some of ‘their Beirut’. Likewise, I would like to thank the Orient Institute in Beirut for providing me with an office space during my initial fieldwork, and both the Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages, and the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo for their support during my entire Ph.D. I would also like to thank the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin for their support in finalising this manuscript I am grateful to both my appointed supervisors for their support and valuable feedback during my Ph.D. research: Albrecht Hofheinz at the University of Oslo and Stefan Beck, at the Humboldt University of Berlin, who strengthened my anthropological lenses again. Furthermore, I would like to thank both Bettina Gräf and Mona Abdel-Fadil for their continuous encouragement, for making my Ph.D. fun again when it was not anymore, and last but not least for their great feedback! Moreover, I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues in Oslo, Beirut, Berlin and elsewhere, who have helped me to accomplish this project; be it through discussions or laughter during lunch, coffee breaks and seminars. My thanks for reading first or second drafts go to: Annelies Ollieuz, Birke Otto, Dominik Scholl, Fabian Larsson, Ilka Eickhof, Nayla Naoufal, Nele Lenze (for all her encouragement) and Miriam Younes (for sharing daily office ups and downs, whether in Beirut or through Skype). I am especially grateful to Fabian for being there for me at different stages of this project, as well as to my parents and to Julie. Finally, I would like to thank Nadim Ghorra for aiding me with local and linguistic expertise, Nada and Nivine Dirani for making learning Lebanese so much fun, Samer El Najar for helping me with translations back in Berlin, Mitch Cohen who

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turned this text into ‘decent English’ in a short time and Berenice Brüggemann for her formal editing of the final manuscript.

Note on transliteration

The transliteration from Arabic script generally follows the guidelines of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Well-known Lebanese names follow the most conventional spelling (for example, Jumblatt rather than Junblāṭ). The same applies to names of streets and districts in Lebanon. Names of institutions are written according to the institution’s own usage (for example, Al-Masry alYoum). Colloquial usage in blog texts or elsewhere is rendered to convey the actual pronunciation.

Note on illustrations and copyrights

All blogs from my main sample (Beirutiyat, Hanibaael, Jou3an, Maya’s Amalgam, Ninar and Liliane’s blogs From Beirut With Funk and Incoglilo) are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Licenses, except Plus961, who kindly agreed to allow me to use images from his blog. Additional blogs from which I use screenshots as ‘scientific citations’ (in chapter 6 and 8) are licensed under Creative Commons Licenses (Farfahinne 2.0, Hummus Nation 3.0, Trella 3.0). The header of the Lebanese blog aggregator (chapter 6) was designed by Gaby El Ashkar; thanks to Liliane, who maintains the aggregator, for giving her consent to use it for this publication.

Foreword

This book is the result of my Ph.D. project, conducted between 2009 and 2012 in the framework of a Ph.D. fellowship at Oslo University, Norway, with extended research periods in Beirut, Lebanon in 2009/2010 and 2011. The case studies of seven bloggers discussed in this book represent a specific moment in the history of the ever- and fast-changing landscape of digital media – or even “polymedia”, i.e. the hybrid media ecologies and varied use of media technologies.1 Moreover, they represent a historic specific moment of digital media in a concrete regional context – along the lines discussed by Miller et al. (2016), who make a case for describing social media not in general but as “a regional case” (ibid.: x).2 Being a blogger in Beirut from 2009 to 2012 meant being a blogger in a period prior to and also partly during the Arab revolts that broke out in late 2010 in Tunisia and then in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria. The relation of the Arab revolts to digital media was heavily debated in research, in journalism and among bloggers alike (see also the introduction to this book).3 With regards to blogging, the media scholars and activists Enrico de Angelis and Donatella Della Ratta state (2014) that in the Middle East a change occurred in blogging in this time and that one has to separate two periods: up till 2011 and afterward. Following the enormous hype around blogging and other digital media platforms in the early 2000s until the outbreak of the revolts, more critical voices appeared from 2012 onwards – from within both academia and the blogger com-

1

See Daniel Miller and Mirca Madianou (2012), who introduced this term.

2

See Daniel Miller, Elisabetta Costa, Nell Haynes et al. (2016): How the World Changed Social Media. They argue for “a greater sensitivity to regional and social differences and their consequences” in research on social media (ibid.: 12).

3

See David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers (2016): The Arab Revolts: Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East, Minnesota: Indiana University Press 2016, covering events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen.

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munities themselves.4 At the end of 2012, Tony Saghbini (aka Adon), one of the bloggers portrayed in this book, argued that the blogging scene would be increasingly characterised by internal disputes and that social media do not necessary lead to common action. He continues, “We find a lot of individual activists out there, but very few effective organizations.”5 Furthermore, he laments the “overload of information” and “the substitution of long-term political work with short-time actions”.6 In a similar vein, Middle East scholar Marc Lynch highlights that social media would be “more useful in organizing protests than organizing civil society”, in the sense that leaderless movements are helpful in establishing loose connections, but not for a “coherent political strategy” (Lynch 2013: n. p.). Being a blogger in Beirut in the period just before and after 2011 meant being situated in a historical and what at times felt like a ‘revolutionary’ moment that, however, quickly began to dissolve, quite divergently in the different national contexts. This book thus catches snapshots of this moment by closely following various Lebanese bloggers. Yet one may ask what this story tells us in 2017 – in retrospect and beyond the specific time frame. For one, the book tells us something about digital media practices, here blogging, in their relation to personal and professional trajectories in a specific local context and within specific material conditions. The book also sheds light on wider media trajectories and temporalities. Furthermore, it highlights the interplay between digital media and activism, as well as between digital media and other sets of practices. The seven main characters presented in this book continue partly blogging today only while still being active on digital media in general. Thus, their online activities have changed to a great degree. Only a few are still active on the blog platforms they heavily engaged in from 2009-2012. The reasons are only to some extent due to the changing media ecologies, where other digital media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) have been dominating ever since. In fact, as I argue in this book, the professional, personal and political trajectories of the bloggers have been crucial for their blogging practice and its changes. Only four of the seven bloggers portrayed in the following are still in Lebanon (Assaad, Khodor aka Jou3an, Maya and Rami), and of those who stayed, most moved out of their parental home, got married and started a family.7 Assaad and Khodor, freelance journalists at the time of the study, have both been working, 4

See for example Marc Lynch’s article on “Twitter Devolutions: How social media is hurting the Arab Spring” (Lynch 2013).

5

Email communication with Tony Saghbini (aka Adon) from November 12, 2011.

6

Ibid.

7

With the exception of Assaad, who already lived on his own during the time of my study and is not married.

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amongst other things, as marketing and digital media consultants over the last years. Maya has continued her own business as a graphic designer and became the co-founder of an ‘explainer and animated videos’ company, and Rami is still working as an IT consultant (currently at a bank). Activist bloggers Hani (aka Hanibaael) and Tony (aka Adon) both went to work in the Gulf in bigger media cooperations: Hani is currently a producer at Al-Jazeera+ in Doha, and Tony works as Content Specialist at a Digital Marketing Agency in Dubai. Liliane aka FunkyOzzi had first moved to Ireland and then to Dubai, where she works as Regional Product Marketing Manager with Facebook. Only the two ‘non-political’ bloggers Rami and Liliane are still active in blogging on a continuous basis: Rami with Plus961 – the telephone code for Lebanon – on diverse things going on in Lebanon, from culture to commerce, and Liliane (who has given up political blogging) with her travel blog Travel With Funk.8 Former activist bloggers Hani and Tony only sporadically update their blogs9 while the other activist bloggers do not continue to produce content on these platforms anymore. As the case studies illuminate, blogging functioned as a professionalisation tool in their early career years. At the time of the research, most of my interlocutors were not married yet and without family duties, trying to establish themselves in different professional domains or searching for possible jobs. Their blogs thus represent certain stages in their lives, mostly in these early professionalisation years, while they are now more established in professional domains that are often closely connected to digital media practices. In short, one could argue, they do not need blogging as a professionalisation tool anymore, though it provided them with a useful foundation. This is not to say that blogging is dead; it can still provide a meaningful tool for specific purposes.10 When I last met Khodor in March 2017, he told me that the blog focusing on Lebanese problems portrayed in this study had been an interim stage for him. However, he plans on opening a new blog that will have a different focus, a blog that rather talks about “strategies and solutions”, not just problems. He is still heavily politically engaged, currently focusing on the Palestinian issue again, incited by the death of a comrade of his in the West Bank. Also, micro-blogging on various platforms remains crucial in the political activities of the activist bloggers portrayed here. Moreover, their blogging experience and political self-positioning and exposure through blogging is not to be underestimated in their ‘careers’ as political activists. The blogger Assaad for in8

See http://blog.funkyozzi.com/ and http://www.plus961.com/. For a full list of blogs and websites relevant to this study, see the appendix (in which it is indicated if they are not online anymore in September 2017).

9

https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/ and https://saghbini.wordpress.com/

10 See the introduction for more on this argument by media scholar Jodi Dean.

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stance, has been a spokesperson for the “You Stink” campaign (#tol3et_rehet kom), which was one of the main groups that initiated the movement in response to the garbage crisis in Lebanon in 2015.11 The group had an elaborated media campaign on various platforms.12 Under the slogan “You Stink” not only the mismanagement of the garbage crisis, but also the corruption and clientelism of the political elite were denounced. In this case, continuities with protests in 2011 against the ‘sectarian system’ (under the slogan Ash-shaʿb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām aṭṭāʾifī), discussed in different sections of this book, in terms of actors and causes are to be found.13 Roadblocks, demonstrations and smaller sit-ins were in the repertoire of the wider movement that mobilised 20,000 people in the demonstrations in August 2015 with violent clashes between protestors and the security forces. However, the different groups of the wider collation within the movement that crossed political and sectarian boundaries entered into conflicts about their attitudes towards militant protestors and the authorities. As a report by Lebanon Support outlines: Interestingly, some of these groups emerged to distance themselves from the You Stink organisers, who have been criticised for adopting ‘limited and reformist’ demands, and for requesting that the internal security forces arrest protesters who have been reportedly described as ‘thugs’ […] and ‘infiltrators’. This is also suggestive of an old but persisting cleavage between civil society organisations, with bloggers and other cyber-activists as the main organisers on the one hand, and more politicised collectives and groups on the other.

14

Bloggers and cyber activists, like Assaad, thus became prominent figures in organising the protests, yet were also heavily criticised within the course of the events. This book traces the personal blogging trajectories of figures like Assaad and helps understand their coming of age as public figures through their blogging practice. The suggestion of a cleavage between these activists and other collectives also links back to the limits of digital media as a tool for organising civil society on a long-term basis, as referred to above.15 This monograph stays within its prescribed limits and provides a thick description and analysis of the field of blogging that I have researched in the spe-

11 For a chronology, see Lebanon Support, http://civilsociety-centre.org/timelines/31033, accessed May 29, 2017. 12 The movement on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tol3etre7etkom/; on Twitter: @t ol3et_rehetkom. 13 See further Marie-Noëlle AbiYaghi, Myriam Catusse and Miriam Younes 2016. 14 See http://civilsociety-centre.org/timelines/31033, accessed May 29, 2017. 15 See the arguments of Tony Saghbini and Marc Lynch (2013) above.

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cific time frame. The media context and internet16 landscape presented in the first chapter is meant to provide the context for that study and accordingly describes the state of the art from 2009 up to late 2011 – and not the current state. A few comparative data shall be added here to get a fuller picture of the general developments since 2011. When comparing the latest data on internet access in Lebanon with that on 2011, major shifts can be detected.17 Compared with only 1.2 million users (29% internet penetration) in June 2011, over four and a half million internet users are reported for June 2016 (75.3%) in Lebanon. However, in comparison with the overall development of the region, Lebanon’s position has not changed completely. It is still situated similarly to Jordan (72.4%) and lags behind the Arabian Gulf States such as Bahrain (90.1%) and Qatar (97.4%).18 As for press freedom, Lebanon’s situation has deteriorated only slightly from 2011, when Reporters Without Borders ranked it 93 out of 173 countries; it is now ranked 99 out of 179. Lebanon’s media are described as “extremely politicized and polarized”, and “Bloggers and online journalists may receive summonses from the ‘bureau for combatting cyber-crimes’ if something they have posted on a social network elicits a complaint from a private party.” 19 This trend has also been observed in the time frame of this study, yet due to the war in Syria, the politicisation of the media has even been aggravated.20 It is beyond the scope of this book to continue the story of the local field and actors after 2012. More qualitative insights on the local field require a new study. The book is precisely an account of the specific period covered by my ethnographic research. Berlin, September 2017

16 I do not spell internet with a capital “I”, as this suggests that the internet is a place or a being and gives it a rather problematic agency (Markham and Baym 2009: vii). 17 When evaluating Internet access and digital media usage, mobile phone applications must also be considered, as an article on mobile phone use and WhatsApp in Lebanon by Jared McCormick (2013) demonstrates. See http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/15495/thewhispers-of-whatsapp_beyond-facebook-and-twitt, accessed May 18, 2017. 18 As for the most prominent websites, according to Alexa statistics, in contrast to 2011, Facebook is not at rank one anymore, but now at rank four, while Lebanese Google (https ://www.google.com.lb) is on the top. Yet, Google (both .com and com.lb) and YouTube are still place among the top four, as in 2011. See http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countrie s/LB, accessed May 23, 2017. 19 https://rsf.org/en/lebanon, accessed May 23, 2017. 20 See also Nötzold 2015: 224f.

Introduction Lebanese bloggers have to take it easy on blogging and not just talk about politics like the newspapers do. Just do what the European and American bloggers do, just write about contemporary stuff. RAMI I11 We should discuss more and blogging is the sphere where we can discuss it. ADON I1 I’ve been blogging for a long time, so I know very well what works, what idea you can say that would keep you safe and not have anyone attack you. LILIANE I2 A blog is more official, you know, and more professional. And it is not flexible, not everyone wants to go to a blog to make a comment, on Facebook he does the comment in 30 seconds. HANIBAAEL I1 It’s a hobby, and I think if it is to become my fulltime job it would change. […] Then I wouldn’t enjoy it that much. MAYA I1

1

All introductory quotes stem from interviews I conducted with Lebanese bloggers in Beirut in the period of 2009-2011. For a full list of interviews including date, place and language, see the appendix.

2 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT Blogging in the Middle East has attracted international attention, especially since the events of the Arab uprisings.2 Amongst other social media3, blogging has been portrayed as one of the factors that helped to organise and spread the revolutionary events from Tunisia to Egypt and beyond. Intense discussion about the role of social media within these processes has been going on within academia and the media, at times in the format of blogs and other online platforms itself.4 An even greater interest in studying the relation between social media and social change has developed.5 The impact of blogging on politics has been the primary focus of the existing studies. In much of the work on blogging in the Middle East, it “has been hailed as a new opportunity for public communication, political activism, and a democratic public sphere”, as John W. Anderson (2009: n. p.) outlined.6 Furthermore, Western media have portrayed bloggers in orientalising ways, and, as Enrico de Angelis and Donatella Della Ratta (2014: n. p.) put it, bloggers themselves have been “contribut[ing] to the fantasy of the Arab blogger”, in the sense of the former-

2

See Rami G. Khouri’s (2011) critical consideration of the term ‘Arab spring’ in which he calls for dropping the term.

3

While all media are to be considered social, ‘social media’ commonly describes webbased and mobile technologies. I also use the more value-free term ‘digital media’, which, as Coleman (2010: 488) highlights, “encompasses a wide range of nonanalog technologies, including cell phones, the Internet, and software applications that power and run on the Internet, among others.”

4

For the case of Egypt, see various articles on Jadaliyya (http://www.jadaliyya.com/), an online magazine (ezine) under the umbrella of the Arab Studies Institute (for instance, Hirschkind 2011 and Herrera 2011). See also entries on http://www.mediasocialchange. net/, maintained by the EASA Media Anthropology Network (Peterson 2011, Sreberny 2011) as well as the contributions in Arab Media and Society (Khamis and Vaughn 2011). See also the monographs on the Egyptian revolution and digital media by Herrera 2014 and Faris 2013. For a discussion in Arabic of blogging and the uprisings, see Suweiha 2011. See also, for a general discussion, Morozov’s 2011 Net Delusion and the debate about the book (Doctorow 2011 and Zuckerman 2011).

5

Most studies focus on the role of social media in the uprisings. See amongst others a study by the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam (2012). The study is based on a huge amount of online data (analysing more than three million Tweets); according to the authors, the result “is that for the first time we have evidence confirming social media’s critical role in the Arab Spring.” (Ibid.: 2)

6

See the section “Research perspectives: blogs as media practice and the public sphere” for an overview of the state of research.

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ly repressed activist who is then, “thanks to networked technologies, finally able to re-seize her right to self-expression and to share her thoughts”.7 Especially for Western intellectuals, it is tempting to assume the ‘free expression of individuals’ as the sign of democracy and a Western-defined ‘public sphere’. From an anthropological angle, this perspective is, however, to be criticised as ethnocentric. A conceptual shift towards alternative publics on the line of ‘alternative modernities’8 beyond a Western normative conceptualisation is required to shed light on multiple forms of publicness in various local contexts. Moreover, ethnographic studies of the uses of social media and their role in daily life (also beyond revolutionary events) can provide new insights into the dynamics of social media and change, as well as the continuities with previous forms of publicness. This monograph aims to contribute to the wider discussion of the role of social media in the Middle East and beyond. It examines blogging from a perspective that is underrepresented in these discussions: one that frames the practice of blogging and its role in daily life as well as the self-understanding of the practitioners, based on anthropological fieldwork. I will analyse how blogging as a social field and “domain of practice” (Postill 2008: 414) is internally organised, locally contained, translocally connected and produced in a specific location. To this end, I followed a group of bloggers in a concrete local context over an extended period of time. The introductory quotes display different Lebanese bloggers’ stances towards the political context in Lebanon and their standards for good blogging. They also address the relation between blogging and their professional work and other digital media practices. These are the different dimensions of blogging that this monograph deals with, based on extensive case studies. I show how media practices impact everyday life as well as the social fields the practitioners interact in. The aim is to provide a deeper understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of digital media practices.

7

See Enrico de Angelis and Donatella Della Ratta’s reflections on the panel “Mind the Gap: Bridging Knowledge and Practices of Activism” during the Fourth Bloggers Meeting in Amman in January 2014 (De Angelis and Della Ratta 2014).

8

See Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (1999) for a discussion of alternative modernities in which he highlights that in all local contexts modernity is manifold and not singular; and it is always incomplete (1999:18). In a similar way, the public sphere (as a normative concept and constituent of modernity) must be understood in the plural.

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P OSITIONING

MY STUDY

This study is situated within what is called the ‘Lebanese blogosphere’,9 which is known for being especially active in times of political crisis, for example in the Independence Intifada 2005 and in the ‘July War’ in 2006. Yet, also beyond these political events, a range of Lebanese bloggers has been writing about daily life, especially in Beirut, mocking political discussions, commenting on social issues and posting about cultural events in the capital. It is these everyday practices of and around blogging that I analyse here. I concentrate on local bloggers based in Lebanon who blog intensively, i.e. posting at least weekly or more frequently. They are mainly young Beirutians in their twenties and early thirties. Thematically, I concentrate on blogs dealing with political, social and cultural issues.10 While the time frame of this study is from summer 2009 to summer 2011, a particular focus lies on winter 2009/10 and spring 2011, during which I conducted fieldwork in Lebanon. The focus of my research lies on this particular local field of blogging and the practices and materialities of blog production. Thus, my central interest is not the text, but the social, cultural and material context of blogging. While the core object is the practice of blogging, the scope is widened to “situate and contextualise the observed practices and […] to generate ethnographic texture” (Spitulnik 2010: 107).11 In order to understand the cultural meaning of blogging and practices that evolve from such a media practice, the analysis of the production process is essential. In addition, the bloggers’ self-perception and their blogging ethos will be analysed, as I consider them to be intrinsic parts and a structuring force of the production practice. In accordance with Gabriella Coleman’s classification (2010) of research approaches in the field of media ethnography, my study is to be understood as both an inquiry into what she calls a “vernacular culture of digital media” (ibid.: 488) (here: blogging) and an inquiry into its relation to other kinds of social practices.12 Socio-cultural anthropology analyses media practices in their context and does not focus primarily on the content as such. Not the medium is the message, in a McLuhanian understanding,13 but the media are its practices.

9

For a problematisation of the term blogosphere, see the introduction to part I, 35ff.

10 For more on the selection of case studies, see the section “Methods and ethics off- and online” in this introduction, 21ff. 11 According to what Spitulnik (2010) describes as “wide-angle lenses on media”. Yet no open-end contextualisation is envisaged. 12 The latter she labels “prosaics of digital media”, which “examines how digital media feed into, reflect, and shape other kinds of social practice” (2010: 488). 13 As outlined in The Medium is the Massage (McLuhan 1967).

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By closely following the practitioners, I will shed light on their media practice in the context of their daily lives. I will trace their route into blogging and how they actually blog and discuss what they variously understand as good blogging practice – different perspectives and dimensions that are indicated in the introductory citations. The aim is not to provide a representative study of the whole Lebanese blogosphere as such, i.e. all blogging activities from and about Lebanon, but an in-depth analysis of a cluster of bloggers, which provides insights into the production of blogs ‘on site’ (mainly Beirut). Lebanon as field site Due to my interest in alternative forms of representation and also my previous work on journalistic practice (Jurkiewicz 2009), I became particularly interested in Lebanese blogging during the July War of 2006, during which blogs provided a translocal ‘counter-voice’ to the Israeli assaults.14 Lebanon is known for its vibrant and pluralistic media landscape, which has proved to be influential throughout the whole region since the middle of the 19th century.15 Due to its huge, influential diaspora, estimated at more than 15 million people in contrast to about 4 million in country,16 Lebanon is strongly marked by translocal connections, both in its media production and in other social fields. The diverse Lebanese media landscape is also to be set in relation to Lebanon’s political segmentation, which has also led to a strong segmentation in the media sphere: each political wing or party has its own media outlets. This media context, somehow untypical compared with other countries in the region, makes Lebanon a particular case. Blogging as a moving target Blogging can be understood as a mode of production (Bruns 2008), a writing genre (Miller and Shepherd 2004) and a vernacular culture of digital media (see Coleman above). It is certainly to be understood as a “moving target” (Welz 1998) in the sense of a phenomenon that is constantly changing and hard to localise.17 Conse14 As I discuss in chapter 1.1. 15 For a short overview on Lebanon’s media landscape, see an article by the European Journalism Centre (2010). I will provide more details in chapter 1. 16 The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division (2010) estimated Lebanon’s population at 4,224,000 in 2010, World Population Prospects, United Nations, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp, retrieved February 28, 2011. 17 See Welz (1998) for a discussion of “moving targets” and the conditions of contemporary fieldwork “under the pressure of mobility”.

6 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT quently, studying blogging confronts one with fast-changing media usages and research trends (see also Dean 2010). The term blog, as a contraction of the words web and log, was first used in 1997. It was in the late 1990s that the first free online tools appeared that made it easy to publish online.18 In Arabic, blog was later translated as mudawwana,19 building on the verb dawwana, meaning to log or to register. A blog can be defined as a frequently updated Web-based chronological publication, a log of personal thoughts and Web links, a mixture of the diary forms around what is happening in a person’s life, and reports and comments on what is happening on the Web and the world out there. (Lovink 2008a: 3)

The topics of blogs are thus manifold, and it is not the content that defines the blog format (Gurak et al. 2004). Blogs can have either a single or several authors. Moreover, links and comments about other sites are a crucial feature of blogs. Blog templates make it possible to create new articles and add them to the data- or categorybased archive, and tags added to each new post make it possible to filter a blog according to the categories established. When I started designing this study in 2008, blogging was still at its peak and the media scholar Geert Lovink described blogs as “the proxy of our time” (2008a: xxiii). Meanwhile, some voices have argued that the time of blogging is over, since Facebook and Twitter have become faster and more efficient ways to reach an audience.20 Or, as the political scientist and blog theoretician Jodi Dean (2010: 29) puts it: “Even if they’re not dead yet, their role in inciting practices of online disclosure, discussion, and surveillance has both already been displaced by other Web 2.0 platforms such as social networks and video-sharing”. Nevertheless, blogging has not lost its momentum, in particular not in the Middle East. First, the numbers of bloggers and growing aggregators, as in Egypt in the time frame of this study, show that blogging is by no means a shrinking phenomenon.21 The Third Arab Bloggers Meeting in 2011 in Tunisia also reflected 18 Open Diary, launched in 1998, was one of these first tools, but in contrast to later blogging tools it was an anonymous diary community, followed by Pitas and then Blogger in 1999. For a brief history of weblogs, see Rettberg 2008: 22ff. 19 Mudawwin is the Arabic term for blogger, tadwīn stands for blogging. Yet, the English word is also used and even transcribed into Arabic script. 20 See for example Duray 2011 and Ingram 2011. In the local field I studied, several people also stated in 2011 that Facebook and not blogging is currently the tool. 21 According to Manal Hassan, an Egyptian blogger and the initiator of the Egyptian blog aggregator. (Informal talk on December 11, 2009 at the Second Arab Bloggers Meeting in Beirut.)

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this.22 Furthermore, blogging is a role model for other digital media practices and shows continuities with other media practices and production modes online, such as micro-blogging on Twitter (launched in 2006) and Facebook. Most of the bloggers in the field I studied, for instance, use both of these micro-blogging tools in addition to blogging.23 I do not intend to compare these tools thoroughly at this point, but a few distinct features need to be mentioned: in contrast to blogging, micro-blogging limits the size of postings24 and is based on other dissemination structures than open blogs.25 Whereas both open blogs and Twitter streams appear in a Google search, private Facebook profiles do not.26 Blogs, as long as access is admitted, are in principle accessible to anyone who enters the link. Blogs present the most stable and searchable form of blogging through their website-like format and their long accessibility compared with Twitter streams. All tools, however, can be said to construct “a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system” (boyd27/Ellison 2008: 11). Overall, studying blogging’s production contexts and practices sheds light on other media practices and how they are integrated and recombined and thus involves looking at the changing trends in digital media use. Framing blogging: practice, field, locality Blogging can be approached from different theoretical angles: as software and culture (as Lovink 2008a proposes), as a new public sphere and as media practice. Within Middle Eastern Studies, there was an ever-growing interest in and hype about blogging – yet, then also a slight ‘disillusionment’ about the capacity of social media (Lynch 2013) and blogging in particular.28 The main questions have been, initially, those of its political impact and its capacity “to construct a democratic public sphere” (Armbrust 2007: 532). However, these factors are hard to determine. There has been wide discussion about how blogging should be framed conceptually, whether as a democratic public sphere, a “networked public” (Anderson 2009) or a ‘counter-public’. The Habermasian public sphere concept, or the search for its realisation, is a lasting superstructure in the academic attempts to un22 See http://arabloggers.com/blog/, accessed October 16, 2011. 23 See chapter 4 and 5 in this book, where I analyse these continuities. 24 Twitter allows entries only up to 140 characters long. 25 In the case of Facebook, access is permitted by accepting ‘friend requests’; in Twitter it functions by ‘following’ others’ profiles. For a comprehensive history and definition of social networking sites, see boyd/Ellison 2008. 26 Open Facebook groups and fan pages appear, however, also on Google Search. 27 dana boyd does not capitalise her name. See her homepage http://www.danah.org/, accessed January 12, 2012. 28 As I already touched upon in the foreword to this book.

8 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT derstand recent developments, not only in blogging, but also in wider research on Middle Eastern publics (see more on that below). Overall, “the notion of a singular public sphere is often invoked as an either hopeful or menacing reality or possibility”, as Sune Haugbolle and Armando Salvatore point out (2010). The authors add for consideration that the notion of a singular public sphere vis-à-vis a counterpublic is not an easy fit. Furthermore, as Haugbolle (2007: 7) outlines elsewhere, “The problem with normative theory is that it does not help us understand why and how actual communication plays out in the public sphere.” In analysing my material, I shared their scepticism and did not find the public sphere concept useful in understanding the local dynamics.29 An examination and discussion of theoretical concepts of public sphere(s) that I will outline in the section on research perspectives was, however, important for clarifying my own perspective. Against this background, I searched for other conceptual tools to grasp the conditions and dynamics of blogging in this specific local context – instead of ‘testing’ the applicability of the Habermasian public sphere concept. Haugbolle and Salvatore (2010) suggested the term publicness as a better translation of Habermas’ Öffentlichkeit than public sphere in order to shed light on “the transformation of social identities as a result of public interaction and the ensuing cultural change” (ibid.: n. p.).30 Publicness is a helpful term to shift the focus to the “concrete ways of going and being public” (ibid.) and to the dynamics and fragmentation of contemporary publics. The term is not to be understood as a mere translation, but as a conceptual shift. Combined with the practice-theory approach to blogging that I follow, the actual practices of ‘doing publics’ come to the fore. Moreover, relying on my previous work on journalism as ethical practice (Jurkiewicz 2009), I extend this approach with the analysis of the self-perception and ethical standards of the practitioners of blogging in this study. Beyond that, John Postill’s conceptualisation of the notion of the field – in the tradition of Pierre Bourdieu and the Manchester School – in studying internet activism in suburban Malaysia (Postill 2008, 2011) presented an alternative theoretical frame for my work. The basic definition of a field as a “domain of practice” (Postill 2008: 414) allows the perspective to be shifted from a normative public sphere concept to the actual practices within a particular, socially organised field. Understanding blogging as practice means that it takes place in social fields and is embedded in – and has continuities with – other practices. I argue in this book that, by taking the notion of field instead of that of public sphere as starting point, the internal dynamics of blogging in the local Lebanese context and the 29 I will come back to this point when discussing the fragmentation of the Lebanese blogosphere (chapter 1.4) and the dynamics of publicness (chapter 8), see also Jurkiewicz 2011b. 30 Call for a panel on the World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies 2010.

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online-offline continuum of blogging can be grasped more fully. The field of blogging as a domain of practice is not to be understood by looking solely at the product (the blog), but must include the social fields on the local level, where bloggers network, cooperate and compete with each other. Thus, another vital component of my work is concentration on a concrete locality. Although blogging is a practice whose product is visible primarily online and is marked by translocal connections and transfer, the material, social, ideological and political context of production is bound to the local. The value of studying digital practices with a focus on the local is, however, disputed.31 Hine (2000: 61) notes that “by focusing on sites, locales, and places, we may be missing out on other ways of understanding culture, based on connection, difference, heterogeneity, and incoherence”. Although I think this is a valuable argument, the focus on sites and locales need not lead to ignoring these other ways of understanding. It should rather be considered a challenge to link the local site and the translocal connectedness of blogging. Especially because of the huge Lebanese diaspora, the topic of locality vis-à-vis translocal connections is also important for the dynamics in the local field of blogging. Locality/the local comes into play on three different levels in my field of study: first, the material locality bloggers are confronted with, engage with and are bound to: places where they meet and network. The material locality involves the political context, certain districts in Beirut where bloggers live or hang out, experiences ‘on site’ that they write about – i.e. the field site in a rather traditional ethnographic sense. A second dimension of locality is the virtual locality: the level of the blog’s content and belonging to the Lebanese blogosphere, i.e. in the framing of a blog as being ‘Lebanese’ or ‘from Beirut’. The local becomes virtually materialised in various forms on the blog: in texts, photos, videos, drawings etc. A third level of locality is the ‘non-local’ participants in the field, such as the bloggers in the Lebanese diaspora. Research questions As already mentioned, my main research interest is the analysis of the local context and practices of blog production in Lebanon. I organised the research questions in three sets that aim at exploring the field, production practices and the publicness of blogging in Lebanon. Each of the three central questions is illustrated with some examples of sub-questions.

31 I will come back to this discussion in the paragraph on methods below.

10 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT 1. How is the local field of blogging framed and structured on- and offline? • How did the local field evolve? • How do bloggers meet, cooperate and compete in the local field? 2. What are the context and practices of blogging in Lebanon?

• • •

What characterises bloggers’ professional and social backgrounds, daily life and media practices? How are blogs produced in practice? How is blogging related to other media practices and domains of practice?

3. What are the practices and understandings of ‘doing publicness’?

• • • •

How do bloggers imagine and address the audience? In their view, what makes a good and credible blogger? How do they negotiate their ‘going and being public’? What issues do they consider important to make public and how do they position themselves towards the wider public?

Book outline Reflecting the three sets of research questions, the study will be structured in a tripartite way. Each part will be introduced by a short discussion of the main concepts/approaches that will be used (field, practice, publicness). The overall structure also reflects my own itinerary of approaching the field: from examining the field online, through being at the concrete locality and meeting the actors to studying different aspects of publicness. The first part, THE FIELD, outlines the context, history and organisation of the local field. In the first chapter, I give an overview of the media landscape and internet in Lebanon. I will trace the short history of Lebanese blogging and discuss its specifics in the regional context. Following up on this, I will analyse its differentiation online. In the second chapter, I will sketch my entry into the field and reflect on fieldwork procedures. Against this background, I then analyse the local field dynamics. The second part, ACTORS & PRACTICES, will then take a different entry into the field: interviews with and participant observations of individual bloggers. Starting from ethnographic descriptions of bloggers and production conditions in chapter 3, practices and modes of blog production will then be analysed in chapter 4. Following up on the previous two chapters, I will then conceptualise blogging as practice and analyse its relation to other “media-related” (Hobart 2010: 63) practices in chapter 5. In doing so, I discuss what rewards blogging offers.

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The third part, PUBLICNESS, deals with different aspects of blogging that structure the production practice and characterise the modes of publicness in the local field. It is again based on individual bloggers’ accounts, while also taking the blog texts into consideration. First, the interplay of audience, language and the production of virtual locality will be discussed in chapter 6. Following that, I will shed light on the ethos of bloggers’ in chapter 7, where the various ethical stances within the field will be correlated to come up with a fuller picture of how different actors position themselves. Chapter 8 then analyses how the bloggers negotiate their going and being public, how they position themselves towards the wider public in Lebanon and which issues they put forward. In the conclusion, the various parts will be linked and the findings will be put in the context of broader research fields. Finally, I will reflect on the implications for future research. In the following, I will situate my study in the wider research environment and outline the main research perspectives on blogs that are relevant for this study. In the subsequent section, I will then discuss the methods and ethical challenges of the project.

R ESEARCH

PERSPECTIVES : BLOGS AS MEDIA PRACTICE

AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE A range of disciplinary perspectives and methods has been relevant for this research. Studies in Middle Eastern studies on many kinds of social media in the region provided comparative data and background information. Obviously, media studies and its vast literature on social media in general and on blogging in particular are important references for this study. Besides, there is a wide range of internet studies from a mix of disciplines that did much to help me understand the wider social dynamics of the internet and blogging in particular. Beyond that, recent works in the context of media anthropology, in particular, proved extremely inspiring for my study. Their perspective helped me turn the focus to other aspects of blogging in the Middle East than those hitherto studied. More precisely, I affiliate myself with practice-theory approaches to media in the context of media anthropology (see Bräuchler and Postill 2010). In Rothenbuhler’s (2008) sense, media anthropology can be understood as a “field of interdisciplinary contact” between media studies and anthropology, i.e. a field that includes anthropologists who have turned their interest towards media and media scholars who use anthropological concepts or methods. Media anthropology is a field at the crossroads of anthropology, media studies and various regional studies. This triangle of research disciplines and traditions, in this case Middle Eastern Studies as a regional field of study, characterises this book, but also proved to be one of its main challenges. Overall, my research

12 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT seeks to contribute to strengthening anthropological approaches in the field of Arab media studies. I inscribe myself in the broader field of media anthropology, and anthropology is where I feel most at home academically. In the following, I will provide a short overview of the debates relevant to the production of this monograph and will situate my own research. Often, the debates overlap different academic disciplines. The overview also traces my own itinerary of readings in various research fields in search of suitable concepts. The theoretical concepts and approaches I use will be presented in more detail in the three different parts of the book. At this point I intend to give an overview of various research perspectives on blogs. Uses and ‘produsage’ of blogs – media studies perspectives In the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, blogging was at the peak of scholarly attention within the wider field of media studies. In 2006, the Australianbased scholar Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs edited Uses of Blogs, in which, together with other researchers, they shed light on the different uses of blogs: from “blogs in industries” (Bruns and Jacobs 2006: 9-114) – such as news blogs, business blogs and education blogs – to “blogs in society” (ibid.: 155-210), i.e. political uses of blogs, including gender and subcultural aspects.32 The authors highlight that there is no “blogging per se” but different forms and subgenres of blogging (2006: 3), such as personal blogging, news blogging, fictional blogging and moblogging (mobile blogging). By looking at its uses instead of defining the blog as a single genre, the volume shows the variety of blogging forms. In a similar vein, Jan Schmidt’s Weblogs: Eine kommunikationssoziologische Studie (2006) discusses various aspects of blogging, from personal online journals and their relation to journalism to their role in organisational communication. The study develops a communication-sociological model of analysis for a praxis-oriented theory of blogging concentrating on inherent rules, networks and software. Yet, despite taking a practice approach, his study leaves little room for actual practitioners and their practices and eventually gives the impression that blogging is a complex set of rules and structures. The term ‘produsage’, coined by Bruns (2007 and 2008), presents a helpful concept in analysing blogs and social media production in general. It designates a new mode of interchangeable production and consumption that “users of collaborative environments” engage in (Bruns 2008: 6). According to Bruns, the blogosphere can be understood as an exemplary “produsage project” that is characterised by a production mode different from that of commercial new production. It does not 32 Another of the key texts on blogging from a Media Studies perspective is Jill Walker Rettberg’s 2008 study of the same title.

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envisage a finished artefact, but instead a “gradual improvement of the community’s shared content” (Bruns 2008: 27). The notion of produsage thus helps to understand the specific production practices of blogging. However, Bruns (2008) does not study produsage processes on the micro-level of individual bloggers, which in my view leads to some generalisations that I will discuss when examining specific production processes (chapter 4). Beyond that, Geert Lovink’s critical (re-)vision of blogging in Zero comments: Blogging and critical internet culture (2008a) provides a refreshing and thoughtprovoking contribution to understanding the media format. Right at the beginning, he points out that “[b]logs zero out centralized meaning structures and focus on personal experiences – not, primarily, news media” (Lovink 2008a: 1). But from his point of view, this does not mean that they necessarily express oppositional interpretations. Lovink criticises that “blogs have been discussed mainly in oppositional terms, as being a counter-voice to the dominant news industry”, though “the blogging majority is conservative” (ibid.). Although his study focuses more on blogging in Western Europe and North America, it is important to keep in mind that blogging is not per se a “counter-voice” (ibid). Lovink argues against reducing blogs to their relationship with the news media, which supports the approach I follow in this study. Instead, he highlights that “blogging appeals to a wide register of emotions and affects as it mobilizes and legitimizes the personal”, whereas one needs to detect how these affects are mobilised (ibid.: 3). Blogging is thus situated “between online publishing and the intimate sphere of diary keeping” (ibid.: 7). My work tries to do justice to this complexity of blogging as encompassing both the public and private domain. Analysing ‘non-Western’ media practices: Middle East blogging What strikes me in most of these prominent contributions from a communication studies perspective is that they are based on data from North America, Australia or Western Europe and thus hardly reflect experiences of blogging in political and social contexts outside these regions. The studies’ focus on the newest and most innovative digital practices and trends also easily let ‘older practices’ fall outside the scope of the studies. These conceptual works on social media just presented are only rarely reflected in studies within the field of Middle Eastern Studies, at least with regard to the publications prior to the ‘Arab uprisings’. Hence, the boundary between media studies and area studies media research is still relatively fixed, and more comparative and combining efforts are needed. International Blogging, edited by Adrienne Russell and Nabil Echchaibi in 2009, is a volume that tries to bridge this gap and aims to show the diversity of blogging in a variety of contexts and to address the “uniquely universal-particular and global-local qualities of our vari-

14 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT ously digital realities” (Russell et al. 2009: 6). Yet, one of the two contributions dealing with the Middle East by Eugenia Siapera frames, in my view problematically, all blogging in the Middle East as ‘Muslim’ blogging and is preoccupied with a discussion of modernity. The second contribution, by Aziz Douai (2009), concentrates on the “Arab blogosphere’s” political impact on offline politics, which again reflects the predominant focus of Arab media studies. Neither contribution deals with concrete media practices and actors’ experiences. The first overall survey of blogging in the Arab region was provided in the study “Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere” by the Berkman Center for Internet and Democracy in 2009.33 The report is a quantitative study of the blogosphere based on a large social network analysis. Its main finding relevant for my work was that the blogosphere is organised along national borders with specific linking clusters. The study also provides a useful overview of blogging activities within these different national clusters.34 However, it does not provide insights into the dynamics of the respective localities. Two studies of the Lebanese case need to be mentioned: the first is Haugbolle’s (2007) article on the development of Lebanese blogging in 2005/2006, which traces its early development and provides a critical discourse analysis of Lebanon’s first generation of blogs. The second is Maha Taki’s Ph.D. thesis on Bloggers and the Blogosphere in Lebanon & Syria: Meanings and Activities (2010), which covers the period up to 2010. Taki studied in particular the question of the “structural and cultural variables” (ibid.: 5) of blogging (access, censorship), but also shed light on the “meaning and understandings” (ibid.) bloggers attached to their activities. While she also started from an online-offline approach, interviewing bloggers in Lebanon and Syria, she does not follow the actors in an anthropological way as I do. Our studies also differ because my focus is on production practices and on daily life media practices. Overall, the journal Arab Media and Society, established in 2007 (formerly Television and Broadcasting Studies) and published by the American University of Cairo and the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research, has been the main publication covering the newest trends in Arab media. This journal had the goal of “Reporting a Revolution” (Pintak 2007; see also Hofheinz 2010), starting with satellite television and moving on to social media. The journal reflects the initial hype around blogging in Middle Eastern Studies (Lynch 2007a), when the activities of Egyptian bloggers in 2006 and 2007, in particular, were covered 33 Authored by Bruce Etling, Rob Faris, John Palfrey, Internet and Democracy and John Kelly. 34 However, Arab bloggers, for example from the Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi, have also criticised categorising bloggers as either religious or secular, see: http://razanghazza wi.com/2009/08/14/berkman-centers-study-of-the-arab-blogphere-map-terminology/, accessed January 5, 2011.

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(Al Malky 2007, Radsch 2008); blogging on the July War in Lebanon 2006 (Haugbolle 2007, Salama 2007) also made the phenomenon popular and led to hope for change. These articles and studies provide comparative data on local conditions of blogging and snapshots of certain moments in the history of Arab blogging. However, the focus in terms of Arab media research objects changed over the period during which my study developed. As Facebook and then Twitter became the new tools attracting attention, blogging was no longer regarded as the great hope for political change. This reflects also a structural problem within the research field. “Stagnation”, as Walter Armbrust (2007: 531) puts it, “is driven, paradoxically, by obsession with the ‘new’”. The Middle East anthropologist Jon Anderson (2009: n. p.) argues critically against previous research and for a perspective on blogging that looks more closely from a network analysis perspective, opening up the middle ground between the overwhelming emphasis on agency-enhancement that’s dominated most work on these topics in our region, on the one hand, and, at the other extreme, expansive notions from ‘virtual community’ to the ‘wisdom of crowds’ as general conceptions of what networked communications unleash.

In his programmatic article, Anderson links up to new media research (by boyd; Lovink et al.), rather than to references to the public sphere commonly made in the field of new media research in Middle Eastern Studies. He concludes that networked communication “fosters not Habermas’s idealized public sphere of rational communication (‘speaking truth to power’) but a politics, including cultural politics, that trades on knowing how and showing up” (Anderson 2009: n. p.). Likewise, I intend to go beyond a predominant emphasis on either agency-enhancement or on virtual community, yet with another theoretical approach: not social network analysis, but the field as a domain of practice. Furthermore, in contrast to Anderson, I base my analyses on ethnographic material (interviews and participant observation), as well as an analysis of mediated sociability: data he does not provide, despite his anthropological background. Public spheres and counter-publics Blogs have often been discussed in the light of the Habermasian public sphere concept, as Anderson’s quote above indicates. In his article on Arab blogging, Lynch (2007a: 21) argues that the question “whether these blogs can live up to Habermasian ideals of rational-critical discourse is beside the point”. However, studying blogs as emerging public spheres or their impact on the public sphere have been major research angles, even if in a negative distinction to the Habermasian model.

16 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT Furthermore, the main theories of counter-publics that are relevant to my field have to be read against the background of Habermas’ study. As I outlined above, my study takes publicness as a conceptual starting point. In order to situate and distinguish my own perspective, however, I will outline the debate around public spheres and counter-publics in the following. Jürgen Habermas’ Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit was first published in 1962.35 The English translation was not published until 1989, and the Anglophone research world replied to it in the 1990s. Habermas conceptualised the public sphere as an “institutionalized form of rational-critical discourse about objects of common concern that could be carried over directly into political discussion” (Calhoun 1992: 13). I do not intend to discuss his concept in detail here,36 but I still would like to mention the key features of the bourgeois public sphere: 1. the idea of being ‘inclusive’ in principle, which means that everybody who can read could participate; 2. the bracketing of status difference; 3. the discussion of issues hitherto not problematised; and 4. consensus as the telos of the public sphere (see Calhoun 1992). The concept entails normative concepts of inclusiveness, egalitarian access, valuable means and contents, which make it problematic to work with, as I mentioned above (see also Haugbolle 2007). The degree to which Habermas’ case study of a bourgeois public sphere is applicable to other contexts and to which the normative components are to be understood as universal has subsequently been questioned. Yet in spite of this criticism, my case study here discusses conditions and social fields of a public, a perspective that is relevant to understanding any form of public. A critical engagement with Habermas’ public sphere concept from a feminist perspective is Nancy Fraser’s article “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy” (1992 [1990]). It is probably the most prominent contribution to the theory of counter-publics,37 and several scholars have been working with this concept or extending it.38 Fraser makes a case for a “plurality of competing publics” that counters Habermas’ idea of the “singularity of the bourgeois conception of the public sphere, its claim to be the public arena” (ibid.: 122). She argues for a critical interrogation of his idealised concept, discussing mainly gender and class exclusions. Her argument is that the bourgeois 35 The first edition was followed by several others and a newly revised one in 1990. 36 For a comprehensive overview, see the introduction to the edited volume by Calhoun 1992. 37 For an extended presentation of the ‘Begriffsgeschichte’ of counterpublics, see Wimmer 2005. 38 The article was published in an edited volume on Habermas and the Public Sphere (1992) in which various scholars provide critical reviews of the Habermasian bourgeois public sphere.

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public was never the public and that “competing counterpublics” existed as women’s public arenas (Fraser 1992: 116). The emphasis in her approach lies on the contesting function of subaltern counter-publics – which is not undisputed. For example, Jodi Dean (2003: 97) criticises that such “publics” are merely groups, because they have special concerns and are partial. Despite their function of “withdrawal and regroupment” (Fraser 1992: 124), Fraser regards these arenas as publics, since they have a public orientation and, in their “agitational activities”, are directed toward wider publics (ibid.). Fraser (1992: 123) refers to alternative publics in stratified societies, which my research field in Lebanon certainly is, as: subaltern counterpublics in order to signal that they are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs.

This definition of a counter-public presupposes that the actors of this public are “subalterns” or “subordinated groups” that formulate “oppositional interpretations” (ibid.) of their own interests – a point I will come back to shortly and then in particular in chapter 8 when applying the notion to my own material. Overall, by arguing for a model of multiple publics that does not contradict the public sphere concept, Fraser’s concept challenges other public sphere theories and theorists and helps thinking beyond the public sphere/ counter-public dichotomy. In my studies of blogging in Lebanon, which is situated in Lebanon’s stratified media landscape, her concept proved to be an important perspective to help go beyond this dichotomous understanding of public dynamics. Moreover, the notion of counterpublic presents a conceptual approach to studying social media, and blogging in particular, to grasp its oppositional content and direction (Wimmer 2005, Riegert and Ramsay 2011, Jurkiewicz 2011a). Michael Warner’s “Publics and Counterpublics” (2002) was then useful in analysing my data because his approach sheds light on the participants’ point of view and their self-positioning in relation to the wider public. In his work on queer counter-publics in the last three centuries, he complicates the notion by examining the ways one might be ‘subaltern’. He argues that the reasons why members of a certain public might be regarded as subaltern can differ greatly and that sometimes mere participation in a certain public can make people subaltern (ibid.: 87). Concerning what the public is actually ‘countering’ or addressing, he explains: A counterpublic maintains at some level, conscious or not, an awareness of its subordinate status. The cultural horizon against which it marks itself off is not just a general or wider public, but a dominant one. And the conflict extends not just to ideas or policy questions, but

18 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT to the speech genres and modes of address that constitute the public and to the hierarchy among media. (Warner 2002: 86)

In particular, the different modes of address Warner looks at in his article were a valuable perspective for my research project and sensitised me to ways of addressing potential audiences. Overall, it must be added, neither conceptualisation of counter-publics can simply be applied to the internet and my field of study in particular, since the structures of production and dissemination differ between print and digital media. Wimmer’s (2005) discussion of counter-publics then outlines the two dimensions of the term “counter-public sphere” with regard to “alternative media” and new social movements (NSMs): On the one hand, it refers to critical partial publics aiming to bring their positions – which they feel are being marginalised and which are also often named “counter-public” – to mass media by means of alternative media and actions and therewith gain public attention (“alternative public spheres”). On the other hand, the term counter-public spheres also describes a collective and above all political process of learning and experiencing within alternative forms of organisation as for example NSMs, NGOs etc. (“participatory counter-public spheres”). (Wimmer 2005: 95f)

At the same time, he highlights that “alternative media” complement the mainstream media. The degree to which the local field of blogging I analyse here can be understood as a counter-public is a question that accompanied my research, and I will discuss it at various points in the subsequent chapters.39 Before I turn to the discussions about Middle Eastern publics, I will give a brief overview of the wider discussion on the internet and the public sphere, which reflects some general trends of how the question is dealt with in internet studies. The internet as public sphere? The emergence of a new public sphere has been widely hailed in much of internet studies. In Wealth of Networks40 (2006), Yochai Benkler claims that, through its network architecture, the internet enables new kinds of public discussion and peer production in a wide spectrum of sectors of society. Benkler argues that the internet leads to a “qualitative change in the role of individuals as potential investigators and commentators, as active participants in defining the agenda and debating action 39 See chapter 1.4 and 8 and also Jurkiewicz 2011a. 40 In his book, as already indicated in the term “Wealth” in the title, Benkler enthusiastically describes the changes in social production both from an economic and from a cultural perspective.

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in the public sphere” (2006: 225). According to him, “the primary effect of the internet on the public sphere in liberal societies relies on the information and cultural production activity of non-market actors” (ibid.: 220). Although he discusses critically the ‘democratising effect’ of the internet and hints at information overload, fragmentation, polarisation and the possibility of filtering in authoritative regimes (Benkler 2006: 233ff),41 he defends the claim that the internet can contribute to a more vivid public sphere. Yet there are also voices more critical that argue that the networked structure of the internet does not encourage different people to discuss with each other, but rather promotes discourse among the likeminded (see Calhoun 1998). Furthermore, the internet’s capacity to create consensus is regarded sceptically. Another claim is that the structure of the internet facilitates commerce, rather than an emerging public sphere. In “Why the Net is not a Public Sphere” (2003), Dean points out that the public sphere is an ideological construct and criticises the self-representation of new media as a democratic public. The extension and intensification of communication, in her argumentation, has not led to democracy but to “communicative capitalism” in which “more domains of life have been reformatted in terms of market and spectacle” (ibid.: 102). She further argues that the internet’s “neodemocratic networks are contestatory networks” (ibid.: 109) that contradict the telos of consensus that defines the Habermasian public sphere. In my opinion, without empirical foundation, the abstract question whether the internet is a public sphere is in danger of drifting into detached ideological discussion. Since it is in concrete contexts, social networks and fields that publics/ counter-publics are constituted, case studies can show the variety of publics enabled or possibly constrained through the internet. Perspectives on Middle East publics A range of scholars have been involved in studying the dynamics of Arab publics and working with or arguing against the public sphere concept. In 1999, Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson published the first edition of New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Under the banner of “new media”, they summarise novels, cassettes, TV series and internet sites. In the introduction to this edited volume, the authors define “Muslim publics” as characterised by the “new and incredible accessible modes of communication” that lead to “fragmenting and contesting political and religious authorities” (1999: 2). Thus, old asymmetries between senders and receivers and producers and consumers would be reversed (ibid.: 3). They also argue that the significance of place has changed and boundaries are no longer territorial, but contextual and crosscutting (ibid.: 4). New people, new 41 Benkler also mentions the problems of the digital divide, i.e. the uneven distribution of and access to internet facilities, but does not discuss this problematic further.

20 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT thinking and a new religious public sphere are outlined as the main aspects of this new trend. Although Anderson later said he had to “plead guilty” to “newism” (2009: n. p.), and calls were made to look at the continuities of media (such as by Armbrust 2007 and 2012), the newness of ‘new media’ in the Middle East, especially within the Arab uprisings, has been highlighted continuously. Another attempt to grasp the changing Arab public was The Beirut Conference on Public Sphere, held at the American University of Beirut in 2004. Two publications that stem from this conference (Salvatore and LeVine 2005 and Shami 2009) discuss the applicability of the public sphere concept to the Middle Eastern context by analysing historical and contemporary case studies from the region, from cafés and marketplaces to print media and the internet. The edited volume by Shami, referring to Fraser, starts with the hypothesis that, rather than one bourgeois public or one form of political participation in political life, there have been, “a variety of ways of accessing public life and a multiplicity of public arenas” (Shami 2009: 33, citing Fraser 1992). “Therefore analysis now focuses on the multiplicity of publics, on competing publics and on counter-publics” (ibid.: 32f). Publics are understood as processual, “emergent rather than stable units” (ibid.: 33). This contemporary research on Middle East publics goes beyond Habermas’ idea of a public sphere and looks at the emergent, shifting and competing forms of publics. The idea of a ‘dominant’ public is thereby no longer that clear, as publics as well as counterpublics are fluid and contested (see Haugbolle in Shami 2009). These insights were important foundations for my research and helped me think beyond the public sphere concept. Again, I intend to carry forward the discussion in the direction of ‘doing publics’ with a practice-theory approach, for which discussions within media anthropology were an essential input. My last section on research perspectives thus briefly outlines this field of study. The individual approaches and contributions will be discussed in more detail in the respective chapters. The anthropology of media practices Anthropology began paying attention to the media as social practice in the late 1980s. Along with an “anthropology of the present” (Fox 1991), anthropologists started to look at global entanglements, in which media became increasingly important. Early media-ethnographic studies analysed media activism and reception in specific local settings (see Ginsburg et al. 2002). Studies of digital media have been conducted since the end of the 1990s, for instance in the pioneer study by Miller and Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (2000), which I will come back to in the section on methodology.42 For this work, the discussion of the 42 See Postill 2011: 20ff and Coleman 2010 for an overview of anthropological internet studies.

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theorising of media practice is particularly relevant. Birgit Bräuchler’s and John Postill’s edited volume Theorising Media and Practice (2010)43 reflects the efforts and discussions around practice-theory approaches within the field.44 According to Postill (2010a: 12ff), this approach can be made useful in various media anthropological studies, such as of media in everyday life, media and the body, media and production. He defines practices as “embodied sets of activities that humans perform within varying degrees of regularity, competence, and flair” (ibid.: 1). As Nick Couldry argues in the same volume, the concept makes it possible to decentre the text. Instead, a practice-theory approach emphasises the contextualisation of media and sheds light on what people actually do with media (Couldry 2010: 3554). Furthermore, as Hobart argues in the same volume (2010: 69), “potentially it avoids the ethnocentric closure that bedevils media studies”. There are different stances within media anthropology on what practice theory implies in detail, from the suggestion that certain media practices may anchor other practices (Couldry 2010: 47ff) to the call to look at media-related practices (Hobart 2010), which I refer to in conceptualising blogging as practice in chapter 5. Overall, it can still be stated that media anthropology is essentially tied to practice concepts and pledges to look at “contextual fields” (Spitulnik 2010: 107). Against the background of the various research fields and academic traditions that I considered for my research, my study is to be understood as a case study of media production in an anthropological vein, which involves a thorough analysis of the practices of blog production in the Lebanese context. In the following, I outline the methods I used for my study and the material I gathered. I will also discuss the ethical challenges I encountered during my fieldwork. In chapter 2.1, I will then provide a more detailed analysis of fieldwork procedures and my role in the field.

M ETHODS

AND ETHICS OFF - AND ONLINE

When talking with other researchers and with non-academics about doing a study on blogging in Lebanon, I was often confronted with the question why I needed to go ‘there’, since everything is already online. A practice-theory approach, however, requires the study of practices in their local and material context, and thus fieldwork offline is indispensable. On the whole, there are self-evidently divergent strategies for studying the internet ethnographically. Which methodology is best

43 The volume originated in a Media Anthropology Workshop within the EASA (European Association of Social Anthropologists) in Bristol, 2006. 44 For more details, see the introduction to part II and chapter 5.

22 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT suited is discussed intensively and I do not intend to cover them here in detail,45 but I will mention two prominent contributions reflecting two research strategies. The first is Christine Hine’s Virtual Ethnography (2000), in which she analyses a media event as virtual object by doing research exclusively online. The focus of her study is on the internet as culture and cultural artefact. Hine argues that the “ethnography of the internet does not necessarily involve physical travel”, but involves travel “by looking, by reading, by imaging and imagining” (Hine 2000: 45).46 Yet, she does not claim that exclusively online research is suited to all research endeavours. On the other side of the spectrum of ethnographic approaches in internet studies, Miller and Slater’s The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (2000) analyses internet use in Trinidad. In their fieldwork, Miller and Slater focus on concrete sites, such as home, workplace and internet cafés, and show how the internet is not apart from but very much part of everyday life and thus cannot be studied separately. Axel (2006: 365f) criticises Miller and Slater’s “championing of the traditional”, i.e. fieldwork in a traditional ethnographic sense, as “somehow extreme”. Nonetheless, he acknowledges their contribution in extending “the limits of normativity of a certain discursive formation that conditions ethnographic approaches to the study of new technologies of communication” (ibid.: 365f). Hine’s approach and findings are very useful in the study of online activity. In general, however, I would argue that conducting ethnography of the internet purely online entails the risk of privileging the textual over other modes of analysis. This fits Borneman’s and Hammoudi’s (2009) criticism of textualism in anthropology and the demise of fieldwork within the discipline. He criticises anthropological media studies, amongst other things, for often dealing only with media texts, as a substitute for fieldwork in the Malinowskian sense (ibid.: 9). An ethnographic approach to the internet like Miller and Slater’s, in contrast, privileges the uses of and practices ‘around the internet’. In sum, which approach is suitable depends very much on the research question and theoretical orientation. The possibilities of access are self-evidently crucial, as well. A combination, i.e. being there on- and offline, promises to be the most fruitful approach, since digital media practices form an online-offline continuum. By focusing solely on the online realm, one fails to perceive these continuities.

45 As can be seen in the debates in the EASA Media Anthropology Network, see E-seminar 7 on “Researching the Internet” in 2005 (http://www.media-anthropology.net/braeuchler _eseminar.pdf) and e-seminar 38 “From cyber to digital anthropology to an anthropology of the contemporary?” with an article by Philipp Budka, 2011 (http://www.media-anthro pology.net/file/budka_eseminar.pdf), both accessed February 18, 2012. 46 Hine’s second quotation, “you travel by looking, by reading, by imaging and imagining”, is from Burnett 1996: 68.

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Corresponding with my research interests in the context and practices of blog production and the dynamics within the field of blogging, ‘being there’, in the sense of doing fieldwork in the local context, was an important part of my research. Learning about blog production practices solely by conducting online research was less valuable, since I was not interested only in what bloggers wrote, but primarily in the practices and media uses around blogging. Besides, to get a sense of the place and the social and political context, as well as strengthening my language skills in the Lebanese dialect, I consider my extended stays in Lebanon to have been indispensable for my research project. Changes in the research project Initially I had started the project with the aim of comparing the Lebanese and the Egyptian blogosphere. But after the end of my first fieldwork in Beirut (in spring 2010), I realised that although a shift of the fieldwork location would broaden the study, I might lose focus and depth. I would have to deal with two Arabic dialects and two localities and to follow the developments of two dynamic blogospheres; whereby the Egyptian one is especially huge (see chapter 1.3). In short, I realised I would not have enough time to do both in the three-year framework of my funding. Thus, I decided to concentrate on the Lebanese case in order to follow up on the Lebanese actors over a longer time. Being in one locality instead of doing multisited ethnography somehow seemed old-fashioned, in particular when it came to translocal media spheres. However, I also consider this choice more promising for understanding the local dynamics (Miller and Slater 2000). On the whole, I found myself privileging offline over online fieldwork. First, this is due to the fact that in a lot of studies, in particular on the Middle Eastern internet, the online realm is already overexposed (see above), and I chose to resist this trend. Beyond that, to realise the practice approach, interviewing and following bloggers in their daily lives ‘offline’ was essential. Field trips My first field trip to Lebanon was from the end of October 2009 to the end of March 2010; my second, shorter, follow-up research was during March and April 2011. I thus spent seven months in Lebanon, which would have been worth extending, but that would also have made it more difficult to keep the set time frame. During my first stay in Lebanon, I initially concentrated on attending any social media events and on meeting bloggers for interviews. I contacted them by mail, by leaving a comment on their blog, or personally when I met them at an event. Events where I could meet bloggers included a discussion about “Blogs that became books” at the Salon du Livre, the French Book Fair in Beirut in November

24 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT 2009; the Arab Bloggers Meeting in Beirut (December 8-12, 2009); and some of the social media gatherings in Beirut organised by the Social Media Exchange initiative (SMEX) and others. I also followed bloggers to training sessions on how to blog that were held in Beirut or outside the capital, and I met them at demonstrations and other social and political occasions, mostly in central Beirut. I was lucky to be in Beirut when some bloggers were initiating the Lebloggers, a Lebanese bloggers’ association, and to be allowed to take part in some of their meetings. Along with a range of informal talks during this first stay, I conducted interviews with about twenty bloggers (seventeen Lebanese and five Egyptian bloggers; I met the latter during the Arab Bloggers Meeting) in English, Arabic and French.47 I conducted semi-structured interviews, i.e. following a catalogue of questions, but at the same time being open to what the bloggers thought ‘really mattered’. Furthermore, I interviewed other actors in the field of social media, such as the SMEX Beirut director. “Being there” (Borneman and Hammoudi 2009) allowed me not only to meet the bloggers in their life context, but also to participate in some of the community’s events and become part of the field, at least to a certain degree.48 During my second stay in Beirut, I then focused on eight case studies that I had chosen among the various bloggers I had already met and interviewed during my first stay. My focus on the context of blog production had become clearer by the time I came back to Beirut. In order to ‘decentre the text’ and contextualise the blogging practice more fully, I relied on being able to meet the bloggers again and to visit them at their work place or home or in other social contexts. Although I already knew the bloggers in my sample better and had met with them several times (the interview, the Lebloggers meetings and diverse social and political events), the follow-up research proved to be more challenging than I had imagined and was in part quite frustrating. All the bloggers seemed to be extremely busy with at least two (part-time or freelance) jobs. Beyond that, I met those whom I had the most access to, on several occasions and in several places, such as their work place, demonstrations, in their spare time with other friends in cafés and bars, their homes and other places. Choice of case studies While in the beginning of my project I focused on ‘alternative content online’, taking blogs as one such phenomenon, the ‘political blogs’ were in my initial grid. I excluded blogs that focussed merely on fashion, technology, design, cooking or the like. However, I slowly broadened my scope, as the category of political blogs did 47 For more on language, see chapter 2.1. 48 I reflect in more detail on my role in the field in chapter 2.1.

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not fit the fluidity of genres between political and personal blogging I observed in the field. Moreover, the bloggers I encountered were reluctant to associate themselves with any single category. When I asked one of the bloggers in my sample how he would describe his blog, he answered: I don’t know. I try to… before I came here I knew that you would ask this question, and I was asked this question before and I never know how to describe it with one phrase, I don’t answer: it’s a political blog or a personal blog. […] Some bloggers prefer to focus on one theme like politics or religion or personal stuff because they talk to a specific audience, but I cannot just write politics. (Adon i1)

49

This stance was also reflected by other bloggers who rejected being put in the category of political blogging and saw their blogging as more flexible. This shows that bloggers themselves do not necessarily perceive themselves as belonging to one of the established blogging ‘genres’. Beyond that, as also Taki (2010: 151) outlines, bloggers may change their blog topics over time. The blogs in the local field I focused on are characterised by the combination of both political and personal blogging – an amalgam of political commentary, personal observations, poems and drawings. Of the 17 bloggers I interviewed during my first fieldwork, I chose eight as my main case studies. It was these eight that I concentrated on in my second fieldwork in spring 2011. My criteria for selection were that they were (still) intensively blogging, i.e. once a week at least, that their blog was an individual, single-author blog and that they were linked and embedded within the local field of blogging.50 In addition, I sought to build a sample that represented a diversity of languages and writing styles, such as English and Arabic, and within the latter standard and colloquial Arabic, as well as research-like, journalistic and activist writing styles and forms of artistic expression. Another criterion was obviously accessibility, i.e. their willingness and ability to meet me for a follow-up interview. Of the eight bloggers in my sample before my second fieldwork, there was one blogger I could not meet for a second time for an informal talk or interview, and I therefore excluded him from the main sample. So my main sample consists of seven bloggers, of whom five are male and two female.51 The sample represents the main 49 Interview with Adon (Ninar) on February 9, 2010, Beirut. In the following, for bloggers from my main sample, I will use a simplified reference system for the interviews integrated in the text (i1 = interview 1, for a list of interviews see the appendix). 50 Riegert and Ramsay’s (2011) findings and in particular their linking analysis of Lebanese bloggers helped me confirm my selection, see below. 51 According to the Berkman study (Etling et al. 2009), one-third of the Lebanese cluster consists of female bloggers.

26 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT groups within the local field of blogging in terms of professional backgrounds: young politically engaged journalists, IT professionals and designers. My study consequently concentrates on a few individuals in the local field of blogging and, as I will show, in part a loose group of friends. From my point of view, it is exactly this closeness to specific actors that can provide a rich insight into the internal dynamics of the local field of blogging, which is also based on close ties offline. Beyond that, the ethnographic take on production conditions and practices justifies concentration on a small sample of bloggers. The advantage of intensive case studies lies in the in-depth insights they provide. These cases have value as examples in contrast to ‘representative’ samples that try to cover a whole field and hence are inevitably less deep. After I had chosen my case studies, I came to know that my sample bears a close resemblance to the sample of a Swedish research team led by Kristina Riegert and Gail Ramsay. They followed a quantitative approach to choosing the ten most popular bloggers of various Arabic countries, whether writing from the respective country or the diaspora. Their criteria were to pick the popular, i.e. the most-visited and most-linked blogs (Ramsay and Riegert 2011).52 All of the local Lebanese bloggers in their sample were included in my initial sample as well.53 Thus, although I chose a qualitative approach, I also selected the same ‘main’ bloggers in Lebanon – in terms of visitors and connectedness – by spending time in the field on- and offline. Neither their sample nor mine captures the whole diversity of what is called the Lebanese blogosphere; they are to be understood as snapshots within the temporary and fluid sphere of blogging. Online research ‘Being there’ in the sense of being online and following blogs, the bloggers’ tweeting activities and other online practices was also an important method for my research, without which I could not have grasped the dynamics of blogging. A typical research day in Oslo and Berlin started with reading the daily press roundup offered on the news website NOW Lebanon;54 after that, I took a look at the 52 Their sample includes The Angry Arab News Network, Plus961, Maya’s Amalgam, Qifa Nabki, From Beirut with Funk (former Independence05), Hummus Nation, Trella, Ninar, Beirutiyat and Hannibaael. While The Angry Arab News Network, Qifa Nabki and Hummus Nation are written from the diaspora, the others are written by bloggers based in Lebanon. 53 Khodor (aka Jou3an) is additionally included in my sample. 54 An al-Hariri-funded online news site, to be found at: https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en. The press roundup provides English translations from the four Lebanese newspapers AnNahar, Al-Akhbar, As-Safir and Ad-Diyar.

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Lebanese blog aggregator55 and then checked what the bloggers in my sample had published; I followed them by means of a Google Reader subscription to their blogs.56 This led to following up on links they posted or articles they referred to. I also followed the actors on Twitter, not continuously – since it simply would have kept me from doing anything else – but rather by random sampling and in relation to particular political events such as the municipal elections 2010 and during the events of spring 2011. During my fieldwork in Beirut, I also followed a similar online research schedule to the degree that the electricity and internet connections allowed. Last but not least, Facebook became an indispensable research tool for following a wide spectrum of the bloggers’ activities. I usually sent a friend request to the blogger I had met for an interview, or he or she asked me during the interview whether I was on Facebook and told me to ‘add’ him or her. During my fieldwork in Beirut, Facebook gave me at least an indication of political or cultural events they would probably attend and allowed me to visit the same events as well. To a certain degree, Facebook also allowed me to follow what else was going on in their lives. Although they were aware that I saw their Facebook activities and also had access to my profile, this nevertheless left me with the feeling of ‘spying’ on them, especially since some of them did not seem to employ any privacy settings and as I guessed were in general less aware of others scanning their content. I will return to how I dealt with this in the next section “Ethical dilemmas”. ‘Being there’ online on the various platforms the bloggers used and following the links they posted also meant occasionally getting lost online and having to deal with huge amounts of data. I used Zotero, a Firefox application, to save my online data and tagged it according to the categories that I also used for my offline fieldwork data. At least I tried to synchronise the tags of my online and offline data, which was difficult at times due to the huge amount of data. Material and analysis My material thus consists of interview transcriptions (see the appendix for an overview of the interviews), fieldwork notes summarising material generated during ‘participant observation’, blog entries and other online material such as Tweets (Twitter entries) and diverse online articles. With this corpus of data, I worked in part inspired by the “grounded theory” approach of Strauss and Glaser (1967) that aims at generating theory from data in the process of research. Hammersly and Atkinson (2007: 166ff) describe this approach as more “activity than procedure”; by closely reading the data, one tries to develop fruitful concepts 55 http://www.lebanonaggregator.org 56 Longer Arabic articles were printed out, and I scheduled time for thorough reading at a later point during the day or the week. (See more on my language skills in chapter 2.1).

28 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT and theory. However, I did not employ this quite ambitious method strictly, but only for parts of the material. I read and reread the material, coded and re-coded along the lines of the focus of my study. At the same time, I was searching for concepts that could be useful for my research, from the public sphere and counterpublics to the field as a domain of practice, as I outlined in the beginning. The process was thus twofold, rather than purely generating theory out of the data. I will reflect on the methodologies and challenges of my approach at different points in this book and in particular in chapter 2.1. The critical assessment of the methods used cannot be confined to a short outline in the introduction, as it structured the production of my research on various levels. Or as another media researcher put it, “methodological considerations…must be an integral part of [the] argument” (Skrubbeltrang 2011: n. p.). As I deal with the production conditions of blogs, I also intend to be as transparent as possible about the context of the production of this research (see 2.1). Ethical dilemmas: Anonymity, privacy and confidentiality Anonymity is “a key ethical concept” in qualitative research (Tilley and Woodthorpe 2011: 198) and also part of the anthropological endeavour, which always “involves making things public that were said or done in private” (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007: 212). The anonymisation of the research’s participants is primarily used to protect them and ensure that confidentiality is maintained. However, as Tilley and Woodthorpe (2011: 6) outline, this “orthodoxy” has been questioned in recent years. These authors argue that the principle of anonymity cannot be applied universally. In particular fields of research, participants might want to be identified, researchers may be accountable to funders and, in interdisciplinary studies, differing standards about anonymity can conflict. Furthermore, instead of protecting the participant, “upholding the principle of anonymity could actually serve to underdetermine the researcher and/or participants’ autonomy” (ibid.: 200). How to protect the informant’s privacy in internet research is an open discussion and, due to the dynamised field, will probably continue to be so in the future. Sveningsson Elm (2009: 71f) adds for consideration that guidelines for research ethics cannot always be simply transferred to the online research environment, but must be revised.57 Beyond that, as she argues, when it comes to online data, the perception of the users must be taken into consideration. In my field of study, the choice whether and how to maintain the anonymity of my participants was a tricky one. On the one hand, part of the material I gathered is publicly available online, and in most cases the blogger’s full name is indicated or 57 In the same article, she summarises the Association of Internet Researchers’ efforts to develop ethical guidelines for internet research (Sveningsson Elm 2009: 72).

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can easily be tracked – for example through links to interviews they gave in which their full name was mentioned. At least what they published online was perceived as public by them, and thus I did not see the need to anonymise. Furthermore, in academic literature on blogging in the Middle East,58 it is common to give the links of the posts under study, so full anonymity did not seem to be the right approach. I also want to give credit to the bloggers’ writings. On the other hand, I felt the need to protect my participants, in particular in regard to the offline data I acquired in meetings, interviews and at times personal informal talks when hanging out together. Since I also used other online data not gleaned from the blogs, the anonymity issue became even more complex. Especially when it comes to Facebook, a social network in which the private and public are to be understood as continuous, it is even more difficult to apply research ethics. On Facebook I followed the bloggers’ daily postings, read their at times personal entries and saw pictures of them at parties and other events that I could only access by ‘friending’ the bloggers on this social network. They potentially knew I could read their Facebook ‘timelines’, since they accepted my friend request (or I accepted theirs), but no formal agreement was made that I could use this as material for my research. Furthermore, as I indicated above, privacy settings were not employed very much. It needs to be mentioned here, however, that most of the bloggers in my sample use their Facebook profiles as a semi-public platform and most have hundreds and sometimes even thousands of ‘friends’. Facebook served as an important tool for spreading new blog posts and connecting to other bloggers also beyond Lebanon. My initial pragmatic decision on the articles I published during my research was to use the blogger’s full name only if it was indicated on his or her blog; if a blogger was anonymous on her or his blog, regardless of whether I knew their real identity or not, I decided that their anonymity should be preserved. However, almost none of the bloggers in my final sample had anonymised their identity on their blogs, which in consequence means that my study is for the most part about named bloggers. In addition, I felt the bloggers’ implicit expectation that I would publish my findings and also give credit to their blogging activity. Given that the bloggers in my sample publish online and try to promote their writings, they saw my work as an additional ‘marketing’ of the Lebanese blogosphere and their respective blogs. For example, during my second fieldwork, several bloggers asked me whether I had finally published something and made use of the interviews they gave me, which shows their expectations of reciprocity. Some researchers argue in favour of letting the research participants choose whether they want their identities to be disclosed (see Giordano et al. 2007). But this is not an easy way out of the dilemma. In my case, the bloggers I met and inter58 This applies also to the Lebanese case in particular, see Riegert and Ramsay 2011, who have a sample of Lebanese blogs more or less similar to mine.

30 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT viewed were all aware that I would use the recorded interviews in relation to their blogs and thus their names for my publications. At times a blogger might make comments like “this is off the record” or ask me to stop recording when he was talking about a critical topic, which shows their awareness of possible consequences. However, I wonder whether even those with social science experience were fully aware of how my writings would use the interviews and in particular the notes from observations in informal settings.59 I would argue that ‘simply’ leaving the choice to the participants surrenders part of the researcher’s responsibility. Against the backdrop of these considerations, I decided not to anonymise the participants in my study, but to refer to them by their online names, which in some cases are their real names and in others only a nickname offline or a name created solely for online activities. I hope thereby to acknowledge the work they do online and, at the same time, not to invade what they might understand as their ‘offline privacy’ when it comes to the material I included from my observations and informal talks. Nevertheless, since anonymity is not to be conflated with confidentiality, I very much try to guard the latter as much as possible. In certain paragraphs that touch upon sensitive issues, such as internal group conflicts, I have consequently chosen not to ascribe the quotes to specific persons (see chapter 2.2 and 7.1), but rather to outline general strands in the discussion I want to cover. In these cases, the quotes stem either from observations in discussion rounds or from personal comments made outside interview situations. I decided not to include my Facebook data in this text, but only use it as a research tool for connecting and communicating with bloggers.

59 Some of the bloggers of my main sample have read parts of my writings. So far, they have raised no concerns about the way they are being represented. However, I felt they were not particularly concerned about being represented in academic publications as such, which are public in quite some different way than their blogs and target another audience.

I. The Field

The Field – Introduction

The aim of part I is to put blogging in Lebanon into context and introduce the local field of blogging that I analyse in more detail in the subsequent parts. Before entering the ‘field of blogging’, I need to clarify my use of the notion and its relation to other relevant terms.

F IELD

THEORY Field theory is an analytic approach, not a static formal system MARTIN 2003: 24

As I outlined in the introduction, my perspective on blogging in Lebanon is guided by the field approach in the sense as used by Postill (2008, 2011). Overall, the field approach, as Martin (2003) outlines, has a long history going back to the Gestalt theories in the 1930s. A variety of field theories are to be found in social science. One of the main proponents of the field concept is Pierre Bourdieu, who has analysed a number of fields, such as photography, literature and the French academic world. In “Practice and field: revising Bourdieusian concepts”, Alan Warde (2004: 12f) defines the main components of Bourdieu’s field concept as follows1: A field is a relatively autonomous structured domain or space, which has been socially instituted, thus having a definable but contingent history of development. One condition of the emergence of a field is that agents recognise and refer to its history. Some fields have more autonomy than others and some parts of fields more than other parts.

1

According to Bourdieu’s 1996 (1992) The Rule of Art.

34 | I T HE F IELD A field is an arena of constant struggle for ‘stakes’, particular types of field-specific and generic capitals. […] The dynamics of a field, it is said, arise from the positions, dispositions and position-taking of agents. These resources and dispositions are partly brought from without the field – a matter of their generic capital holdings and habitus of origin. […] The boundaries of the field, and the definition of who populates the field, is a matter of constant struggle, specifically a by-product of attempts to establish legitimate domination within the field. Hence boundaries are fluid and subject to periodic adjustment…

Bourdieu’s field concept is systematically linked to the notions of habitus and capital (see Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 96), “these resources and dispositions” that agents bring with them to the field. Habitus is broadly to be understood as a set of dispositions and ways of acting that are socially learnt.2 Different forms of capital that are at stake in a field include economic capital; cultural capital, acquired through the parental home and education etc.; and social capital, “made up of resources, trust and social networks”3. In the field of blogging, as I will show, these different forms of capital are pertinent. Understanding blogging in Lebanon as a field implies looking at the development and referred history of the field and analysing the internal dynamics of competition over field-specific forms of capital as well as the resources and dispositions the actors/agents bring with them. Furthermore, it entails giving special attention to the definition and struggles over its fluid boundaries, which, according to Bourdieu, can “only be determined by an empirical investigation” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 100). Warde (2004: 15) notes critically that there is, for instance, “much conduct within fields of art that has not the same competitive logic” as outlined by Bourdieu. These aspects of action cannot be grasped by focusing only on strategic action and competition. Consequently, I tend to extend the field notion to nonstrategic forms of action. Overall, I make use of Postill’s conceptualisation of the field approach, which combines Bourdieu’s field approach with other field theories. Postill’s conceptualisation is particularly useful, since it also evolved from studying the internet. In discussing different approaches in internet studies, Postill (2008: 418) argues, “One advantage of ‘field’ is that it is a neutral, technical term lacking the normative idealism of both public sphere and community”. He adds for consideration that Bourdieu developed his field theory in contrast to social networking analysis, since its

2

“Habitus is the ‘durably installed generative principles’: a set of acquired principles of thought, behaviour and taste (‘classificatory schemes’ and ‘ultimate values’) that generate social practices and is particularly associated with social class.” (Sage Dictionary of Sociology 2006: 130)

3

Sage Dictionary of Sociology 2006: 280.

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“practitioners fail to grasp the invisible network of objective relations binding human agents within a common cultural space […] and its fields of practice” (ibid.: 418). These invisible networks that people share are not grasped when studying the internet from a social networking perspective, which predominates along with the community paradigm in much of internet studies. However, as Postill adds critically, Bourdieu dismisses interaction in his field conceptualisation, which cannot be ignored when studying the internet (ibid.). For his study in suburban Malaysia, Postill synthesises Bourdieu’s field concept with that of the Manchester School of Anthropology (1940-1960s),4 which studied “urbanised localities under conditions of rapid social and political change” (Postill 2010b).5 Postill defines the field as “a domain of practice in which differently positioned practitioners compete and cooperate over the same prizes and rewards: money, pleasure, recognition” (2010a: 15). In particular, he uses Victor Turner’s (1974) conceptualisation of a field arena, which is defined as “a bounded spatial unit in which precise, visible antagonists, individual or corporate, contend with one another for prizes and/or honor” (cited in Postill 2011: 8). He also employs the notion of field stations (referring to Giddens 1984), which he defines as “‘stopping places’ in which field agents interact with other agents, ideas and technologies on a regular basis, an interaction that in turn reproduces the stations” (2011: 7). These stations can be both online or offline, a web forum or a public meeting. Arenas, in turn, as he outlines in the following, “are often stations that have temporarily morphed from being convivial settings to sites of conflicts in which individual leaders [in the local residential field] must clearly state where they stand in unresolved disputes” (2011: 8). In part 2.2 I will apply these notions to the local field of blogging.

F RAMING

THE FIELD

Overall, Postill’s field conceptualisation combined with Warde’s extension to nonstrategic practices provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of the local field of blogging. As a working definition, the ‘local field of blogging’ is a spatially framed subsector of what has generally been described by the term ‘Lebanese blogosphere’. Blogospheres have been celebrated as emergent public spheres, destined to “hold out the prospect of a new kind of Arab public sphere which could reshape the texture of politics in the decades to come” (Lynch 2007a: 3f). Calhoun outlines

4

See also Evens and Handelman 2006 and Postill 2010b.

5

In contrast, as Postill notes (2010b), “Bourdieu focuses on the slow-moving, cumulative changes that take place within an established field […], not on potentially volatile, unpredictable processes such as trials that often migrate across fields.”

36 | I T HE F IELD that “any public sphere is necessarily a socially organised field, with characteristic lines of division, relationships of force, and other constitutive features” (1992: 38).6 Against this background, I understand blogging as a socially organised field. I am primarily concerned with concrete social spaces, “visible antagonists” (Turner cited in Postill 2011: 8), interactions and practices in this local field of blogging. Before I introduce its context, characteristics and history, a short discussion of the term blogosphere is necessary in order to clarify my approach and use of terms. Quantitative studies, like the study by Etling et al. (2009) of the “Arabic blogosphere”, showed that blogging is organised mainly by countries, as most of the links are within the respective countries: “In the Arabic blogosphere the primary centers of gravity are national, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait having the largest clusters.” (Etling et al. 2009: 9). This is an argument for speaking of national blogospheres, and the term is widely used in research on different national clusters,7 such as on the Egyptian or Lebanese blogosphere. Also, some of the Lebanese bloggers themselves promote the image of a vital ‘Lebanese blogosphere’. The idea is realised and visualised on the site of the Lebanon Aggregator.8 The Lebanon Aggregator presents itself as the portal of the Lebanese blogosphere and gathers more than 400 blogs from or about Lebanon. Nevertheless, as seductive as the term ‘national blogosphere’ is, it is also problematic. It implies the existence of a connected community “linked and defined by the use of weblogs on a national scale that transcends religious and political boundaries” as Enrique Klaus argues (2009: 253). This implication somehow contradicts the nature of blogging, which is, as Anderson (2009) points out, primarily based on social networking and very similar to other social media tools. Another problem with the term is that the grouping around national clusters is not stable, but may change over time (see Taki 2010: 13). Furthermore, the term is very closely bound to network analysis, which does not grasp that bloggers act in a common social/local field even if they are not visibly connected online. Consequently, the term suggests a research perspective that focuses primarily on the online links – a perspective that I do not share (see introduction). In addition to these conceptual considerations, not all Lebanese bloggers ‘believe’ in the story of a Lebanese blogosphere. As the blogger Adon put it in an interview in February 2010: In the real sense of the word, there is no Lebanese blogosphere. When you talk about the Egyptian blogosphere there is an obvious blogosphere with common traits that relate to the

6

For a more thorough discussion of ‘public sphere’, see introduction.

7

These clusters are “based on similarities in linking choices by bloggers” (Etling et al. 2009: 9).

8

http://lebanonaggregator.blogspot.com/, last accessed March 14, 2012.

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majority of the Egyptian bloggers. When we come to the Lebanese blogosphere, we see a very diverse, very diverse blogs that have nothing or very little in common, so there are Lebanese bloggers, but blogosphere... we don’t even have an association for bloggers!9

In his understanding, a blogosphere is marked by a common cause and institutions (such as an association), and this is not the case for Lebanon. Nonetheless, he wrote a history of the ‘Lebanese blogosphere’ on his blog.10 In sum, despite its common use, the term is not an easy fit to describe all blogging activities having to do with Lebanon. I use the term to distinguish Lebanese blogging from other national clusters and from other countries where no blogosphere can be found, such as Yemen. The field notion in my definition of the terms, however, is not used as a substitute for a national blogosphere. Instead I use it for analysing, in accordance with my research interest and questions, a specific spatial field located predominantly in Beirut. This field is linked to and bound to the blogosphere, yet cannot be equated with it. The first chapter of part I sheds light on the context of the local field: it provides an outline of the media landscape (1.1); recounts the history of Lebanese blogging (1.2); places the field in the context of the regional blogosphere; and analyses its internal differentiation online (1.4). All this serves as a background and contextualisation for my study of the specific local field of blogging. In the second chapter, I will then turn the focus to the local field, first by reflecting on my way into the field and the fieldwork (2.1) and second by outlining its main features and analysing cooperation and competition on site (2.2).

9

Interview with Adon on February 9, 2010.

10 http://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/, accessed September 3, 2010.

1. Lebanese blogging in context, history and comparison

In this chapter I will outline the context and history of blogging in Lebanon. First, I will outline the wider media context in Lebanon and analyse internet infrastructure and use (1.1). Second, I will provide a short history of blogging since 2005. This will be enriched with some historical background on Lebanon’s political context (1.2). Following up on this, I will contextualise the Lebanese blogosphere in the ‘regional blogosphere’ (1.3) and, finally, analyse the online differentiation of the Lebanese blogosphere (1.4).

1.1 C ONTEXT :

MEDIA AND INTERNET IN

L EBANON

Lebanon shows a diverse media landscape with a relatively long history of newspaper publishing1 and television and radio broadcasting. I will briefly outline its history with a focus on the printing press and TV and present its main features. Newspaper journalism started in Lebanon in the middle of the 19th century under Ottoman rule, influenced in particular by French journalism and publications. This took place, as Haugbolle (2010: 49) notes, in a cultural context of a first phase of a bourgeois public: the introduction of open spaces in the city, public houses, theatres, the printing press, journals and the rise of a reading public, societies, universities, lecture halls, museums, improved transportation, concurrent with similar developments in other Middle Eastern cities like Cairo and Istanbul.

1

Lebanon has more newspapers than any other Arab country (Rugh 2004). Newspapers are privately owned and regulated by press law.

40 | I T HE F IELD The first Lebanese daily appeared in 1873. After a more liberal press law was introduced in 1909, “Lebanese newspapers were able to play a definite role in the Arab nationalist movements” (Rugh 2004: 93). Yet, the newspaper scene was also under surveillance and faced severe repression. Under the French mandate (19201941), more newspapers appeared, but they equally faced repression due to calls for independence. With formal independence in 1943, France still regulated the press until it finally withdrew its troops in 1946 (see ibid.: 93). For the phase from 1946 to 1962, media scholar Nabil Dajani (2011: 49) states: Lebanon’s policy of free economy and its relative political stability, following the Arab Israeli war and the consequent military coups in the Arab world, enhanced its political and economic role in the region. Lebanon became the diplomatic center for Arab business and finance. Consequently the Lebanese press institutions improved their material facilities and eventually developed into a pan-Arab press, which was a role previously occupied by Egypt.

The next period, from 1962 until the outbreak of the civil war in 1975, was, in Dajani’s words (ibid.), “perhaps the most important and richest period” for the Lebanese press. It was marked by the introduction of a new press law in 1962 that helped strengthen the “high degree of freedom” in the Lebanese press (see Rugh 2004: 94) and “protected it from administrative abuse” (Dajani 2011: 49). In this phase also, “local and foreign interest groups sought to support of the Lebanese press in order to reach the Lebanese and Arab masses” (ibid.). However, during the civil war, financial resources declined and the Lebanese press lost its influence.2 Furthermore, “strict penalties for press offenses” were introduced (ibid.). In Rugh’s (2004: 98) assessment, “the press became more limited to functioning as a narrow channel of communication among members of one group, and it became more irresponsible and tied to agents of violence, and pluralism turned into fragmentation”. During the war, journalists left the country and moved with their publications to the Arab Gulf or Europe, mainly to Paris and London. After the end of the civil war in 1990, the press began to rebuild. In 1994, a new press law was passed, which reduced censorship but also levied heavy fines for the violation of the press rules, such as “offending recognized religions or advocating racial or religious hatred” (Rugh 2004: 96f). Lebanon also played a pioneering role in television broadcasting, starting from the mid-1950s (Ayish 2011: 86). In the “national expansion phase” (1976-1990) in most Arab countries, broadcasting was closely tied to the state and accountable to head of states and ministers of information (ibid.: 88). Lebanon was an exception, since “multisystem broadcasting” dominated in this phase (ibid.: 89). La Companie

2

See also Rugh 2004: 95.

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Libanaise de la Télévision (1959) was the first privately owned Arab television company and was followed by Télé-Orient (1962). They were merged into Télé Liban in 1977, a half private and half state-owned company (Kraidy 1998: 389). In the 1980s during the civil war, many small TV and radio stations popped up without any legal framework (Nötzold 2008: 126, Kraidy 1998: 390). One of the most successful was the LBC (Lebanese Broadcast Company), sponsored by the Christian Lebanese Forces militia, starting in 1985 (see ibid.). As Kraidy (1998: 396) puts it, “private broadcasting emerged as a result of a regulatory vacuum, political fragmentation, and physical destruction”. With the politically contested new AudioVisual Law in 1994 and its implementation in 1996, no more than a few of these stations were licensed in addition to Télé Liban,3 revoking the monopoly of the latter (Kraidy 1998: 393). According to Kraidy (ibid.), the struggle reflected attempts by the regime to monopolise broadcasting in Lebanon.4 In the 1990s and beyond, a range of major television stations were launched, such as Hizbollah’s TV station Al-Manār (1991);5 Future Television (1993), whose majority owner was the Hariri family; and New TV (2001) (see Ayish 2011: 92f). At the same time, satellite broadcasting “ha[d] taken the country and the region by storm” (Kraidy 1998: 395). In 1996, the LBC-launched satellite channel LBCI became popular all over the Arab world (ibid.). According to a qualitative study of Lebanese television news by Katharina Nötzold (2008: 140), Lebanese media stations reflect various realities, mostly dependent on the proximity of the shareholders and sectarian groups to the issues – the persons or groups that are at the center of the reports. The divisions of the Lebanese society are often reproduced in the different approaches taken by each station. Even when political owners do not interfere directly, news directors often enforce an editorial line close to the political attitudes of the majority stakeholders.

Or as Kraidy (1998: 397) puts it, “the Lebanese regime indeed has become an oligarchy where political power and media ownership converge”. Overall, according

3

Of which Rafiq Hariri had acquired all private shares (Kraidy 1998: 392).

4

For details about the political struggles over broadcasting regulation, see Kraidy 1998: 392ff.

5

Ayish indicates 1999 as its starting date, yet other literature contradicts this. According to Kraidy (1998: 394f), the channel was granted an exception to the 1996 implementation of the law and allowed to broadcast “news of anti-Israeli resistance in Southern Lebanon” until its withdrawal. Also in Harb’s (2011) monograph on the channel, the launch date given is 1991. See ibid. for an extended history of the channel.

42 | I T HE F IELD to Rugh (2004: 93f), the Lebanese press reflects the “competitive balance underlying the Lebanese polity” and the multiple divisions in society along confessional as well as ideological, social, economic and other lines. This can certainly be applied to the overall media landscape, as shown for the case of Lebanese television. Moreover, Lebanon’s long history of private radio broadcasting shows these same divisions.6 In addition, the regional power struggles and conflicts greatly restrict Lebanon’s press freedom. After the end of the Lebanese civil war, Syrian troops remained in the country until 2005. Syria exercised considerable influence on Lebanese politics and media. Due to this, journalists practised self-censorship on issues concerning Syria (Rugh 2004: 97). Yet, the Lebanese state also prosecuted several papers in the 1990s7 and afterwards. Overall, however, Lebanon is relatively liberal with regard to freedom of speech, compared with other Arab countries. Yet the patronisation of the media and the political instabilities and conflicts endanger these freedoms. According to the yearly press freedom report by Reporters Without Borders, Lebanon ranked 93 out of 179 countries worldwide in 2011-2012,8 and thus deteriorated from 78 in 2010.9 Compared with rank 107/108 in 2006/2005, the years of the July War and the political turbulences of 2005 in which several journalists10 died from bomb attacks, the situation had however improved.11 A point worth adding, since it is particularly important for my field of study, is the media content presented in Lebanese news. Nötzold (2008: 140) draws the following picture: Lebanese news is elite-centered, often still presented in the form of protocol news, information about the ‘good deeds’ of political or religious leaders, and containing many political news items; no station leaves much space to members of civil society groups, and there is little room for the daily concerns of the citizens.

This perspective was also reflected in much of the bloggers’ criticism of the Lebanese media in the interviews I did; it is exactly against this background and the sec-

6

In an overview provided by Ayish (2011: 69), the main Lebanese radio channels and their affiliation are striking. Each radio station is affiliated with a particular political party, movement or family.

7

For several cases, see Rugh 2004: 97.

8

http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2011-2012,1043.html, accessed February 3, 2012.

9

http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2010,1034.html, accessed January 10, 2012.

10 Such as Samir Kassir and Gibran Tueni. 11 In 2002, Lebanon still ranked 56. See yearly results at: http://en.rsf.org/, accessed January 10, 2012.

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tarian division among different media channels that they place themselves. I will come back to their views on and relation to the media sphere in more detail in chapter 8, when dealing with counter-publicness. Internet infrastructure Lebanon’s woefully inadequate Internet connectivity has long been a subject of national frustration... SMEX BEIRUT12

Although, as Gonzalez-Quijano (2003: 63) states, “Lebanon played major roles in what can be called the incubation period of information technologies in the Arab world (1995-2000)”, its internet infrastructure is marked by high prices, a relatively slow connection and a market that is not based on fair competition. Lebanon’s internet history is marked, on the one hand, by an early adaption and pioneering efforts (ibid.: 4) and is described, on the other hand, as a “subject of national frustration” from the users’ perspective. Before shedding light on the current constraints and uses, let us look at Lebanon’s early internet history, as presented by GonzalezQuijano in a pioneering study on “Lebanon in the Internet age” (2003). According to the author, the first Internet Service Providers (ISPs) enabled those living in Beirut to access the internet in 1995: In Beirut as in other regional capitals, Internet usage was confined for a time to a narrow segment of the population drawn from the economic and cultural elite and largely imbued with a cosmopolitan spirit. (Gonzalez-Quijano 2003: 65)

Then, as Beirut newspaper professionals in 1996 started to put their dailies (AlAnwar, An-Nahar, As-Safir) online, a second wave followed. According to Gonzalez-Quijano’s estimates, there were up to 500 information and news websites by 2002. By that time, only three ISPs shared the local market: IncoNet Data Management, Cyberia and TerraNet (ibid.: 66). The early estimates were around 30,000 internet users in 1997 (ibid.) and 300,000 in 2002 (which equals 5.8% of the population).13 Gonzalez-Quijano mentions various factors in this comparatively success-

12 http://www.smex.org/2011/07/broadband-in-lebanon-no-longer-a-pipe-dream/, accessed January 10, 2012. SMEX is still active in 2017 and provides a good insight into current developments of internet infrastructure and digital media developments in Lebanon. 13 Internetworldstats indicates also 300,000 users for 2000. In the following years, the number of internet users grew further: 400,000 (2002), 600,000 (2005) and 950,000 (2008) =

44 | I T HE F IELD ful story of the internet in Lebanon, such as the country’s “relative political liberalism, its higher level of socio-economic and educational development […] and a long and strong history of emigration, principally to industrialized nations” (2003: 66). He further highlights the strong influence of emigrants on website production in Lebanon (ibid.: 67).14 Moreover, the online press in Lebanon had a strong impact and the new technologies led to an inherent generational change in this journalistic field, as “the ‘old guard’ of well-known writers have not adapted to the specific format of electronic writing” (Gonzalez-Quijano 2003: 72). This was also reflected in the interviews with journalists I conducted in Beirut in 2011 (see chapter 8). Furthermore, according to the same author, writers opted for online publishing in order to strengthen their ties with the readership outside Lebanon (ibid.: 73). However, Lebanese television broadcasting lagged behind channels such as Al-Jazeera in the use of online tools. The success of Al-Manār TV’s internet site can be considered an exception (ibid.) – or seen as an example of the widespread trend for Islamically oriented actors to be early adopters.15 Against this rather positive story of the early internet years, the constraints of the internet infrastructure that Taki (2008 and 2010) describes reflect much of the frustration stated in the citation opening this section. Taki (2008: 284) holds the political and economic conditions in Lebanon responsible for the “lack of developed infrastructure”; “rather than political and moral censorship, Lebanon’s internet users suffer from economic corruption which has created a situation where it has one of the most expensive phone and internet access costs” (ibid.). However, as Gonzalez-Quijano (2003: 66) notes, Lebanon’s living standard is higher than in many other countries in the region.16 Developments in Lebanon’s internet infrastructure from 2006 on can be summarised as follows: Lebanon introduced ADSL17 services in 2006, which had started worldwide in 1999 and for instance already in 2000 in Egypt18. However, it was not available in all areas, and especially in rural areas ADSL was not supported.

23.9% of the population, see http://www.internetworldstats.com/me/lb.htm, accessed February 2, 2012. 14 For an overview of websites in 2002, see Gonzalez-Quijano 2003. 15 As Albrecht Hofheinz pointed out in commenting on this chapter. 16 For general data, see the UNDP’s Human Development Report (2011): http://hdrstats.un dp.org/en/countries/profiles/LBN.html, accessed January 10, 2012. 17 “Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide.” http://en.wikipedia.o rg/wiki/Asymmetric_digital_subscriber_line, accessed January 10, 2012. 18 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Egypt, accessed February 1, 2012.

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Due to this situation, the majority of internet users in rural areas and, in 2008, 60% of all users were still using dial-up, as ADSL was not available and broadband too expensive (Taki 2010: 87). As of 2011, subscription prices ranged from $11 (for 128 kbps) up to $220 (for 2.3 mbps).19 Compared with other countries in the region, these prices were among the highest.20 Ogero, a data service provider owned by the Telecommunications Ministry, shared the market with a few private companies in 2009 (Taki 2010: 85f). However, Ogero and the ministry controlled most resources and are said to have favoured their own services over those of the private sector (ibid.). Ontornet, a Lebanese campaign for better internet services led by IT professionals, bloggers et al.,21 summarise in their March 2011 report the internet situation in Lebanon as follows: there is a lack of national backbone network, it is out-dated and there is a limited international cable capacity. Although work on its improvement has started, its commissioning has been postponed many times. In the report’s summary, the authors state, among other things: “Lebanese authorities indirectly monopolize everything related to that sector, minimizing any improvements or competition between ISPs.”22 Ogero, the Ministry and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) are presented as the three main parties in the telecommunication network involved in a constant “finger-pointing”, i.e. blaming the other parties for the insufficiencies.23 However, there were some rather positive developments in 2011. In July 2011, the IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) submarine cable, which had been operational since 2009, was finally activated.24 It will improve internet speed and reduce costs as well as provide 3G data service. In August 2011, a decree for broadband was passed, and some improvements have been made, including in

19 See www.ontornet.org/facts.html, accessed January 10, 2012. Prices and services in Lebanon are presented on slide 7. 20 See ibid. slide 10. Why prices in Lebanon did not fall as they did in other, equally corrupt countries of the region, is a topic for further discussion. 21 According to their own description, they consist of “Random Lebanese Internet Users Infected with Internet service deception, both on the private and corporate level”, see http ://www.ontornet.org/aboutus.html, accessed January 10, 2012. 22 www.ontornet.org/facts.html, based on data of TRA et al., accessed January 10, 2012. 23 http://www.ontornet.org/facts.html, slide 19, accessed January 10, 2012. 24 http://www.smex.org/2011/07/broadband-in-lebanon-no-longer-a-pipe-dream/, accessed January 10, 2012.

46 | I T HE F IELD Ogero’s services.25 Finally, in November 2011, the commercial 3G mobile broadband services were officially launched.26 These developments do not, however, make up for some basic problems in Lebanon’s infrastructure. According to Netindex, which ranks user download rates, Lebanon ranks 163 out of 172 countries in early 2012.27 Taki further notes that “[d]ecisions made to distribute broadband in different areas are not only based upon demand but also on equilibrium between different areas according to its sectarian make-up” [sic] (2010: 86). Besides the endemic problems of the internet infrastructure, electricity supply is another major obstacle to accessing the internet. Lebanon’s population suffers from continuous power outages, a problem that has not been solved and is politically disputed.28 Due to the outages, which last from three hours in central Beirut to six to twelve hours in the periphery and in rural areas, computer use in general and internet connection in particular are further impeded. Internet use Reliable data on internet access and use in Lebanon is hardly accessible. This is partly due to the limitations of self-reported internet use, but also to the sharing of personal computers, which is difficult to measure and applies to all of the Middle East and thus leads to underestimations (Wheeler 2006). Furthermore, figures mostly rely on ISP subscriptions, yet in Lebanon black market ISPs are very common but not included (see Taki 2010: 83f). According to Taki in 2008/2009, approximately 35% of internet users had access to the internet via black market ISPs (2010: 84). Along with private or occupational internet access, internet cafés, which are common in central Beirut, provide alternative access points.29 Against this background, I nevertheless refer to some statistics from Internetworldstats to give a broad overview. According to the website’s 2010 report, in June 2010 in Lebanon there were one million internet users, which constitutes

25 For instance, the free volume with an Ogero internet connection changed from 8 to 40 GB, see: http://www.smex.org/2011/10/what-practically-changed-in-ogero-internet-toda y/, accessed January 10, 2012. 26 http://www.i-policy.org/2011/11/lebanon-adsl-prices-now-below-arab-average-for-cappe d-plans-3g-prices-above-average.html, accessed January 10, 2012. 27 http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/, accessed January 10, 2012. 28 See for instance: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Aug-31/147608-breakt hrough-reported-in-lebanon-electricity-dispute.ashx#axzz1j40kdrKW, accessed January 10, 2012. 29 See Taki 2010: 91ff for an overview of a study of internet cafés in Beirut.

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24.2% of the population30.31 The numbers rose to more than 1.2 million internet users in March 2011, equalling 29% of the population.32 Compared with the data from 2010 and 2011 from other countries in the region, this rate is similar to the percentage in Jordan (27.2-26.8%), but lags very much behind the Gulf States such as Qatar (51-66.5%) and Bahrain (88-53.5%33). Only Syria (17.7-19.8%) and Yemen (1.8-9.7%) have, still according to Internetworldstats, lower access rates.34 Israel (70.4-71.6%) displays the highest internet penetration rate. The overall growth of internet users from 2010 to 2011 also reflects longer trends of growing internet access in the region. According to Alexa statistics from January 2012, the most popular websites accessed are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Facebook Google The Lebanese Google35 YouTube Windows Live36

30 The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division (2009) estimated Lebanon’s population at 4,224,000 in 2008, World Population Prospects, Table A.1, 2008 revision, United Nations, retrieved July 18, 2009. 31 http://www.internetworldstats.com/middle.htm, accessed February 15, 2011. The rate in 2000 was 5.8%, in 2002 = 9%, in 2005 = 13.3%, in 2008 = 23.9%, which indicates only a fast rise in internet access/use up till 2010. See: http://www.internetworldstats.com/me/lb. htm, accessed January 10, 2012. 32 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm, accessed January 10, 2012. 33 The rate in 2010 was much higher than in 2011. But the numbers are not a reflection of decreasing internet use. According to a recent census, the population has doubled since the last census in 2001 because of huge numbers of expats. This altered the basis for measurement. See: http://www.internetworldstats.com/me/bh.htm, and for information about the census: http://www.census2010.gov.bh/news/news_en26.html, both accessed January 10, 2012. The data provided by Internetworldstats is thus not to be taken as certain. 34 According to the World Information Access report (covering the time from 1995 to 2005), Lebanon was situated between place 70 and 80 worldwide (among 244 countries). http://www.wiareport.org/index.php/11/patterns-of-inequality-in-technology-access-1995 -2005, accessed August 27, 2009. 35 https://www.google.com.lb

48 | I T HE F IELD 6. 7. 8. 9.

Yahoo Lebanon News portal Elnashra37 Wikipedia Twitter (the latter was ranked 14th in 2011).38

The blogging platform Blogger is ranked 12th, and WordPress 27th. Maktoob, which also includes a blogging platform next to its email service, is to be found in place.39 When it comes to websites related to political parties, what is quite striking is that the Free Patriotic Movement’s40 website is in place 10, while the official website of the Lebanese Forces, the main Maronite party, is found in place 16 (still 11 in 2011), and the right-wing Kataeb party’s news site is at rank 18. Hence a strong presence of Christian parties is reflected in this rating. In contrast, Al-Manār Television, as the first website from the Islamic movement in the ranking, is only in place 98 and Hizbollah’s website named Al-Muqāwama (resistance)41 in place 389.42 Two social media sites, Facebook and Twitter, are among the ten most popular websites. The number of Facebook users in March 2011, again according to Internetworldstats, was over 1,200,000, more than one quarter of the population. As Patrick Galey (2011) from the Lebanese Newspaper Daily Star reported in June 2011, during the first three months of 2011 the number of Facebook users increased by 11%, with over one hundred thousand new profiles created. This is the highest percentage of users in any Arab country outside the states of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), according to the study the author refers to. Moreover, of the total Facebook users, 45% were female, which is the highest percentage in any the Arab

36 http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries;1/LB, accessed January 10, 2012. Compared to Alexa statistics on February 15, 2011, http://www.google.lb came in additionally and Windows Live sank from rank four to five. 37 http://www.elnashra.com/ 38 For the other websites indicated, the ranking changed only slightly; I indicate the numbers for the year 2011 only for those cases that shifted more than three positions in the ranking. 39 The Lebanese blogger and IT professional Rami (Plus961) explained to me that Yahoo, which owns Maktoob, is not as popular in Lebanon as in the countries in the Arab Gulf. The Arabic web portal Maktoob used to more popular in the past (Rami i2). 40 A mainly Christian-supported party led by Michel Aoun, a former commander of the Lebanese army, now affiliated to the March 8 coalition. 41 Al-Muqāwama al-Islāmīya – Lubnān, https://www.moqawama.org/, accessed February 1, 2012. 42 http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/moqawama.org, accessed February 1, 2012.

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states. Galey further states that there are upward of 80,000 Twitter users in Lebanon, making it 6th among the Arab countries; “a high posting considering its small population and slow internet connection” (Galey 2011: n. p.). Beirut Spring blogger provided an overview of Twitter users for early 2010, which shows, among other things, some prominent politicians actively using Twitter.43 Freedom of speech online When it comes to freedom of speech on the internet, the minimal legal administration and mostly absence of censorship Gonzalez-Quijano observed for the early years (2003: 67) is still relevant to the current situation. According to an Open Net report from 2009, no internet filtering or other similar activities took place.44 Particularly in comparison with other countries in the region, this must be highlighted. However, there are cases of online observation to be witnessed. In “The case of the Facebook four” (Ryan 2008) from January 2008, four young men were imprisoned in the city of Zahleh for one week. They were charged with making “crude and harassing remarks” in a Facebook group. According to the city’s public prosecutor, the charge was made in reference to articles dealing with slander and libel in print media. This implies that the same articles were used in dealing with comments posted on Facebook walls as for publishing journalistic articles. However, after a week the four were set free. According to the director of a human rights foundation; “this was obviously an act of intimidation” and such incidents happen “quite often” (ibid.: n. p.). In 2010 three people were arrested for “slandering Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on his Facebook page”, held for four days and then released.45 Later the same year another Facebook user’s comments led to him being held by the Military Security Service.46 Earlier the same year, a blogger was interrogated because of his criticism of the president.47 The case led to support from other bloggers, and even made it to the New York Times.48 I will come back to this particular

43 http://beirutspring.com/blog/2011/11/10/%E2%9D%8A-the-big-fat-guide-to-lebanese-tw itter-users/, accessed January 10, 2012. 44 http://opennet.net/research/profiles/lebanon, accessed January 12, 2012. 45 http://threatened.globalvoicesonline.org/blogger/antoine-youssef-ramia, accessed January 12, 2012. 46 http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/01/lebanon-first-threatened-voice/, accessed January 12, 2012. 47 http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/01/lebanon-first-threatened-voice/, accessed January 12, 2012. 48 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/middleeast/04iht-m04m1leblog.html?_r=1&e mc=tnt&tntemail1=y, accessed January 12, 2012.

50 | I T HE F IELD incident later (chapter 2.2). Overall these various instances show that the internet is not without surveillance, and the legal situation is rather unclear. In 2010, the government made attempts to organise and monitor the online sector by law, declaring that all website publishers, bloggers etc. must register themselves.49 The law encountered resistance from several organisations, associations and individual bloggers,50 and the law was temporarily postponed.51 Beyond these incidents, the structural insufficiencies can be regarded as constraints on freedom of speech online as well. As online activist and blogger Nadine Moawad52 put it during the ArabNet conference in Beirut in 2011: “slow internet connection is also a form of censorship”.53

1.2 A

SHORT HISTORY OF BLOGGING One condition of the emergence of a field is that agents recognise and refer to its history. WARDE 2004: 12

After having outlined the media context and the state of internet access and use in Lebanon, I will now turn to blogging. In outlining the history of blogging in Lebanon, the political context from 2005 onwards shall also be sketched. I would like to proceed with how the story is told by one Lebanese blogger himself before presenting other versions of the same story, relying on other bloggers, and researchers’ perspectives as well as my own observations. I will come back to the events and topics the blogger addresses in more detail throughout the chapter.

49 http://www.al-akhbar.com/ar/node/193760, accessed June 29, 2010. http://www.smex.org /2010/06/stop-the-new-internet-law-in-lebanon/. 50 For bloggers responses, see, among others: http://www.plus961.com/2010/06/a-standagaint-essa-and-the-new-lebanese-e-transaction-law/ and http://beirutspring.com/blog/2 010/06/14/lebanese-bloggers-are-furious-over-proposed-internet-bill/, the latter post provides links to other bloggers campaigning against the law. Both accessed June 29, 2010. 51 For a list of opponents of the law, see: http://www.smex.org/2010/06/we-stopped-thislaw/, accessed June 29, 2010. 52 http://www.nadinemoawad.com/ 53 On the third day of the ArabNet 2011, March 25, as I observed on Twitter. For a report of the overall discussion, see also: http://ginosblog.com/2011/03/25/arabnet-day-3-talking-r evolutions/, accessed January 12, 2012.

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In an interview on January 28, 2010, when I still was a relative newcomer to the local field, the blogger Hanibaael told me the history of blogging in Lebanon as follows: If you want a brief about the history of bloggers: first in 2005, when the Syrian army left Lebanon, there were many bloggers, many activists, many Lebanese youths that started blogging and writing about the revolution and 14 March, such as ‘we have our freedom and independence’ and other ideas. So many people started blogging but after three or five or six months they stopped... But later in 2006 during the war, July 2006, […] many Lebanese started to blog about the war, about the facts, and it was so important because the media, the Western media specially, took information and facts from these blogs, which is good because in the classic media they don’t speak about the whole truth but the bloggers and the people do it. Three or four months after the war, they stopped. In 2007, every year we have a war or a small media war. In 2007 during the war in Nahr el-Bared [Palestinian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon], there were many bloggers, many activists who started to blog about the facts: what the Lebanese army did and the Palestinian civilians who died and about the racism against Palestinians. They wrote about everything and after that they stopped blogging. And 2008 (laughter) there was a mini-war on June 7, no May 7, between Hizbollah and Future. And in this year, 2008, the Lebanese knew other social media, Facebook and YouTube. I don’t know if they used Twitter, because Twitter is not so popular in Lebanon until now... […] They use Facebook, they use groups, against this party and against others, and also there were many videos about the war and discussions on YouTube and other [platforms]. They didn’t use blogs and I don’t think it’s important. It’s a civil war and the people used aggressive languages, so the video […] had more influence. In the next war I don’t know what they will use. (Hanibaael i1)54

Hanibaael’s account reflects the different stages in Lebanese blogging and presents political events and conflicts as central reference points. He highlights the temporality of blogs, which pop up along with these events and close down afterwards. He also addresses the shifting media use among bloggers and activists. From his point of view, different media are useful for getting different messages across. Another account of blogging provided by the Lebanese blogger Adon follows similar lines and also distinguishes three generation of bloggers: those who started in 2005, in 2006 and then during or after the Gaza War in 2008.55 This is one account of the story, which other Lebanese bloggers would certainly tell differently.

54 Hanibaael is one of the bloggers from my main sample; for more, see in particular chapter 3.1. 55 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/, accessed September 3, 2010. He is one of the bloggers from my main sample; for more, see in particular chapter 3.7.

52 | I T HE F IELD Beginnings Blogging in Lebanon has increased enormously since former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri’s assassination on February 14, 2005 and along with the following demonstrations between February and April calling for independence from Syria, the so-called Independence Intifada or Cedar Revolution. The general climax during this period was filled with hope, as Haugbolle (2010: 206) describes: The ability […] to come together for a common cause instilled in many Lebanese the hope that the protests might lead to a political and societal transformation of Lebanon and heal conflicts and sectarian divides left unresolved since the civil war.

Yet the parties representing the Shiite population, Amal and Hizbollah, refused to take part in the opposition against Syria and in contrast rallied on March 8 in support of Syria (see: ibid.). On March 14 then, in a march estimated to have had one million participants, the ‘opposition’ demonstrated in downtown Beirut demanding the investigation of the Hariri murder and the withdrawal of the Syrians troops (ibid.: 208). These two symbolic dates have represented the political divide in Lebanon ever since. According to Craig Larkin (2010: 431), the Independence Intifada “has been celebrated by some commentators as the return of both civic participation and political mobilization to Beirut’s center”, yet: a more critical analysis of the event suggests that Beirut’s Down Town, rather than being reclaimed by people, was instead hijacked by political parties and leaders, making it a public stage for both performing politics and contesting the Lebanese nation, both locally and through the medium of global media. (Ibid.: 432)56

It was in this context that the first generation of Lebanese bloggers became active. Before 2005 there were only a few dozen Lebanese blogs, which was also the state in much of the Arab world. Taki (2010: 131) reports that there were 130 Lebanese bloggers in 2004. Between February and June 2005 alone, several hundred blogs were created (see Haugbolle 2007: 9) in which a wide range of issues, mainly related to the current political situation, were discussed. Several bloggers were involved in and covering the demonstrations on Martyrs Square.57 Blogger Rita Chemaly

56 See Lina Khatib’s analysis of the role of TV coverage in the independence intifada (2007). 57 There are rumours that some blogs were even sponsored by political parties from the inside but also by the US, as blogger Finkployd (Blogging Beirut) told me in an interview conducted on November 19, 2009.

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(2009: 119) reflects in her book about the myth and reality of the Beirut spring and notes on the role of blogging: In spring 2005, blogs became a space in which Lebanese of every age and in particular the young academics could share their photos, express themselves and describe the events that were going on downtown. (Translated from French, SJ)

Blogs with names such as Beirut Spring (posted by a Lebanese living abroad) were popping up, clearly linked to the political events and taking a political stand. They can be called blogs of the first generation. The first collective blog launched was The Lebanese Bloggers58 They noted in their heading that the blog was “created to honour the memory of Lebanese heroes of all sects who were assassinated for their patriotic stands”59, which is also reflected in their first blog entry on February 20: May the soul of one of the greatest leaders of Lebanon rest in peace! I also pray that God show mercy to Bassil Fleihan60 .... Heads must role! Syrian-Lebanese security apparatus must be purged! Independence & Democracy Now!61

The collective was “composed of Lebanese in their twenties writing from Beirut, the US and the UK” (Haugbolle 2007: 11), which reflects the involvement of Lebanese living abroad in the Lebanese blogosphere. Lebanese expats have written a considerable part of the Lebanese A-list blogs – those most frequently read and linked to – in the early years until now.62 Among them are Asad Abu Khalil’s blog The Angry Arab News Service63, which Haugbolle (2007: 11) describes as the “über leftist” of the Lebanese blogosphere, and Tony Badran’s blog Across the Bay.64 Both provide political commentary from different political angles. Beyond that, the role of expats was also visible in the bloggers’ meetings in the summer or at Christmas, in which Lebanese bloggers from abroad took part (Taki 2010: 132).

58 http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/ 59 http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/, accessed January 12, 2012. 60 The Lebanese Minister of Economy and Commerce, who was injured in the Hariri bombing and died of these injuries in April 2005. 61 http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/2005/02/may-harriri-rest-in-peace.html, accessed January 12, 2012. 62 See Bruns and Jacobs 2006: 1. 63 http://angryarab.blogspot.com/, accessed February 18, 2012. 64 http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/, accessed February 18, 2012.

54 | I T HE F IELD It was also in February 2005 that the Lebanese Blogger Forum65 was initiated. In the first post, a call to join the new community was published: This blog is meant to both count and (hopefully and eventually) invite other Lebanese to tell their stories and show their pictures of the Lebanon they love. Immediately I would like to focus on gathering as many Lebanese blogs into one place for a reference. Similar to the idea of the great Emigre and Iraq Blog Count. Well, you see, since being there I’ve got some practice under my belt. So it’s Lebanon’s turn now. I hope you enjoy. And welcome to the Lebanese Blogger Forum. Thank you for visiting. Come join this new online community.66

“If you’re Lebanese and blogging”, the initiator followed up in the next post to invite bloggers to be integrated in the directory and also to contribute to the collective blog. Discussions about what it meant to be Lebanese followed. Later, on May 22 of the same year, a guideline was posted that included a statement against uploading/publishing political pages and personal attacks. The online platform developed into both a bloggers’ forum and the first Lebanese blog aggregator, i.e. a website that gathers and hosts blogs. Starting with fifteen bloggers, the aggregator gathered over 300 blogs by 2006.67 The Forum communicated internally via a yahoo group, as one of its members, Independence05 blogger Liliane, told me (i1).68 In his study on the beginnings of Lebanese blogging in 2005, Haugbolle (2007: 10) concludes: The Lebanese blogosphere as it emerged in 2005 was not a platform for “the Lebanese people,” but for educated commentators. At the same time, blogs did widen the margin for political commentary and social critique by drawing in younger people with less established opinions than those normally seen in the Lebanese media. It may even have broken a monopoly of middle-aged journalists on shaping public opinion. Certainly, the Lebanese blogosphere has created new and vital linkages between diaspora groups and Lebanon, and between academia and the press.

65 http://lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com, accessed February 18, 2012. 66 http://lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html, accessed January 12, 2012. The underlined segments mark links in the post. 67 According to Taki’s (2010: 131) count in 2006. 68 In 2010, she later changed her blog name to From Beirut With Funk. She is one of the bloggers from my main sample, see fore more on Liliane 3.2.

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Blogging the July War 2006 The blogosphere then experienced a second peak in the July War of 2006, during which another hundred new blogs, the second generation, were launched. The names of the blogs included July 2006 War On Lebanon,69 Beirut Update – war diaries of a 30-year-old woman... with love from Beirut70 by artist Zena Khalil and Siege Notes71 by the writer and curator Rasha Salti. As the Lebanese Daily Star noted: [The blogs] are collective memory in the instant, a readymade archive not to be lost or forgotten. At base if those blogs are still online, then so are the bloggers. So too, by extension, is Beirut. (Wilson-Goldie 2006: n. p.)

During the war blogs “offered alternative news to traditional press and TV coverage” (Haugbolle 2007: 9). Bloggers wrote pieces of war journalism and “personal descriptions of life under siege” (ibid.), providing accounts of how the civil population suffered and writing about personal experiences,72 documenting destruction and offering on-the-spot analysis. Furthermore, blogs such as Samidoun (steadfast [people]) helped organise relief efforts.73 Most of these blogs were in English or French and clearly targeted an international public. But the Lebanese diaspora, too, was active in blogging during the war (see Salama 2007). According to Will Ward (2007: 2), “the Israel-Hizbullah conflict may have been the most intensely bloggedabout war in history”. Finkployd from Blogging Beirut, who started blogging in 2005, told me that during these days blogging had become a responsibility, because so many people (400,000 per day) were visiting his blog.74 A lot of other bloggers felt this responsibility to write about what was happening or needed a channel to express what they were experiencing. Those who started blogging at this point said that they felt pushed to open a blog, because they needed to let things out. Wadih al-Asmar from Rêver le Liban75 explained that he found himself in a position where he could not

69 A collective blog, http://july2006waronlebanon.blogspot.com/. 70 http://beirutupdate.blogspot.com/ 71 Published on http://rashasalti.blogspot.com/, the notes were posted on https://electronici ntifada.net/lebanon, which was part of Electronic Intifada (https://electronicintifada.net), but is no longer maintained as a separate site. 72 See Muzna’s Stories, now on http://hakaya.blogspot.com/. 73 http://samidoun.blogspot.com/ 74 Interview with Finkployd, November 19, 2009, Beirut. 75 http://reverleliban.blogspot.com/

56 | I T HE F IELD be against Hizbollah because the Lebanese army was not able protect the country, and he needed to put down something against the international coverage.76 In the first entry of his drawn diary KERBLOG77, the artist Mazen Kerbaj describes the situation as follows: no way to leave the country. nothing else to do than this blog. […] this concept of webtifada (the word is not form me. i insist)seems to have some appeal. as you might all know, my brain is not functioning to its full capacity these days. i have no idea of what to do. but despite my legendary skepticism, I feel we can do something with all these people around the world connected to the net. […] WE FUCKING RESIST. as we can. [sic]78

Blogging was thus perceived as a way to resist and as one of the few channels ‘to let things out’ and publicise them internationally. Yet, often the blogs began with notes for friends to inform them about the current situation, for example that of Rasha Salti, who started her diary-like blogs for friends outside Beirut during the war. However, these diary notes are becoming something else, and I realize now that I am no longer writing to the intimate society of people I love and cherish, but to an opaque blogosphere of people who want ‘alternative’ news. I am more than ever conscious of a sense of responsibility in drafting them, they have a public life, an echo that I was not aware of that I experience now as some sort of a burden.79

Even when the initial posting of a blog was not intended to provide “alternative news”, as Rasha Salti described it, these became public in a different sense than she first expected and beyond the circle of people she knew. This moment was surely unique for the Lebanese blogosphere, and even if a lot of the blogs stopped after the war, it was a kind of catalyst for blogging activity and showed its momentary force. People who had not heard about blogging before became aware of it. The blogosphere, even if incorporating diverse voices, challenged a specific version of the war, especially because those who were writing were young Lebanese. They were far from representative of the stereotypes of proHizbollah or ‘Islamic’ Lebanese, but young, educated, technically experienced journalists, artists or students, whose cultural background seemed to be very close

76 Interview Wadih al-Asmar, March 10, 2010, Beirut. 77 http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/ 78 Cited after Haugbolle 2007: 19f, since the first entry is not accessible on his blog anymore. 79 http://rashasalti.blogspot.com/2006/07/lebanon-siege-day-5.html, accessed March 3, 2009.

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to that of other young people in the West. As such, they countered both the representation of the war and of the Lebanese population in general. Moreover, the blogs can be seen as not ‘simply’ representing the voice of victims, but indeed a dignified voice. This is not to say that bloggers were the only media that countered the war. The Lebanese Hizbollah-led TV station Al-Manār was definitely one of the main media players that documented the attacks, and its images reached Israeli TV, Arab TV channels and CNN (Fontana 2010). In addition, in his analysis of media coverage of the conflict, Kalb (2007: 49f) showed that Israel was predominantly portrayed as the aggressor not only by Arab media such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. Also the majority of BBC and most American television coverage was rather balanced in its accounts, with Fox Cable News as an exception (2007: 50f). Nevertheless, the bloggers’ coverage provided another unique perspective, reflecting personal experiences from young people outside the traditional political and media players and outside Hizbollah’s neat and controlled information flow during the war (Kalb and Saivetz 2007). National and international mainstream media quoted some of the blogs and even recruited bloggers, as Ward (2007: 1) described in his analysis of the relationship between bloggers and mainstream media during the war in Arab Media and Society: During the war, mainstream media outlets piggybacked off stories researched and broken by bloggers, ran pieces profiling prominent blogs, and in one case, recruited a student living in Beirut to keep a blog-style journal featured on a major U.S. network’s website.80

Overall, as Ward summarises, the relationship between blogs and mainstream media was a rather uneasy one, marked by a “mutual hostility” (ibid.: 3). For example, the blogger Asad Abu Khalil (see above) criticised the American media’s coverage of the war as well as Arab media coverage, such as by the Saudi-Arabian-controlled Al-Arabiya channel (2f). Yet, he states: as much as some bloggers attack the mainstream media, the more it becomes clear that the blogosphere depends on traditional outlets for fodder for both denunciation and regurgitation (ibid.: 4).

According to this, on the one hand, bloggers need the mainstream media as a foil to dissociate themselves from, thereby highlighting their own uniqueness or opposi-

80 See Ward 2007: 9ff. for more details.

58 | I T HE F IELD tion. On the other hand, bloggers rely on being referred to and quoted by these media in order to reach a larger public. Another unique media feature of the conflict was the communication between Lebanese and Israelis debating and fighting online via blogs and emails (Taki 2010: 133). In addition, a more organised ‘online war’ took place. According to Taki (2010: 134): the Israeli Foreign Minister ordered trainee diplomats, who were later dubbed ‘cyber soldiers’ by the media, to track websites and blogs through this software, so they would be alerted to anti-Israeli rhetoric on the Web and could post contrary view.

These trainee diplomats left comments on blogs and polls, and wrote replies to negative comments about Israel (Taki 2010, in reference to Yonit 2006). This indicates that blogs and other online publication were regarded as a threat. Yet also bloggers from within the Israeli public had a considerable influence on the coverage of the war and “helped spread the impression of Israeli ‘vulnerability’.” (Kalb and Saivetz 2007: 62). Blogging the July War 2006 can thus be understood as building a momentary and trans-local counter-public. Bloggers were not mainly countering the national public in Lebanon, but targeting an international public. Most of the blogs were written in English or French and its writers were linked internationally, so they were able to transcend national boundaries (see also Jurkiewicz 2011a). Moreover, cooperation on the ground among Lebanese bloggers was strengthened. As one example, the Lebanese Blogger Forum initiated meetings following the war of 2006.81 From 2006 onwards Following the war, several blogs stopped, while others were continued only in times of conflict. To give an example, one blogger noted that she is “blogging mostly during conflicts ie. every four months or so. [sic]”82 Blogging activities in and about Lebanon can therefore be described as irregular and as strongly linked to political circumstances, a point also reflected in Hani’s account of the blogging history above. The Lebanese blogger Imad Bazzi aka Trella83 joked about it in the following manner: “The Lebanese blogs are as moody as the Lebanese people.”84

81 Interview with Liliane on January 20, 2010, Beirut. 82 http://funkyzarathustra.blogspot.com/, accessed Jul 13, 2009. Meanwhile the blog’s activity came to a complete halt. 83 Blogging on http://www.trella.org. 84 Interview February 15, 2010, Beirut.

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As Taki (2010: 134) points out, “whereas bloggers were more or less united against atrocities that were occurring on the ground” during the war in 2006, afterwards they became more “dispersed and separated by topic, ideology and language” (Taki 2010: 134). The blog aggregator and collective blog Lebanese Blogger Forum also reflected these divisions and contributors left the blog due to discord about content (ibid.: 136). They stopped their online activities in December 2006, and nothing more than some random posts followed. To my knowledge, no more offline meetings were held, either. The political stagnation and the polarisation between the March 14 and the March 8 forces that had evolved after the events of the spring of 2005 had its impact on blogging. After the elections in 2005, the March 14 coalition won the majority of seats.85 Yet from December 2006 on, starting with an opposition demonstration and a sit-in, the country found itself in a political deadlock that lasted for 18 months, with the opposition seeking a national unity government. Nevertheless, some of the early blogs were continued, and new blogs covering a wide range of thematic fields were launched from 2007 on. Most of the bloggers in my sample started blogging at that time and belong to the third generation of Lebanese bloggers (see Riegert and Ramsay 2011: 15). Taki’s survey of the field in 2008 showed a move away from politics towards private thoughts and cultural matters (2010: 136f). However, political events still played an important role in stimulating blogging activities. Two examples worth mentioning are the fighting in the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared in 2007 and the violent conflict between pro-Hizbollah and government loyalists in May 2008 that Hanibaael mentioned above.86 The latter led to the formation of a unity government (the Doha agreement), which put an end to 18 months of political deadlock in the country. The Gaza War in December 2008/January 2009 was another political event that attracted much attention in the Lebanese blogosphere and, according to blogger Adon, led to

85 March 14 is a coalition of political parties and refers to the date of the Independence Intifada in 2005. It is led by Saad Hariri. The main parties are the Hariri-led Future Movement, the main Sunni Muslim party, the Maronite Christian Lebanese Forces, and the Kataeb party, mainly Maronite Christian. ‘March 8’ coalition refers to the date of the ‘proSyrian’ mass demonstration in Beirut in response to the Independence Intifada. The main parties in the coalition are the two predominantly Muslim Shiite parties Hizbollah and Amal, as well as the mostly Christian-supported Free Patriotic Movement. 86 After the government shot down Hizbollah’s telecommunication network, Hizbollah-led fighters responded by seizing control over parts of West Beirut that were controlled by the Hariri’s Future Movement and street battles erupted. The fighting spread to regions outside Beirut (Aley and Northern Lebanon). See also Haddad 2009: 408f.

60 | I T HE F IELD another little peak in blogging,87 although a much smaller one than during the July War. My study deals with the period from the summer of 2009 to the summer of 2011,88 so I will elaborate more on the following events in different chapters. At this point I will only mention a few events that were distinct in this period of time and during my fieldwork: First there were the parliamentary elections held on June 7, 2009. They were discussed and covered by a wide range of bloggers.89 Bloggers such as Liliane from Independence05 expressed their frustration with the political system as such,90 and comic blogger Maya Zankoul commented on billboards within the election campaign. However, some blogs also clearly positioned themselves politically in favour of the March 14 coalition, which, led by Saad Hariri, won the elections.91 One distinct event for a specific group within the blogosphere was the demonstration held in front of the Egyptian embassy in Beirut on January 26, 2010 against the Egyptian wall on the Egypt/Gaza Strip border. Some bloggers from the leftist activist spectrum92 were active first in mobilising and then in reporting on this demonstration. Various bloggers shared their blog posts93 or got to know about each other’s respective blogging activity. Most of the bloggers involved wrote in Arabic; only a few English posts were published.94 At the beginning of 2010, another attempt was made to establish a Lebanese bloggers’ association named Lebloggers95. The blogger Trella, founder of Cyberact96, initiated the meetings. The aim was to strengthen cooperation among blog-

87 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/, accessed September 3, 2010. 88 The timeframe was chosen to fit the time of my research project. 89 For a report on social media within the elections, see: http://www.onoffbeirut.com/?p=57, accessed July 23, 2009. 90 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/06/pre-election-time-is-getting-disgusting.html, accessed October 18, 2011. 91 Such as http://blacksmithsoflebanon.blogspot.com/, accessed in July 2009, not active anymore. 92 Those blogging on: http://farfahinne.blogspot.com, http://hanzala.blogspot.com, https:// www.jou3an.wordpress.com, https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com, https://hanibaael.wordpre ss.com, https://saghbini.wordpress.com. 93 See for example https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/2010/01/25, accessed January 26, 2010. 94 Farfahinne, for example, published an English post by a ‘comrade’: http://farfahinne.blog spot.com/2010/01/police-attack-protestors-at-egyptian.html, ac-cessed January 27, 2010. 95 http://lebloggers.org/, accessed February 6, 2012. 96 http://www.arabcyberact.org/

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gers, act on cases of constraints on their freedom of expression and launch some collective projects. The Lebloggers covered the municipal elections in the spring of 2010 mainly through Twitter and by posting videos from various election localities throughout Lebanon on its website (see chapter 2). Afterward, at the beginning of 2011 during the Arab uprisings, political and social media activism was at its height in the region. In Lebanon, as well, a movement opposing the sectarian system in the country emerged. Under the heading Isqāṭ anniẓām aṭ-ṭāʾifī (Down with the sectarian system)97, the political system was challenged in several demonstrations.98 While the first demonstration consisted of ‘only’ some one hundred protestors, the second and third manifestations (on March 20) saw about twenty thousand activists on the streets. Bloggers were active in the organisation of and in covering the protests (see chapter 2.2). Beyond political events in Lebanon, Lebanese bloggers also took part in global online events, such as the blog action day in 2009 on climate change.99 Moreover, regional blogging initiatives such as Kolena Laila,100 dedicated to presenting the problems that confront women in the region, encouraged Lebanese bloggers to participate.101 Before I look more closely at the internal differentiation of the online field, I will provide a short comparative classification of blogging in Lebanon within the “Arabic blogosphere” (Etling et al. 2009). I do not intend to provide a full comparison, but rather to highlight the main differences in order to understand the Lebanese case in its proper context.

97

The full slogan was: Ash-shaʿb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām aṭ-ṭāʾifī (The people want to overthrow the sectarian system).

98

See the movement’s website: http://isqatalnizam.org/, accessed February 6, 2012.

99

See for instance: http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/10/are-you-doing-to-do-something-ab out.html and https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/act-or-mourn/, accessed January 14, 2011.

100 http://kolenalaila.com/en/, accessed February 6, 2012. 101 List of all contributions in 2009: http://kolenalaila.com/en/contributions, accessed January 14, 2011. I will come back to this in the chapter on publicness (chapter 8).

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1.3 L EBANESE

BLOGGING IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE We’re not like the rest of the Arab world, so we have freedom of the press, but […] we have even more freedom of the press in the virtual world. FINKPLOYD (BLOGGING BEIRUT)102

The citation reflects a common perception of the specifics of the Lebanese case. In interviews with bloggers that I conducted, they mostly stressed the difference from other countries and explained it in part with Lebanon’s greater degree of freedom of speech. A major difference from other blogospheres in the region is thus Lebanon’s quite diverse media sphere (see 1.1) and the relatively high degree of freedom of speech. In other countries in the region, in contrast, censorship is mostly stricter, and the spaces for political expression are more restricted. In this paragraph I attempt to contextualise the Lebanese case within the overall ‘Arab blogosphere’, with a focus on the neighbouring Arab countries, as well as Egypt, which is a common reference point. Yet, there are only a few comparative studies available and despite the hype around blogging, few extensive case studies exist. Worth mentioning among these studies is the comparative research by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society (Etling et al. 2009), which is primarily based on social networking analysis. In addition, I had the chance to talk to Arab bloggers from various countries during the Arab Bloggers Meeting held in Beirut in December 2009. Lastly, the Lebanese bloggers’ perspective on blogging in the region and their assessment of the Lebanese case shall be integrated. The Lebanese case within the ‘Levantine cluster’ The Berkman study (Etling et al. 2009) classifies the Lebanese bloggers in the “Levantine/English Bridge” cluster (ibid.: 9).103 This cluster also includes Palestine, Jordan, Syria and the majority of Iraqi bloggers: Bloggers in this group frequently use English in addition to, or instead of, Arabic. They are joined in this section of the network, which connects to the US and international blogosphere, by bridge bloggers from other Arab countries, who write mainly in English. (ibid.: 20)

The study highlights the large number of expatriate bloggers (16.7%) in this cluster compared with others and that they are the “most active critics of the United States

102 Interview January 13, 2010, Beirut. 103 A cluster refers to linking choices made by bloggers (Etling et al. 2009: 9).

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of any cluster on the map (18.8%)” (ibid.). Apparently, there are some features that the blogospheres in the “Levantine” (ibid.) cluster share. Still, the Lebanese would “form a distinctive” sub-cluster within the cluster itself (ibid.: 21). In comparison with the other bloggers from the same cluster, “religion appears to be discussed less often” and “domestic leaders are widely criticized (51.6%)” (ibid.), “probably reflecting Lebanon’s more democratic system” (ibid.: 22), as the study states. Compared to the blogospheres in the Levantine cluster, the risks involved in blogging in Lebanon are relatively low, as it was shown above. In contrast, bloggers in Syria have faced repression in many cases. A dozen bloggers are reported to have been arrested in the period from 2006 on, and some are still under arrest.104 The situation deteriorated during the Syrian uprising throughout the year 2011, with the blogger Razan Ghazzawi arrested for two weeks in December.105 The country is the fifth-worst when it comes to arresting bloggers, following Egypt and Tunisia. Due to the political pressure, a lot of bloggers write anonymously (Etling et al. 2009: 5). Moreover, political issues are less frequently discussed than in Lebanon and Jordan (Taki 2010: 128). Beyond this, the blogging platforms Blogspot and Maktoob are both banned in Syria (see ibid.: 130). According to the Berkman study, Syrian bloggers “blogging in English, merge into the bridge, while others, blogging in Arabic, connect up with the Saudis” (Etling et al. 2009: 15). When blogging began in 2005, as Taki outlines, most Syrian bloggers were expatriates (ibid.: 124). However, according to her findings in 2009 and the Berkman study, most Syrian bloggers now are located in Syria (ibid.). Two aggregators (Almudaween and Syria Planet) aggregated over 600 blogs in 2009 (Taki 2010: 125). In comparison with Lebanon, the proportion of male bloggers (87%) is much higher and religion is discussed more often (Etling et al. 2009: 25). Jordan, in contrast, has the highest proportion of female bloggers (40.2%), and women’s issues are more often discussed (ibid.: 22). However, Jordanian bloggers are less critical of domestic leaders (ibid.) than Lebanese bloggers. The blogger Mahmoud Salem expressed in an interview that the blogosphere “does ‘not tackle any serious problems of Jordan [...] and seems to concentrate mainly on the daily life of Amman […]’”.106 The Jordanian bloggers also attracted some attention from

104 http://threatened.globalvoicesonline.org/bloggers/Syria. 105 http://threatened.globalvoicesonline.org/blogger/razan-ghazzawi, accessed February 2, 2012. 106 http://www.goethe.de/ins/jo/amm/prj/ema/far/job/enindex.htm, accessed January 15, 2012.

64 | I T HE F IELD the mainstream media.107 According to the blogger and cyber-activist Imad Bazzi, the Jordanian blogosphere is the most similar to the Lebanese, as he put it during an interview: “They nag” when they blog, just like the Lebanese bloggers did in general in his opinion: “most of the time we don’t blog, we nag”108. Palestinian blogs are yet another exception. Firstly, Palestinian bloggers are to be found within the Lebanese and Jordanian cluster (Etling et al. 2009: 21f), which is due to the large Palestinian diaspora in both countries. However, there are also blogs from the Palestinian territories. An aggregator of Palestinian blogs is found on the AMIN (Arab Media Internet Network) website,109 which was established in 1996 and is located in Jerusalem. The aggregator hosts around 700 blogs, of which around 130 were active in 2011. In a discussion on Palestinian blogs during the Arab Bloggers Meeting in Beirut in 2009, Khaled Abu Aker, AMIN’s executive director, told me that the aggregator was hacked in 2009. In a discussion at this meeting, bloggers talked about people’s fear of blogging, because they do not know if it could be used against them. Blogging can be a real threat to one’s life and security, and to be prominent can be dangerous, as the example of the blogger Waleed Hasayin shows; he was arrested on October 2010 for creating a Facebook page named “Allah”.110 The problem with blogging in Palestine, as was highlighted in the discussion, is not internet access but fear of facing problems after posting on blogs. Khaled Abu Aker explained that this is the reason why the level of self-censorship is extremely high.111 Overall, along with the linking structures analysed in the Berkman study that I mainly referred to in the above paragraph, many “Levantine” bloggers are ‘linked’ offline. For instance, during my second fieldwork in March and April, Lebanese bloggers were in contact with Syrian fellow bloggers and friends when the uprising in Syria erupted. Furthermore, they meet at various social media events and blogger meetings (such as the Arab Bloggers Meetings).

107 For instance, the Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad initiated a daily publication of blogs in 2010, as I was told by a Jordanian blogger during the ArabNet conference 2010 in Beirut. 108 Interview January 25, 2010, Beirut. 109 http://blog.amin.org/, accessed January 12, 2012. 110 http://threatened.globalvoicesonline.org/blogger/waleed-hasayin, accessed January 12, 2012. 111 Discussion round at the Second Arab Bloggers Meeting in Beirut, December 12, 2009.

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The Egyptian case in light of the Lebanese The Egyptian blogosphere has become a blueprint for other bloggers in the region and is known for being one of the most politically active blogospheres (see esp. Lynch 2007a). It also surpasses other blogospheres in pure numbers.112 As Manal Hassan, who with her husband Alaa Abd El Fattah is responsible for the blog aggregator, told me in December 2009 that the number of Egyptian blogs is more than 200,000.113 Given the role social media played in the Egyptian revolution in January 2011, since then hopes and expectations about the impact that blogging and social media in general have often been linked to the Egyptian case.114 The Egyptian case is therefore a common point of reference, as well as a source of inspiration among Lebanese bloggers. The blogger Khodor aka Jou3an115 told me that he was greatly inspired by the Egyptian bloggers’ way of criticising the authorities (i1).116 Some bloggers were greatly influenced by the Egyptian blogosphere, especially those with personal links (like blogger Layal Khatib117, who lived in Egypt)118 or political links to Egypt. The activist blogger Farfahinne119 told me that Egyptian activist friends encouraged and helped her to open her blog.120 Egyptian bloggers perceived as more advanced not only in activism, but also in non-political areas: “The online bloggers of web development in Egypt are actually more progressive than the Lebanese ones,” according to Independence05 blogger and developer Liliane.121 The Egyptian blogosphere was often described as more active because of its larger audience. As reasons behind this, bloggers mentioned the greater accessibility of the internet in Egypt than in Lebanon (Farfahinne122) as well as the general

112 Egypt has both the largest population and the largest online population in the Arab world (see Etling et al. 2009: 15ff). 113 Personal communication from Manal Hassan at the Second Arab Bloggers Meeting on December 11, 2009 in Beirut. 114 For a study on the role of social media, see Khamis and Vaughn 2011. 115 One of the bloggers from my main sample, blogging on https://jou3an.wordpress.com, see for more on him chapter 3.5. 116 Interview January 24, 2010, Beirut. 117 https://layalk.net/ 118 Interview March 2, 2011, Beirut. 119 http://farfahinne.blogspot.com 120 Interview January 28, 2010, Beirut. 121 Interview January 21, 2011, Beirut. 122 See footnote 120.

66 | I T HE F IELD perception and knowledge of blogging in Egypt (Liliane i1). Blogger Assaad from Beirutiyat123 explained the higher level of activity in the following manner: I guess the Egyptian is more active because first you have more audience, second they knew about blogging and they needed it more than we do in Lebanon because we have a certain stage of freedom of speech in the newspapers and in the public and other places, while in Egypt it’s much less, so they need the blogosphere in order to express their points of views and opinions. (i1)124

Blogging in Egypt, in his perception, is more needed than in Lebanon, where people can express their views more freely. However, it must be added that Egypt’s non-governmental press has enjoyed at least some degree of freedom over the last years. In 2004 Rugh (2004: 216) already classified Egypt as a country whose media climate is in transition from an authoritarian one to a more liberal system. Independent newspapers such as Al-Masry al-Youm, a privately owned newspaper published since 2004, for instance, is a very successful so-called opposition paper.125 Bloggers in Egypt are more “enmeshed in the media than is the case with the Lebanese media” (Riegert and Ramsay 2011: 14). Another difference is the much higher percentage of Arabic blogs, whether in standard Arabic or the Egyptian dialect. Since its beginning, the Egyptian blogosphere was more related to activism ‘on the spot’. Even if blogs also provided reports for foreign media, the most important audience seems to be Egyptians themselves. For example, informing Egyptians about the situation in Egypt is a goal of Wael Abbas’ blog Egyptian Awareness. Wael Abbas explained to me that he writes in English only when he seeks international solidarity, but mostly writes in Arabic because his blog targets primarily young Egyptians.126 Of course one cannot generalise about the overall blogosphere on the basis of one ‘star blogger’, but generally speaking a focus on local readership seems to be a common trend, much more so than in the Lebanese case. Comparing concrete cases from Lebanon and Egypt reveals varying forms of blogospheres (Jurkiewicz 2011a). Each blogosphere challenges different representations and targets different audiences. In Egypt, at least before the revolution, the main target has been the local public, and international coverage has been seen as a sup-

123 https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com. Assad is one of the bloggers from my main sample; for more, see chapter 3.3. 124 Interview February 26, 2010, Beirut. 125 For an overview of Egypt’s media ecology before and after the revolution, see Peterson 2011. 126 Interview with Wael Abbas at the Second Arab Bloggers Meeting in Beirut, December 9, 2009.

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port in special cases. Lebanese bloggers addressed a rather internationally networked public in the 2006 war and a local and regional public during the demonstration against the Egyptian wall in Gaza (see 1.4). To sum up, the Lebanese blogosphere shows some common features with the neighbouring clusters (the “Levantine/English bridge” cluster in the terms of the Berkman study, Etling et al. 2009: 9), such as a high degree of bridge bloggers and outwards orientation, which is surely related to the existence of a large Lebanese diaspora. Overall, the Lebanese case is to be explained mostly by the high degree of freedom of speech in the country, as the bloggers do. In the broader media landscape, a wide spectrum of political opinions is already represented (see 1.1). Yet, this stands in contrast to the limited accessibility of the internet, which is characterised by high prices and slow connection. Politically, the Lebanese blogosphere is less a realm of opposition against a state-controlled public sphere, as has often described for other parts of the Arab world. Furthermore, no stable common cause, like in much of the blogging against the Mubarak regime in Egypt, is to be detected, as blogger Adon expressed (i1). Nevertheless, the blogosphere proves to be very active during political crisis.

1.4 I NTERNAL

DIFFERENTIATION ONLINE

After having placed the Lebanese case within the regional context, I will now discuss its main features and internal dynamics online with a focus on the period I analysed more closely (July 2009 - July 2011). I will show what a diverse, sometimes divided and by no means homogenous field Lebanese blogging is. This is not to counter the notion of a Lebanese blogosphere as such, but to make the reader aware that the blogosphere is not only a space of connection – as is often celebrated in social media research – but also of differentiation and demarcation. As Anderson (2009) pointed out, interlinking with the likeminded is one of the key features of networked publics like blogospheres. Hence, political and cultural orientations are shown by linking up with the likeminded, which becomes visible in different clusters of blogs. The overview is not built upon an extensive quantitative survey, but mainly on my observations and analysis of the blogs represented in the blog aggregator, as well as interviews with bloggers about the state of the blogosphere over the period of time in question. First I will outline some basic features in terms of size, bloggers’ backgrounds and the thematic spectrum of the blogosphere. Following up on this, I will then analyse the internal differentiation. I detected several lines of differentiation that characterise the Lebanese blogosphere, partly actively drawn by linking up to the likeminded, partly rather unintentional. One line of differentiation is different uses of

68 | I T HE F IELD language, another is political orientation and positioning, and a third is the use of different publishing platforms. Those lines partly overlap and are not always exclusive. Basic features and thematic spectrum Most Lebanese bloggers, like most Arab bloggers in general, stem from a middle or upper middle class background (see Haugbolle 2007). They have obtained higher education and are equipped with a large amount of technological and/or cultural capital: Despite some truth to the myth that ‘anyone can be a blogger’ and that the blogosphere therefore is a uniquely democratic space, socio-economic factors effectively favour academics, journalists and certain other professions. (Haugbolle 2007: 6f)

When it comes to the professional background of bloggers, Haugbolle states: Out of the approximately three hundred Lebanese blogs listed by the search-engine Technocrati and the blog Lebanon Heart Blogs in September 2006, the blog profiles revealed that 232 were written by university students or young professionals based in Lebanon, Europe, America and Canada. (Haugbolle 2007: 13)

Despite the fact that the number of blogs has grown since Haugbolle’s study, the picture remains mostly the same. If one scrolls through the blog profiles of the Lebanon aggregator, the majority of these Lebanese bloggers have obtained higher education, as their professional statuses suggest. In Lebanon, on the university level, this usually implies English-language education, but French is also still present as a language for higher education. Regarding gender, according to the Berkman study of 2009, 30.2% of the Lebanese cluster consists of female bloggers (Etling et al. 2009: 36). It is difficult to give an exact number of active blogs, since there is no accurate way of measuring.127 As has become clear, the activities shift with time and blogs counted in aggregators or elsewhere might not be updated anymore. The Lebanese blog aggregator assembled 420 blogs by the end of 2010, and 639 blogs by the end of 2011.128 The Lebanese blogger Adon, in a similar vein, estimates 350-400 blogs

127 On the difficulty of measuring, see Chalhoub 2008. 128 See the yearly report on the Lebanon Aggregator platform: http://www.lebanonaggrega tor.com/2010/12/lebanese-blogosphere-facts-figures-of.html and http://www.lebanonag

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in 2010.129 This number includes mainly blogs from the platforms WordPress and Blogger that are assembled in the Lebanese blog aggregator.130 Yet on the Maktoob platform alone there were over 1,350 registered blogs from Lebanon in June 2011.131 Overall there might be up to 2,000 registered blogs from and about Lebanon, which, of course, does not translate into active blogs. Some national, mainly Lebanese, mainstream media sites are linked to by a significant number of bloggers, including the English-language The Daily Star132, and the Arabic-language Al-Akhbar133 (Etling et al.: 38). Riegert and Ramsay’s (2011: 10) analysis of the top-ten Lebanese blogs and Lebanese media show that Angry Arab is the blog that the media most often link to.134 Although other younger bloggers have free-lanced for Al-Akhbar and As-Safir, “there are few links between them and the media do not refer to them” (Riegert and Ramsay 2011: 12). The online news site NOW Lebanon, as the authors state, “seems interested in linking to the English-language blogs, although none of the bloggers write for them” (ibid.). Overall, the mainstream media does not recognise or use blogs as sources or for background information to a considerable degree, at least during the time this study covers.135 While blogs that provide political commentary and links to newspaper articles were dominant in the beginning, following 2006, as the political situation has stabilised, the spectrum has broadened. Bloggers comment on social issues, mock political discussions, post about cultural events in Beirut and write rather personal stories of daily life, but also engage in political activism. Furthermore, blogs about cooking, design, fashion and much more are to be found. Several genres and styles are mixed; political commentary can be followed by a poem or a personal story. The division into political blogs and personal blogs thus cannot be upheld when looking

gregator.com/2012/01/lebanese-blogosphere-facts-figures-of.html, both accessed January 14, 2012. 129 See his post on https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/08/02, accessed September 11, 2010. See also the blogger Liliane, cited in Sara 2010, who mentions the same number. 130 https://wordpress.com/; https://www.blogger.com/, both accessed January 14, 2012. 131 http://www.maktoobblog.com/country/Lebanon/type/date/, accessed June 17, 2011 (1,358 blogs from Lebanon). On January 13, 2012 there were 1,411 blogs from Lebanon to be found. 132 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ 133 http://www.al-akhbar.com/ 134 The blogger Assaad Abu Khalil author also writes a column for Al-Akhbar and is a commentator for Al-Jazeera. 135 I will look at the relationship between bloggers and mainstream media more closely in chapter 8.2.

70 | I T HE F IELD at the material at hand. Also the differentiation between personal and journalistic blogs (Kuhn 2007) does not capture the actual complexity of styles and genres. However, one could say that there are classical journalistic blogs and strictly personal blogs. I will explore this in more detail when I treat the different production and writing styles of the case studies (chapter 4). To give a little insight into blogging themes, I would like to give an example of the first ten blog posts appearing on an ordinary day on the Lebanese blog aggregator. By ‘ordinary’ I mean that it was not a special holiday or a day on which a political event took place. The first post, appearing on February 16, 2011, is a short account of a visit to a restaurant and the problem “what to do with the fruit”136 – as the blog writer was served several plates of fruits for dessert.137 The second blog post sheds light on the decline in reading by Lebanese youth (English).138 The third blog appearing discusses the vote for the product of the year in Lebanon (English).139 The fourth blog post by a youth branch of a political party deals with the new political majority in Lebanon (Arabic),140 the fifth post shows a photo of a fish in a bowl upon which a red heart is drawn on the occasion of Valentine’s Day (English).141 The sixth entry compares the Nejhmeh Square in downtown Beirut before and after the civil war (English).142 The seventh blog entry is about “Violence and uprising” in Egypt and Tunisia,143 the eighth about the “Magic land of Disneyland”.144 The following post shows pictures of rose sculptures in New York,145 and number ten is a post about jeans advertisements in Beirut.

136 https://thisisbeirut.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/what-do-they-do-with-the-fruit/ , accessed January 16, 2011. 137 Ibid. 138 http://blog.independence05.com/2011/02/we-are-we-are-youth-that-doesnt-read.html, accessed January 16, 2011. 139 http://beirutntsc.blogspot.com/2011/02/beirutntsc-voted-blog-of-year-by.html, accessed January 16, 2011. 140 http://www.tajaddod-youth.com/in-the-media-page/4688, accessed January 16, 2011. 141 http://www.plus961.com/2011/02/16/valentines-gold-fish/?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Plus961+%28Plus+961%29,

accessed

January 16, 2011. 142 https://guymeetsworld.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/nejmeh-square-before-after/, accessed cessed January 16, 2011. 143 http://landandpeople.blogspot.com/2011/02/on-violence-and-uprisings.html,

accessed

January 16, 2011. 144 http://marianachawi.blogspot.com/2011/02/land-of-magic.html, accessed January 16, 2011.

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This snapshot shows a bit of the variety of topics Lebanese bloggers are concerned about. They range from ‘random’ observations of advertisements, anecdotes and art works to political discussions. The majority of the posts, except those about Disneyland and New York, focus on the Lebanese context with photos or descriptions of local places. Most of the posts have a photo in a central place and a rather short text, except those dealing with political issues. Compared with the first blog posts from roughly a year later (February 3, 2012), here political issues are at the forefront: The Angry Arab News Service criticises speakers on Syrian TV for their political stances,146 the second blog post by Arab Saga also discusses the situation in Syria in respect to the proceedings of the international community147 and the third post is an advertisement for the 8th Israeli Apartheid Week by on a blog called Land and People.148 These three are followed by a post from the Democratic Renewal Movement’s blog publishing a tribute to the just deceased Nassib Lahoud, one of the founders of the movement (the article was originally published in An-Nahar newspaper).149 The next post appearing is Beirut Spring’s discussion on “Do we need a Lebanese Senate”, starting with a quote from a fellow blogger, Qifa Nabki.150 These examples show that the Lebanese blogosphere touches upon a wide range of topics and that political commentary and discussion are still an important part of the thematic spectrum of blogging. Following up on this overview, I will now analyse the internal differentiation online. Language use The majority of the most popular bloggers post in English, whereas Arabic is the second most-frequently used language, followed by French. According to a statistic provided by the Lebanon Aggregator, only “7.3% of the blogs are in Arabic. The

145 http://unpeudekilshi.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/roses-bloom-in-new-york-event/ , accessed January 16, 2011. 146 http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/02/mason-conspiracy.html, accessed February 3, 2012. 147 http://arabsaga.blogspot.com/2012/02/probing-mind-of-syrian-opposition.html , accessed February 3, 2012. 148 http://landandpeople.blogspot.com/2012/02/israeli-apartheid-week.html, accessed February 3, 2012. 149 http://www.tajaddod-youth.com/in-the-media-page/7749, accessed February 3, 2012. 150 http://beirutspring.com/blog/2012/02/03/do-we-need-a-lebanese-senate/?utm_source=f eedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beirutspring%2Ffb_feed+ %28Beirut+Spring%29, accessed February 3, 2012.

72 | I T HE F IELD rest are in English, with few in French”.151 However, the blogs from the Maktoob platform are not integrated in these statistics, and not all bloggers are represented in the aggregator. According to Riegert and Ramsay (2011: 9) “blogs in Arabic are not necessarily well represented in the aggregators available and some of them are misleading”. Hence, the numbers presented in the aggregator only represent a particular spectrum of blogs, and not all blogs about and from Lebanon. Whereas the English-writing A-list bloggers are generally more linked up with other English-language blogs, the Arabic-language ones often link up to other Arabic blogs from Lebanon and the region. The quantitative survey of the linking relationship of the top ten Lebanese bloggers (Riegert and Ramsay 2011: 11) shows for their sample that “English-language bloggers link more often to each other than the Arabic-language bloggers link to each other”. The English-language bloggers describe it as ‘natural’ to post in English, saying that this is the internet language and allows their blogs to be read more internationally. The bloggers writing in Arabic mainly want to target a Lebanese and/or Arab audience. But choice of audience is only one part of the story. Some bloggers described blogging in Arabic as a political choice. As blogger Jou3an explained to me, “It is only the real activists, the very radical activists, we are very radical for the Arabic language,” (i1) whereby he means leftist activists like himself. Of course not all bloggers who write in Arabic would formulate their choice in this way. But overall, language use is surely related to political affiliation and identity. However, sometimes insufficient language skills and especially Arabic typing skills lead bloggers to write in English, because they are not used to writing or typing in Arabic at all. Bloggers encourage each other to write in Arabic, as a campaign to post in Arabic initiated on the blog aggregator in June 2010 shows.152 For some parts of the blogosphere, language use also reflects the foreign language education based in the Lebanese education system, which means English or French (see Diab 2000). But it is not a simple fit, for some French-educated bloggers also choose English for their writings. The degree to which language use on the blogs reflects real boundaries in society is a topic for further discussion. Nevertheless, language is not a strict boundary in the blogosphere. A look at different blogrolls, i.e. collection of links, or the Lebloggers association, displays cooperation across different languages. Furthermore, some bloggers use Arabic and

151 http://www.lebanonaggregator.com/2012/01/lebanese-blogosphere-facts-figures-of.htm l, accessed January 14, 2012. 152 http://lebanonaggregator.blogspot.com/search/label/Blog%20in%20Arabic%20Day, accessed June 28, 2010.

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English or French alternately,153 and a mix of several languages can be found in a single blog. Within the latter, one might state that a “pluralistic or globalized identity” is expressed, because this counters the nationalistic view of language, which is “the most prevalent” in the Middle East (see Wardini 2010). I will discuss language use in more detail in chapter 7, in relation to my case studies. Political orientation When it comes to politics in Lebanon, the superstructure, discourse and political reality since 2005 is the March 14 – March 8 divide154 . At least in the beginning, the blogs represented in the main aggregator and among the A-list blogs, i.e. widely read and quoted blogs, March 14 was and is the strongest political orientation. Supporters of March 8, the alliance of the opposition, were less represented. This is partly explained by the close relationship between the first blogging boom in Lebanon and the Independence Intifada of 2005 (see above). Yet it is also linked to the strata of society that blogs. In Lebanon, blogging tends to be a hobby of the wealthy, socially conscious, and usually urban elite. In the sectarian terms pervasive in Lebanese politics, this translates to a heavier online representation of Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims. (Ward 2007:3)

These were the strata most active in the Independence Intifada of 2005. Bloggers interviewed by Taki in 2008 (Taki 2010: 136) also perceive the blogosphere as being mostly pro-March 14. Blogger Adon explains in a blog post from August 2010 the absence of March 8 bloggers by the rigid structure of the oppositional parties, such as Hizbollah.155 Thus, compared to the strong involvement of the younger Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s blogosphere (see Lynch 2007b), the young Hizbollah members do not get similarly involved in blogging. But this does not mean that no supporters of the so-called opposition are to be found. According to blogger Layal Khatib: The supporters online for Hizbollah are either atheists, or leftist, or I don’t know, or secular, they do not support the resistance on the base of its religious background. They support it, and I support it, because any kind of resistance is worth supporting.156

153 See http://farfahinne.blogspot.com, or http://minbeirutbilarabeh.blogspot.com/, which also has a blog in English http://anaminbeirut.blogspot.com/. 154 See pages 52 and 59. 155 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/08/02, accessed September 3, 2010. 156 Interview March 2, 2010, Beirut.

74 | I T HE F IELD With regard to which political side is represented more strongly, blogger Trella drew another picture of the state in 2010: “The people who consider themselves as leftist or pro-left-wing or pro-8th of March, I think they are larger in number.” And he added, “Actually English blogs are more pro-14th of March.”157 The bloggers from this spectrum whom I met perceived this strongly, as well. As leftist blogger Jou3an put it, “I think in blogging the Left dominates.” (i1)158 However, such statements are to be seen against the background of the blogger’s own blogging and linking activity, through which he is certainly more aware of like-minded bloggers. Overall, one can state that the blogosphere is not dominantly characterised by a strong March 14 – March 8 divide. Much more diverse political orientations, beyond this divide, are represented. In the words of the blogger Farfahinne, “There is everything from far right to far left.”159 This picture is in constant change as new actors have been entering the Lebanese blogosphere in recent years, and still do. Worth mentioning are for instance various leftist activist bloggers,160 affiliated with leftist groups and parties, as well as independents. Furthermore, a wide range of other activist bloggers who link up to each other,161 be they feminists162 or environmentalists,163 are actively engaged in the current blogosphere. On the other side of the political spectrum one finds the blog The Ouwet Front164 that reflects “personal views and opinions of Lebanese Forces supporters” and links only to Lebanese Forces sites, a main Christian-Maronite political party.165 Some of the A-list bloggers whom I interviewed stressed that they are not affiliated with any coalition and argue for blogging about issues other than party politics.166 Furthermore, a considerable number of bloggers understand themselves as countering the sectarian organisation of society, as the blogging on the Secular

157 Interview February 10, 2010, Beirut. 158 Orig. citation in French: “Je pense dans les blogs la gauche domine tout.” 159 Interview February 25, 2010. 160 See for instance: https://jou3an.wordpress.com/, https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/, and http://farfahinne.blogspot.com/. 161 One of the prominent activist bloggers is Trella, http://www.trella.org/, all accessed November 15, 2011. 162 http://www.nadinemoawad.com/, accessed November 18, 2012. 163 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/, accessed November 15, 2011. 164 http://www.ouwet.com/, accessed November 15, 2011. 165 The party Lebanese Forces is part of the March 14 coalition. 166 For instance, blogger Rami from Plus961 (http://www.plus961.com) and Maya’s Amalgam blogger Maya Zankoul (http://mayazankoul.com). Both are bloggers from my main sample whom I will present later on (see 3.4 and 3.6).

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March in May 2010167 and also participation in the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement in March and April 2011 showed (see also chapter 8). Thus, bloggers only partly reproduce the main political divide in Lebanon, but also counter its sectarian organisation. Blogging is by no means the only realm in which attempts to overcome sectarian and political divisions are made.168 Nevertheless, it reflects a range of these activities in which bloggers are equally involved. Publishing platforms Whenever someone wants to create a blog here, the majority of the blogs are created either on WordPress or Blogspot, and who creates a blog, the one who usually is a visitor of other blogs. He gets excited about creating a blog because he is a reader of other blogs, so he knows about these two platforms, either Blogspot or WordPress, so he ends up choosing one of them. Plus, Maktoob is more oriented towards the ones who write in Arabic, who publish Arabic posts and stuff, which is not the case here in Lebanon. BLOGGER RAMI FROM PLUS961, I2

The main publishing platforms used by Lebanese bloggers are Blogger (owned by Google) and WordPress (open source), which both started supporting Arabic in 2006 (Taki 2010: 115). However, there is another blogging world that, as far as I have observed, seems to be totally unconnected to these: the blogs on the publishing platform Maktoob. Maktoob is an Arabic internet provider, founded in Amman in 1998 and now owned by Yahoo. There are more than 1,200 registered Maktoob

167 http://blog.independence05.com/2010/04/secular-lebanon-oh-is-it-another-dream.html, https://besidebeirut.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/laique-pride-a-historical-take/, http://w ww.nadinemoawad.com/2010/04/thousands-march-for-secularism-lebanon/,

all

ac-

cessed April 27, 2010. 168 There are various civil society activities on- and offline. For online examples, see the Lebanese Laïque Pride Group on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid= 191226202664&ref=ts, accessed March 15, 2011) and various Groups of the Isqāṭ anNiẓām movement (see chapter 2).

76 | I T HE F IELD blogs in Lebanon, and, as far as I have observed, they are exclusively in Arabic.169 But bloggers from this publishing platform are not included in the Lebanese blog aggregator, nor do they take part in the blogging association or in meetings in Beirut. They are not to be found among the a-list bloggers and, as the quote by Plus961 blogger Rami indicates, they are also not perceived as belonging there. This is quite astonishing, and it does not seem to be like this in other parts of the region. Generally, the Maktoob platform is used for more personal blogging and also by more religiously oriented bloggers than other platforms are,170 but also journalists171 use it to publish articles. The Lebanese Maktoob blogs are usually less interlinked among themselves and with bloggers from other platforms. Blogger Adon told me that among his circle of bloggers the Maktoob platform is considered a social networking site, rather than an independent blogging platform.172 I have not yet been able to discuss this matter with Maktoob bloggers. My attempts to contact them for a meeting or interview met no response. Thus, this is only a preliminary analysis and needs to be confirmed or refuted through interviews with bloggers who use this platform. Synopsis In the first chapter I laid the basis for an understanding of the local field of blogging. I outlined Lebanon’s media and blogging history and showed how it is bound to political and technological circumstances. These factors explain some of the specifics of the Lebanese case, as I also argued in the comparative part. The history of blogging in Lebanon showed the temporary quality of blogging activities, which are closely linked to the political events in Lebanon. The public that blogging might constitute at different times consequently depends on the context and the respective topic that bloggers address. The transnational counter-public that blogs were actively constructing during the July War in 2006 was quite different from the one that emerged during other events in the history of the blogosphere. The Lebanese blogging activities that accompanied the anti-sectarian demonstrations in spring 2011 were, in contrast, less international but more oriented towards the wider Lebanese national public. I will discuss more of these dynamics in part III, in particular when dealing with audiences, language use and publicness.

169 See http://www.maktoobblog.com/country/Lebanon/type/date/. Accessed on December 13, 2010 there were 1,265 registered Maktoob blogs in Lebanon; accessed on February 3, 2012, the number indicated is 1,413. 170 See for instance, http://hasan-katerji.maktoobblog.com/, accessed July 13, 2010. 171 http://jihadbazzi.maktoobblog.com/, accessed July 13, 2010. 172 E-mail communication with blogger Adon, September 21, 2010.

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In the overview of the lines of differentiation, I demonstrated that political and religious boundaries are not overcome online (see also Taki 2010: 134ff). While language use and political orientation divide the blogosphere to a certain degree, the publishing platforms form another major boundary. They hint at the existence of several Lebanese groups or, more technically speaking, clusters of blogging. This indicates that the common political and identity boundaries are partly reflected in the technological boundaries. All in all, blogging reflects some of the internal divisions in Lebanese society, with regards to politics, language and religious orientation, yet also displays some efforts to overcome these divides. Despite internal political differences, the bloggers often share a similar generational, social, and professional background. Furthermore, this contextualisation of the field shows that its boundaries are “fluid and subject to periodic adjustment” (Warde 2004: 13). The following chapter will discuss how these are reflected and negotiated in the local field that this book primarily deals with.

2. The local field of blogging

In the following, I will now turn more closely to the focus of my study: the local field of blogging in Lebanon and the bloggers and their activities on the ground. This will lay the foundation for the following parts, in which I analyse actors and practices (II) and ethos, audience and publicness (III). In the first part, I sketch my entry into the field and reflect on the fieldwork in Beirut. It is my conviction that writing on methodology is not merely a matter of duty in any ethnographic work that can simply be confined to the introduction. Instead, methodological reflections and the influence of the researcher’s position within the ‘field’ should be an intrinsic part of the writing process. Beyond that, by binding together reflections on fieldwork and the description of the field, I hope to provide a deeper insight into the field, since fieldwork dynamics and procedures give insight into structures of the field itself. In the second part, I shed light on how the field is locally situated and internally organised, placing the practitioners and outlining local spaces of interaction. In doing so, I will sketch the domains of practices in which the bloggers are involved, where they meet and how they cooperate on the ground.

2.1 S EARCHING

FOR THE ‘ FIELD ’, WAITING FOR THE ACTORS Anyone who has done fieldwork, or studied the phenomenon, knows that one does not just wander onto a “field site” to engage in deep and meaningful relationship with the “natives. “The field” is a clearing whose deceptive transparency obscures the complex processes that go into constructing it. GUPTA AND FERGUSON 1997: 5

80 | I T HE FIELD When I arrived in Beirut in March 2011 for the second part of my fieldwork, I started by going to a demonstration against the Lebanese sectarian system the day after my arrival. I assumed that some of ‘my bloggers’ would be present, as I had read on the event’s Facebook page. I also had seen many of the rather activist bloggers expressing their support for this cause in their blogs. The trip to the start of the demonstration in Bourj Hammoud, a suburb in North-East Beirut, which has with a strong Armenian presence, took much longer than I had planned. I had forgotten that the buses work differently on Sunday and thus spent one hour in an unintended ‘city-tour’ first along the Corniche and then through various districts and suburbs, due to heavy traffic. When I arrived at the starting point of the demonstration, no signs of a demonstration were to be seen, and I wondered whether I was at the right place at all. After a few moments, I could see the demonstration from afar; it had already proceeded far ahead on the main street in Bourj Hammoud, with its distinct mixture of people from all over the world. I ran down the busy street until I reached the end the demonstration, where I started to look out for ‘my bloggers’ amongst the thousands of participants. I do not know how, but I was lucky to meet a few of them and some other people I knew from my previous stay in Beirut. During the demonstration, I was overwhelmed by the huge number of participants and also by the spirit of the event, with lots of singing and even dancing – that is not what I was used to from demonstrations back home in Germany. In the evening I noted: Being back in Beirut, I perceive the world of the bloggers completely differently. Seen from here, it seems like a little ‘cell’ and quite different from what one experiences in the city. Life is just different here. Everything looks different; the structures are different. If I look at the blogs while sitting in Oslo or Berlin, everything seems rather similar and close, less the content of the blogs as such, but rather the bloggers’ perception and way of writing… Being here, in contrast, I have no fixed position here at all, but feel rather lost and insecure. (Field notes, March 6, 2011.)

This story initiating my second fieldwork trip reflects some of the certainly common experiences of arriving in the ‘field’, in which one needs to adapt and to get used to the local circumstances and to position oneself. It also shows one of my temporary field sites whilst in Beirut: the demonstrations and actors participating in the event, a moving target. Altogether, it addresses two fields of study: the – at least in my construction – bounded ‘online field’ that I observed from abroad, and the actual offline field in which I found myself chasing the actors. Combining these two spheres in my mind, my perception of what is supposed to be the field became blurred when on the concrete field site. Beyond underlining that there are different notions of the field, what became apparent in this account was: first, Beirut as my broad fieldwork location, second, the demonstration as a momentary, concrete field

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site in which I tried to find the relevant actors within my research, and third the online field that I had been following for months while based in Oslo and Berlin. All these different aspects of the field are conflated in the term ‘field’. To conceptualise these different layers, Akhil Gupta and James Fergusson (1997) provide a useful definition of the notion of the field as: 1. site, designating a geographical location distinct from “home”; 2. method, i.e. the “specific empirical practice” of “fieldwork based on participant observation” (Fergusson 1997: 29; 2); and 3. location, which describes the researcher’s location and position within a particular setting.1 This perspective helps us to distinguish different aspects of the term. In my research field, however, the site, as both online and offline, creates an additional dimension of the field as site. Moreover, in this monograph, ‘field’ also presents a theoretical approach, as outlined above, and hence is a fourth dimension of the term that I presented in the introduction to part I and that I will come back to in more detail in the next section of this chapter (2.2). Here I will illuminate these different aspects of the notion of the field with a focus on the field as site, method and location. I shall not follow Gupta and Fergusson’s tripartite structure stringently, but refer to the different meanings of the term throughout the writing. In the beginning, I will outline the setting and conditions of my fieldwork, in the classic sense of the term, i.e. the two periods I spent at my field site. Following up on this, I will discuss the field as method and the field relations in general, elaborating on the challenges that already appeared in the initial example of this chapter. Research conditions and setting The general framework for my research was a three-year scholarship at the University of Oslo, including an office and funding for my two field research trips to Beirut; it also allowed me to spend writing periods in my hometown, Berlin. This comfortable situation allowed me to concentrate completely on my research. The setting of my two field trips to Lebanon was different each time. Arriving in Beirut in October 2009 on my first visit to Lebanon, everything was new to me

1

Gupta and Fergusson refer to the notion of “location” within feminist scholarship. See for example Rich (1985 [1984]: 13), who reflects about her “whiteness as a point of location” for which responsibility must be taken. Location entails also gender, class, ethnicity etc.

82 | I T HE FIELD and I had to familiarise myself with the transportation system (mainly the famous service, the collective taxis and the minibuses) and how places were described (not by streets, but often by nearby shops or restaurants), and I had to get used to the Lebanese dialect. Throughout these first five months, I was an affiliated researcher at the German Orient Institute Beirut, which also generously provided me with office space from December on. It was also at the institute that I spent the first week in Beirut hunting for a preferably shared flat to live in. Another researcher from the Netherlands called my attention to his last flat, which was vacant at this point. The flat was located in Sanayeh, a central district in the western part of the city within walking distance to Hamra (for more on this popular district, see p. 96f) and the Corniche. Although the flat did not have the light and facilities one dreams about,2 it seemed to be a pragmatic option, since it is not easy to find places to stay in central Beirut. Yet, I needed someone to share with. Through a friend in Norway, I got in contact with Zeina,3 a Lebanese Masters student who was willing to share the flat with me, since she wanted to move out of her old place anyway. Thus I found myself sharing a rather sombre flat with Zeina, engaged in writing her Master thesis on cosmetic surgery, and her cat Lucy. The landlady Souha lived only two minutes from the house and ran a small shop with everything one needs on a daily basis: water canisters, cigarettes, some basic food and much more. She also was the first contact person in all matters, from organising an internet connection and rescuing Zeina when the elevator got stuck to advice and practical help on how to cook mulūkhīya, a famous vegetable dish. In the flat, I ‘experienced’ the daily three-hour power cut that is usual in central Beirut if one does not have a generator. It was thus more convenient to access the internet from the office, where a generator supplied energy when there was no electricity. During this first stay, I was also affiliated with the interdisciplinary research unit Web Science at the USJ (Université Saint Joseph), led by Stéphane Bazane and Christophe Varin.4 During my second stay throughout March and April 2011, I was not associated with any research institution, but worked either from home or in the library of the Orient Institute. Mainly I tried to adapt my daily routines to those of the bloggers, i.e. being flexible to meet them on a quite spontaneous basis on different days and at different times. This time I shared a flat in Badaro with two Germans, a university lecturer and a development worker. Badaro is a residential district situated along

2

Especially since the landlady told us to close the curtains in front of the balcony to protect it from being flooded during the heavy rain that is typical for the Beirut winter. Yet it was probably also because all the neighbours around did the same to maintain privacy.

3

All the names of persons will be anonymised in the following, except for the bloggers’ names / online names.

4

http://webscience.blogs.usj.edu.lb/

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the Horsh Beirut, the pine forest or at least what is left of it after the civil war, one of the only green spaces in Beirut. It is a fifteen-minute minibus ride to get to the centre – depending on traffic. This district is characterised by its military presence, due to the military hospital and a huge military supermarket located there. With a few exceptions, electricity was available 24/7, because the house we lived in was on the same electricity line as the hospital. Nevertheless, the internet connection was very slow, so that online research was a rather frustrating endeavour. However, since the Open Arab University was just two minutes away, a copy shop where I could print out material and interview guidelines and occasionally use the internet was nearby. Along with these changed research and living circumstances, the political context in the two periods differed substantially. While during my first fieldwork period no greater political events took place and the political situation in Lebanon was rather stable, the second part fell in the time of the so-called Arab Spring. I arrived in Beirut some weeks after the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes fell and during the ongoing protests in the region in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Thus, the general atmosphere of discussing politics had completely changed. The perspectives of the Arab Spring ranged from ‘revolutionary fever’ to fear of further conflicts in the region. Discussions of what was happening in Syria, in particular, were part of most daily conversations within or outside the field of blogging. The political activists, in particular, were naturally very concerned about the movements in Egypt and elsewhere. Furthermore, some small-scale protests were started also in Lebanon. While not comparable to the Egyptian mass mobilisation, some revolutionary spirit was in the air in the activist milieu, and weekly demonstrations were held, starting on February 27.5 Not all of the bloggers in my field were enthusiastic about this; some, although self-ascribed ‘secularists’, criticised the movement for being too unclear and broad in its goals. Others argued that demonstrations would not change the sectarian system at all. However, the general atmosphere influenced all of them. The field as method: fieldwork in practice Fieldwork encounters […] are modes of ethical engagement wherein the ethnographer is arrested in the act of perception. This arrest can lead both to a productive doubt about the ongoing perception of the phenomena in interaction and to the possibility of elaborating shared knowledge. BORNEMAN AND HAMMOUDI 2009: 19

5

See chapter 1.4 and 2.2 for more on the bloggers’ involvement.

84 | I T HE FIELD I had started my first fieldwork by contacting a range of bloggers in order to meet them for a first interview about their blogs, trying to get an overview of the local blogging sphere in Beirut and beyond. The basic intention was to ask them about their motivation for and practice and perception of blogging in Lebanon. Most bloggers responded positively to my interview request and were quite open to meeting me. The first meetings were mostly held in cafés or bars in Hamra or Gemmayzeh, two of the main districts for young people to meet and go out (see p. 96f). We often met during the evening, when the bloggers had finished their professional work or other daily business. I conducted these first interviews predominantly in English and with only two bloggers in French. Language was a constant issue in fieldwork in the often multilingual settings in Beirut, where Arabic, English and French were all commonly used, but depending very much on the context. In the area where I lived, when shopping or dealing with my landlady, Arabic was the language to use; but already in neighbouring Hamra I used a mixture of English and Arabic, and as a foreigner, I was often addressed in English from the beginning. Also, the bloggers I met for interviews mostly addressed me in English when meeting the first time. In the following, I will briefly elaborate on my own language skills, which are often left out when writing up research in anthropology. Anthropologists are normally expected to “learn the language”, and while most try to do so, many of us feel we fail. Since this means failure to measure up to a publicly required occupational definition, anthropologists have often taken refuge in silence. (Tonkin, 1984: 178, cited in Borchgrevink 2003)

I had intensively studied MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) during two years in the course of my studies in Islamic Studies in Germany and then followed up on this with language courses for a month in Syria and for a semester in Egypt. Adding to this, I then took language classes in the Lebanese dialect for about three months at the Saifi Institute for Languages, Beirut and enjoyed being taught in the actual spoken dialect for the first time. However, my oral language skills were rudimentary in the beginning, which created some difficulties in conducting ‘proper’ fieldwork. This was not a big problem, since all bloggers were fluent in either English or French, both languages in which I am very proficient. Roughly half of the bloggers I was meeting were writing in English and even more used English in their working contexts.6 This gave me an additional excuse for not conducting the talks in Arabic. However, when it came to other settings, such as meetings and discussions in informal settings, the language barrier was an issue. Despite the fact that my skills in

6

See chapter 6 for more on language.

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the Lebanese dialect improved a lot, I missed some information and definitely a lot of wordplay and jokes. On the other hand, my MSA Arabic skills and my learning and speaking the dialect were also acknowledged by the bloggers and helped to create some kind of local credibility and trust regarding my intentions as a foreign researcher. Most bloggers asked me whether I read Arabic when studying blogging in Lebanon and were all quite positively surprised about a foreigner following also Arabic and not just English or French blogs. My French skills proved to be quite helpful, too, since some cultural events as well as the seminars at the USJ were held in French. The way I encountered different bloggers reflects parts of the internal dynamic within the field. My first meetings with bloggers were initiated by contacting them after having found their blog online, as mentioned above. After a while, I started to enter certain networks of bloggers and was passed on from one blogger to the other. In my interviews, I always asked which other bloggers they thought I should meet, in order to get an idea of the general internal network of people they knew and were connected with, but also to get to know blogs new to me. Most of the Englishlanguage A-list bloggers whom I met, such as those from Blogging Beirut, Plus961, (the former) Independence05 and Maya’s Amalgam, referred to each other. However, I already knew them from my earlier online research. In contrast, I became aware of a range of bloggers from the leftist/activist spectrum only when another researcher7 told me about a blogging “communist” friend of his. This is how I met the blogger Jou3an,8 one of the bloggers within the leftist spectrum. During the interview, he suggested that I meet two other bloggers, Hanibaael and Adon,9 who eventually became part of my final sample. The networks outside my initial field of research were decisive in turning my attention to another part of the local field. Being passed on from one blogger to another enabled me to get to know a particular chain within the field of blogging and their connected social worlds. On the other hand, this situation is also problematic, since it entails the danger of being stuck in a particular network and reproducing the view of its particular actors. Nevertheless, it was then Jou3an and his blogger friends who told me about the recently established Lebanese bloggers league (the Lebloggers), which I had not read about online anywhere yet. The first meeting had just been held when it was called to my attention. When I asked whether I could join for the next meeting, they forwarded me to the initiator of the league, the blogger Trella. I was lucky to be able to participate in the further meetings of the Lebloggers, where I was able to observe the

7

The same one who helped me find a flat. Thanks for both to Martin Boekelo at this point!

8

Jou3an is his nickname, online as well as offline. The spelling I use here is the one that he uses in his blog’s URL.

9

Their ‘online’ names.

86 | I T HE FIELD lively discussions among about fifteen different bloggers (see 2.2 and 8). This allowed me also to interact with some bloggers on a more regular basis; being on the group’s e-mail distribution list enabled me to obtain broader and deeper insights into the field than by merely conducting interviews with individual bloggers. In the first weeks of my initial stay, fieldwork did turn out differently than I had imagined. Instead of merely observing and hanging out with bloggers, I had a working life in Beirut: spending hours in the office in the morning and afternoon, having language classes in the early evening. It was only in the evenings or at weekends that I met bloggers for interviews or participated in social media gatherings. The Arab Bloggers Meeting that ran for four full days was an exception to this routine. Yet, in retrospect, these first weeks were important to get to know the fieldwork location and adjust my fieldwork plans. Over the months, fieldwork picked up. I was able to establish contact with some of the bloggers beyond the initial interviews and the Lebloggers meetings. And at the end of my stay in March 2010, I had the impression I had finally immersed in the ‘field’, i.e. the local blogging circles.10 When I came back a year later for my second, shorter fieldwork in March 2011, the Lebloggers, a loose alliance of bloggers, had already broken up. My contact to individual bloggers, however, was still active or could be revived in most cases. At the same time, research conditions in general had changed in different ways. The political situation in the context of the Arab uprisings and the sudden international interest in the region and its youth, especially when represented by bloggers, also changed the dynamics on the field site. The professional development of each blogger led to certain dynamics within the field of blogging, which also had consequences for my fieldwork, as I will outline now. One illustration of a fieldwork encounter is the following: Waiting for bloggers I had made an interview appointment with Assaad around four or five this Saturday, and we had agreed that I would call him at four when he should be back in town from the mountains. We had met before during my second field trip on several occasions, political events, and also once with another Egyptian blogger at his place. After the last attempts to catch him for my follow-up interview did not succeed and the end of my stay was approaching, it was quite important for me to meet him today. Thus, after leaving my weekly language course at four, I called him. He did not reply. I took the minibus from Gemmayzeh to Hamra, where I thought

10 Initially, my plan was to compare two blogospheres (the Lebanese and the Egyptian) and to stay for five months each in Beirut and Cairo. Later, as I decided to focus only on Lebanon, I regretted not having extended my first stay in Beirut.

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we would probably meet. Half an hour later, I wrote a text message, but no reply. I walked along Hamra Street and decided to go for a coffee at Simply Red, where we had our first interview over a year earlier. To have a cappuccino and look over the interview questions would probably not be too bad an idea. After having done so, an hour had passed, and I decided to call another time. Finally Assaad answered the phone, telling me that he had no credit to call back. He was already in Hamra but needed to go to an internet café and work, and on top of this, he needed a new power adaptor for his computer since the old one had broken. What this would mean for our interview appointment was not really clear to me and I started to feel stressed. We went back and forth about what to do. He asked me whether I could wait another hour. I told him that I had already been waiting for him for an hour now... He then decided to come to Simply Red now. Did I put too much pressure on him and was this impolite? I relented and suggested that, if he would be more relaxed in an hour, I could wait. No, it’s ok, we’ll do it now, he replied. Five minutes later, I received a text message from him asking whether I could come to Café Younes, another café further down in Hamra. Supposedly he had an internet connection there, and I recalled the slow but still existent connection in the café. When I arrived at the place, Assaad was sitting in the extremely crowded area in front of the café, talking on his telephone, and a girlfriend of his was sitting with him at the tiny table. That does not look like the best conditions for an interview, I thought. When I asked him how things were, Assaad told me, not so well: the power adapter broken, a lot of work, he needed to finish the design of a website before tomorrow, and much more. In addition to that, a meeting of the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām committee11 would take place, but he probably would not manage to go there. This left me with a bad conscience for being another stressful factor on this day, and I also had the impression that this wasn’t the best day for an interview since he was super-stressed. But would there be any better day, I asked myself. I apologised that it will be a ‘work talk’ with me as well. Assaad replied by saying that he made me wait quite some time and that the interview was urgent for me as well, since I was not going to stay in Lebanon that long anymore. We started the interview immediately, and I tried to ask as much as possible in a short time, while he was very fast and precise in his answers. (Field notes, April 9, 2011.)

This extract from my field notes shows a typical fieldwork day in Beirut during my second stay. It was characterised by the actors’ busy schedule and me trying to get hold of them. This aspect is also reflected in my arrival story and ‘running after the actors’ at the demonstration. Although the bloggers I interviewed during my first stay were quite burdened with various kinds of work commitments, they were even busier during my second fieldwork. Whether it was a heavy workload and a tight study schedule or their active involvement in the current Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement

11 A movement advocating for the “fall of the sectarian system” (see foreword and AbiYaghi et al.: 2016).

88 | I T HE FIELD (or, for some, a combination of all three), all of them were extremely occupied.12 For instance, I had asked all of my interlocutors in the second round of interviews to do a communication diary for one day, yet none of them found time.13 The point to make here is that waiting for the actors was one of the main fieldwork experiences during my second stay. I exchanged several messages with many of the bloggers before an appointment was made at all, then appointments were cancelled, phones not answered and meetings postponed. I dealt with what Nader (1972: 302), in her discussion of problems of access in “studying up”, calls “busy people”. In my case it was, however, not a studying up setting comparable to those in international business or news companies. My research was rather among young professionals like myself, yet mostly working under different conditions, and it is thus better described as studying “sideways” (see Hannerz 2006) – on which I will elaborate below. Yet I concentrated not on their major professional activity, but on their blogging activity, which lay somewhere between profession and hobby, as most of them described it in the interviews I held. Hence, it was at times a quite frustrating endeavour to get hold of the bloggers, an experience I could share with other researchers in similar fields in Lebanon. The question of which media to use to reach them best came up time and time again. Emails, Facebook messages, text messages or calls – there was no single communication strategy that worked best. The overall rule seemed to be to try as often as possible, although this sometimes made me feel uncomfortable. The instance presented above also reflects my position in the field, juggling between being a researcher in need of an interview and at the same time being aware of the blogger’s stressful life and not wanting to be an additional source of stress. I felt rather spoiled to be funded for studying blogging while they were busy making a living and blogging in addition. I will reflect more on this in the following paragraph on the field as location, in the sense presented in the introduction to this part. The field as location: positioning myself Overall, being a privileged Western researcher who comes like so many others to what some designate ‘over-researched’ Beirut was an important feature of my location. The following field note, which dealt with my location, stems from an evening with friends of the blogger Jou3an. On a Sunday evening after we had been to a demonstration, we met in the blogger’s preferred café on the edge of the Dahiyeh suburb, a predominantly Shia Muslim neighbourhood.

12 I will provide more details when presenting the key bloggers of my thesis in chapter 4. 13 However, in the interviews they then told me about their communication and media use habits.

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Mohamed, one of the administrators of a Lebanese online forum, asked me how long I was still going to write on my research project. He added that it would be a great topic. In the following, I tried with my rather poor academic Arabic vocabulary to explain to him and Amjad, who was sitting on my other side, that I focus on the context of blog production and what anthropology actually is. Mohamed and Amjad continued to talk about research and mentioned Ibn Khaldūn,14 who did research on “the others”. Mohamed said, half-joking, that it would always be the colonialists (mustaʿmirūn) who would research the other. (Field notes, April 10, 2011.)

Although I was not directly addressed as one of the “colonialists” and Mohamed showed interest in my research, it was clear that I was studying “the other(s)”, and from a rather privileged position, as well. The ambivalent stance towards my project, in this overall friendly atmosphere, becomes evident in this situation. It certainly reflects the wider perception and my position when I was on the field site in general. A fully-funded Ph.D. position, enabling me to come to Lebanon and study blogging, was generally regarded as a great luxury, which it certainly is, in particular since no such funding from universities is available in Lebanon itself. Outside the blogging field, the Lebanese I was in contact with reacted differently to my research interest: either they had not heard about blogging at all15 and thus were rather indifferent to my project, or they were aware of blogging and mostly interested in my work. Later on in the same setting, some other parts of my position in the field were addressed: In a playful talk about the religion of the friends around the table, in which all were making fun of the described clichés, I was asked, “Which confession are you?” Hassan asked this half jokingly and added that Joseph’s religion was be quite clear – the name indicated it clearly [that he is Christian]. Amjad replied for my part, if she is in Dahiyeh, then she is Shia, whereupon everybody laughed and they continued making fun of each other. A bit later, the discussion turned to the topic of nationalism (waṭanīya) and freedom. Mohamed asked which of the two I would opt for. “Freedom, of course,” I answered. He shook my hand, which proved that I had given the ‘right answer’. He, however, argued that it should be both of them! I was not sure whether this mainly referred to Lebanon, since I guessed that the Palestinian cause was also quite important to him. (Field notes, April 10, 2011.)

14 Ibn Khaldūn was a 14th-century Arab historiographer from what is now Tunisia. 15 As a side note, it was also quite revealing that one of my language teachers did not know what mudawwanāt (blogs) means at all. She just knew it as a term for writer in general and ironically learnt this expression from me.

90 | I T HE FIELD The extract gives a vivid insight into the humorous way the topics of religion and politics were discussed among Jou3an’s friends – and it clearly indicates that my position as a foreigner and presumably a Christian was a topic to be addressed. My views on Lebanese politics and the Palestinian issue were also asked for – the latter in particular within the activist spectrum, in which many advocated for the Palestinian cause. At times this happened indirectly, like here; on other occasions it was more directly, for example when I was asked if I like Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hizbollah, or what I think of the muqāwama (resistance), meaning Hizbollah, in general. These were moments in which I had to position myself politically. I tried to answer in a balanced way and was rarely confrontational on such occasions. In the situation at hand, I continued the discussion by outlining that, in Germany in particular, nationalism was surely quite differently understood than in Lebanon, due to different historical experiences. I tried to explain my different view on certain topics while showing my understanding of their position. My gender was another aspect of my ‘location’ in the field. In dealing with male bloggers, who were in the majority in my sample, drawing the line between being friendly and not too friendly, to make clear that I wanted to spend time with him but certainly not in any romantic sense, was a balancing act. At times I could play the ‘charm card’, yet in other situations when hanging out late at night at a blogger’s home, my gender made the situation quite ambivalent. All this reflects the various situations and difficulties I had to think about and react to, leading to the question not only of positioning myself as a (foreign) researcher, but also of finding a role equally satisfying for my own and my research endeavours. Finding a role Overall, I was struggling to find ‘my position’ in the field. ‘Find yourself a role’ – this saying from anthropological methods stuck in my mind. Often, when at bloggers’ meetings such as the Arab Bloggers Meeting 2009 or the Lebloggers meetings, I felt “arrested in the act of perception”, in Borneman’s and Hammoudi’s words (2009: 19). This was partly due to limited language competence, since these meetings were nearly exclusively in Arabic. Yet there was more to it. What role could I, as a Western academic with admittedly limited technical competence and language skills, fulfil? Not being a geek or intensive blogger or tweeple16 myself, I was not really sharing the ‘social media community spirit’. I only tried writing a modest personal blog and was more a follower than an active participant on Twitter. At times, I found this critical distance important in order to possibly cast “productive doubt about the ongoing perception of a phenomena” (ibid.). In the concrete

16 A term describing people using Twitter. See http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php ?term=tweeple, accessed February 11, 2012.

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situations however, this distance was rather inconvenient. Despite all these selfdoubting emotions and self-positioning, however, I was hardly confronted with questions about why I was there, and most bloggers signalled their encouragement of my interest in blogging and in particular in the Lebanese case. Still, some occasions during my research were neither possible to ignore, nor made me feel less doubtful about myself. After his interrogation by the military security services, blogger Jou3an17 joked that it must have been me who started the whole thing in order to have a case for my research. He also asked whether I would integrate this incident in my writings, since it would be the first case in Lebanon.18 This example reflects the blogger’s awareness of me being in the field as a researcher who might possibly write about the topic. There were several concrete occasions when bloggers verbalised their expectations to be published in the context of my research. During my second stay I received remarks such as “Let me know when you publish”; and when I met another blogger for the first time since I was back in Lebanon, he asked me what had happened to the last interview, he had not read anything yet! For him it was strange that I had not published anything so far; I interpreted his question as meaning that, with his production mode (see chapter 4), he would have made something out of it much faster. Eventually, when I was back in Oslo after my second stay, another blogger wrote jokingly during a Facebook chat: We’ll only let you back to Lebanon when you have finished your thesis! It was encouraging to hear this and at the same time gave me the impression of being ‘too slow’ in my writing up. All these instances reflect the expectations to publish something and the bloggers’ interest in me publishing and, as I understood it, eventually promoting their blogs. The bloggers also were aware of a rising ‘Western’ interest in the blogging related to the latest political events, in which some bloggers have become internationally famous.19 The relation between me, as a researcher, and them was thus not just one-sided; by giving interviews to me, they hoped to gain new publicity and international links. Furthermore, the comments by bloggers on my slowness in writing up also hint at differences between the speed and length of academic publishing and those of blogging. In general, blogging entries are much shorter and more up-to-date than academic writing is. These differences in knowledge practices can be compared to those between anthropology and journalism that Malkki (1997) discusses based on her fieldwork in Tanzania. She, however, argues against homogenising the two practices, since they are too internally diverse while also exhibiting similarities, an observation that can be applied to my field as well. In this sense, my research can

17 See chapter 3.5. 18 Field notes, March 18, 2010. 19 Including Alaa Abdel Fattah in Egypt and Lina Ben Mhenni in Tunisia.

92 | I T HE FIELD also be understood as studying sideways (Hannerz 2006), i.e. engaging with other knowledge practices, as which blogging is certainly to be understood. The field as site, method and location Coming back to the different notions of the field that I outlined in the beginning, a short summary of the different dimensions within my field of study will close this subchapter: The field sites I primarily frequented during my offline research were cafés or bars in central Beirut. That is where I met bloggers for interviews and talks and groups of bloggers or activists and other friends of the bloggers for informal meetings. In addition, I took part in political events, such as demonstrations, and discussion rounds about social media or other political or cultural topics that took place in different locations in Beirut and only occasionally outside (Zahleh, Sur). The field site was generally Beirut, yet the specific field site was limited to certain districts and places within the city. During my second stay, the scope broadened a bit, since Badaro was close to some of the bloggers’ residences, and so we occasionally met in the suburban districts next to it. Next to the actual field in the city of Beirut, I have already described the internet as another field site of utmost importance to my research. By visiting blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I tried to be continuously connected with both the virtual and the material field site. Facebook was an indispensable research tool for keeping informed about what was going on online and in Beirut (see introduction). Overall, the field method of following the actors on- and offline proved useful, despite its many difficulties. In studying the “vernacular cultures of digital media” (Coleman 2010: 487), from my point of view it is indispensable to go as far beyond the online world as the research topic and conditions allow. However, as I had to realise in a fluid field with highly individualised and busy actors, traditional fieldwork in the sense of a “deep hanging out” (Geertz 1998) with the actors is harder to fulfil. This experience stands in sharp contrast to the fieldwork on journalistic practice in a media company’s office that I did for my Masters (Jurkiewicz 2009). The latter took place in a bounded organisation with more or less fixed working hours, where I followed the set structures. In my research field in Lebanon, I followed individual bloggers, who run their own individualised work schemes and routines. There was no set structure except for the bloggers’ meetings. Furthermore, the actors were extremely busy and I had to meet them when they had time, which was mostly in the evening. Thus, I had to find a way to adapt to these circumstances and find feasible fieldwork strategies, which involved being extremely flexible about time, among other things. Beforehand, I had not read any methodological writings about this type of fieldwork. Searching for the field not only as site but also as a

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method was thus part of my fieldwork and in many instances came out as one of my research findings. Beyond that, as I outlined above, being an economically privileged foreigner, researcher and woman defined my “point of location” (Rich 1985: 13) in the field. Nonetheless, common experiences as students and in working life, similar age and shared interests connected me with the actors during my fieldwork encounters and bridged some of the differences. The actual “being there” (see introduction) was eventually an indispensable part of my research. It allowed me to immerse in parts of the social and academic milieus in Beirut, develop relations within the field beyond the temporary fieldwork and thus get a sense of the place. Last but not least, it provided me with a lot of material for this book.

2.2 P RACTITIONERS ,

LOCALITIES AND OFFLINE DYNAMICS A field […] is a domain of practice in which differently positioned practitioners compete and cooperate over the same prizes and rewards: money, pleasure, recognition. POSTILL 2010A: 15

In the first part of this chapter, I approached the local field by reflecting on my entry into the field and on my experiences during fieldwork. As I tried to show, the field was not just simply there, but fluid and sometimes only temporary. However, despite its fluidity, it is characterised by some basic structures of connections to wider social fields and localities. In the second part, I now want to shed light on these structures, following my hypothesis that blogging is a domain of practice that takes part in social fields and is connected to specific localities.20 First, I will briefly situate the practitioners within wider professional and social fields. Following this, I will contextualise blogging within youth culture and outline some local imaginaries of young people in Beirut. I will then discuss the social fields through which and in which bloggers meet and connect. These are confined neither to online nor to offline, but encompass both spaces. Third, I will then turn to one example of cooperation and competition within the field, the Lebloggers association, since this case tells much about the dynamics of cooperation and competition within the field. Overall, the material for this part consists of interviews with Lebanese bloggers

20 In chapter 5, the relation between blogging and other domains of practice will be analysed in detail. Here the main tendencies of the field and concrete forms of cooperation are the main focus.

94 | I T HE FIELD during my two research stays, informal talks with bloggers on quite a number of different occasions and online material about the local field and meetings. Situating the practitioners The background of the bloggers I met in the local field conforms to the picture Haugbolle drew for 2006. They all have higher education and mostly stem from a middle-class background. The two ‘classic’ modes of entry into blogging, as I observed in my fieldwork, are, first, working in IT, web design, graphic design etc. and being familiar with web tools and, I presuppose, being more used to experimenting with them. The second mode of entry is through engagement in fields in which writing is a substantial activity, such as academia, journalism or activism; these people then discover blogging as a channel to express and publish their opinions on the web. The wider sample of bloggers I focus on in this chapter reflects this tendency.21 Around half of them have a background in social science or humanities (political science, journalism etc.), such as blogger Jou3an, Hanibaael, Assaad (Beirutiyat) and Adon (Ninar). Especially these bloggers of the rather ‘activist’ part of the blogosphere were or are involved in journalism. Several of these bloggers have been writing for As-Safir and Shabab as-Safir, the journal’s youth outlet (such as Adon, Assaad, Hanibaael), as well as the Al-Akhbar journal (Hanibaael, Jou3an). Worth mentioning is furthermore the youth journal hibr, which I present in greater detail in the next part. The other half of the bloggers in this sample are active in IT or design, such as the young designer Maya Zankoul and the IT consultants Liliane (From Beirut With Funk, the former Independence05), Rami (Plus961) and Samer (Blogging Beirut). During my second fieldwork, they had mostly finished their studies and were in their early years of professionalisation in domains close to their studies. Thus, most bloggers are engaged in some kind of ‘knowledge work’. As I will show later, blogging can function as a tool to promote one’s own writings or drawings, establish new contacts and thereby strengthen the blogger’s social and cultural capital. It can be argued, following Warde (referencing Bourdieu), that “those in the most advantageous positions within a field are those who have the greatest opportunities to increase their economic, cultural and social capital” (Warde 2005: 148). What I want to highlight at this point is the continuities between the field of blogging and other domains of practice, be they professional, freelance or otherwise. The practitioners in these fields often share a common background. I will present their back-

21 The wider sample includes all bloggers whom I interviewed and met during my field stays.

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grounds and discuss the relation between blogging and their professional activity in more detail in the portraits in the following chapter 3. Bloggers within Beirutian youth culture Judging by my research among the local Lebanese bloggers online and offline in 2010 and 2011, the majority are ‘young’ and urban: with some exceptions they are in their 20s to mid-30s and live in Beirut or in the surrounding area, either with their families or some of them in shared flats.22 Although there are some scattered bloggers throughout the country, the majority of intensive bloggers and also the main offline activities around blogging take place in Beirut. Partly this is due to questions of access and social background. Since the internet infrastructure in Lebanon is not well developed and is characterised by high prices and slow internet connection (see 1.1), being based in the capital and having a good economic standard are prerequisites for having a good internet connection. Since most Lebanese universities are also located in the Lebanese capital, the majority of the young and educated Lebanese live here. Most of the bloggers in my sample and those with whom I merely had informal talks during meetings are to be considered urban youth – ‘youth’ in a broad sense of the term. Anderson considers youth in the context of Middle Eastern internet to be applicable not only to the 20-somethings, but also to those in their thirties, who are responsible for the internet’s infrastructure, and he even argued to include people in their forties who advocate for IT and carry the argument to the authorities.23 Most of the practitioners within the local field are in their 20s or early 30s, which does not even stretch the notion of youth very far. The point I want to make here is that the local blogging field is part of Lebanese youth culture: a youth culture located mainly in Beirut. This youth culture is not confined to online venues, as I indicated above. As Wilson (2006: 316) notes in his study on internet ethnography and youth culture, “The division between online and offline is in many respects (for many youth) a theoretical one.”24 In a similar vein, Maha Taki pointed out that her research on Lebanese and Syrian bloggers indicates that the actors “do not regard their online activities as a separate social activity from those of the offline world” (2008: 281).

22 This mainly describes the bloggers who are represented in the Lebanese blog aggregator and who use Blogger and WordPress, as well as those who use their own domain. Along with the bloggers resident in Lebanon, a significant number of bloggers within the Lebanese blogosphere write from the diaspora, whether from the US (see Salama 2007), Europe or elsewhere. 23 Anderson in a presentation titled “Peripheries become Center: Media Borderlands in the Middle East” held on July 21 at the WOCMES 2010 in Barcelona, Spain. 24 Wilson refers to Miller and Slater’s (2000) findings from Trinidad.

96 | I T HE FIELD The two spaces of activity are thus closely connected in the bloggers’ perception, as my material also indicates and as I will discuss throughout the chapter. Furthermore, youth culture in Beirut is connected to concrete localities, such as districts and particular places to meet. In my talks with bloggers, the Hamra district was often mentioned as the place to meet. The American University and a vast number of cafés, restaurants and shops are based here. It is both a commercial and a cultural district; its Hamra Street in particular is one of the main shopping streets in Beirut and a popular place for students and young people from all backgrounds. According to Craig Larkin’s (2010) study of the urban imaginary of Lebanese youth: For many students, Beirut has a multiple informal “counterpublic” spaces that emerged during the civil conflict and continue to provide unique urban subcultures, reproducing cities within a city. One such district is Hamra… (Ibid.: 432) The emergence of civil society groups, reconciliation centers, and artistic communities in Hamra is not only owed to the district’s liberal history but is a consequence of the constraining vision inscribed into Beirut’s Down Town. Perhaps it is Hamra’s lack of urban planning and official governance that has enabled this unofficial center to become a postwar space that allows citizens to express themselves and contest future visions. (Ibid.: 433)

Although Hamra is “subjected to gentrifying impulses” (Larkin 2010: 433), it is still perceived as one of the “counterpublic spaces” (ibid.: 432, see above). Hamra is often presented in opposition to downtown Beirut, which has been completely reconstructed since the civil war. The latter, as one blogger described it, is “the capitalist Beirut”, the “new Beirut that we don’t know, the Beirut of the tourists, not ours” (Khodor i1). Bloggers and other young people I met often referred to Hamra as a little village where most people who are involved in any kind of political or cultural activity know each other. Or as one blogger explained to me: Ah, you know the civil society in Lebanon is like that, so especially in Hamra you know, I think if you visit Hamra always, so you know who are the people and how they are connected. I mean everyone knows everyone, especially in Hamra, and the activists, they know each other, everyone knows the others. (Hanibaael i1)

The circles of civil and cultural engagement of the educated middle class are quite closely connected in Beirut. This is where most bloggers are found, and therefore bloggers also tend to know each other personally simply because they hang out in the same areas and places in Beirut and participate in the same events.

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Yet not all young Beirutians share the same positive image of Hamra. One blogger I talked to designated it rather pejoratively as the place for “communists and leftists” to hang out.25 For others, exactly this attribution of being a place for ‘leftists’ is a source of pride and an important part of the district’s identity. While I was talking to the blogger Khodor in a bar in Hamra, he sketched a political map of the bars in Hamra, attached to different wings in the leftist political spectrum: Here in Hamra, each pub [is close to] a political party. For example De Prague, you know, that’s for the Syrian Nationalists, you find a lot of them inside; the Secteur 43, for example, that’s for the Democratic Left, a movement that left the Communist Party and is with March 14 now. The Simply Red, that is for the Union of the Democratic Youth and the Communist Party. Here the T-Marbouta is for those, ehm, that’s rather for the foreigners, for the elites… but that’s Hamra, diverse! (Khodor i1)

This political cartography shows the variety of political groups and movements of the broader Left as perceived by one of the activists within this spectrum. Beyond that, it indicates the clear political attribution of each place, which I was often confronted with during my fieldwork. This applies to districts where one lives, bars and cafés one hangs out in and much more. The question where one lives or hangs out hence always connotes a specific political and/or religious belonging. Next to Hamra, Gemmayzeh is another district where young people meet and hang out and where I met several bloggers for interviews and other purposes. The famous Rue Gouraud, in particular, has become a popular place for young people to go out to bars and restaurants. Gentrification in the district has also met some resistance from the local inhabitants of the area, such as a sit-in in the middle of Rue Gouraud I witnessed during my second fieldwork. The imaginary of Gemmayzeh has also been (re)produced by bloggers themselves, as the “Virtual Gemmayze project”26 and the “I love Gemmayze”27 campaign by blogger Finkployd from the Blogging Beirut blog show. The latter was a reaction to the authorities’ closing of several bars and implementation of a curfew in 2008, in order to support “the best nightspot in Lebanon”.28 But the district is not only a place for going out partying, but also to be credited for its historical buildings from the French era that create some of the charm of what is at times perceived as an “artistic bohemian quarter”,

25 Interview with The Ouwet Front blogger, March 22, 2010. 26 http://gemmayze.bloggingbeirut.com/, accessed January 25, 2012. 27 See http://www.ilovegemmayze.com/, accessed January 25, 2012. 28 http://www.bloggingbeirut.com/archives/1287-I-Love-Gemmayze-Campaign-Lets-ShowOur-Support!.html, accessed January 25, 2012.

98 | I T HE FIELD as is noted in the Wikipedia entry on the district.29 Gemmayzeh is in general not inscribed in the same political narrative as Hamra. As the leftist blogger Jou3an stated in the interview mentioned above, “Gemmayzeh, that’s for the aristocrats, the Lebanese bourgeoisie!” The discourses about the two districts reflect different imaginaries and at times different political stances related to localities within Beirut. In my fieldwork, I thus always tried to let the bloggers choose where to meet, which also give me an indication of the places they normally frequent. Field stations and domains of interaction Yesterday we had a tweetup, so I met most of them [bloggers]; others I’m meeting at the demonstrations, at the meetings prior to demonstrations; some are friends like Ghada. We spend like, let’s say, each day together… ASSAAD I2

As this introductory citation indicates, there are several modes of interaction within the local field of blogging, be it through meetings in the domain of activism and social media or personal contacts. In this part, I will elaborate on these offline interactions and outline spaces and events (or “stations”, see Postill 2011: 7) that enable bloggers to meet within the local field. I thereby focus on the offline realm, without intending to dismiss or demote the online interaction. Overall, the online and offline activities (see Wilson above) are a continuum and the online activities are part and parcel of the bloggers’ lives. Yet since I already dealt with the online dynamics in chapter I, I now put the emphasis on the offline: two domains of interaction and cooperation: social media and political activism. I will deal in more detail with bloggers’ meetings in a subsequent, separate part. Social media First I need to present some institutions within the field of social media that facilitate exchange on the ground: SMEX (Social Media Exchange)30 is one of the main players in this field. Founded in May 2008 by Jessica Dheere and Mohamed Najem, SMEX describes itself as a “social enterprise that offers training and consulting on social media and online strategy to both non-profit and for-profit organisations in

29 http://wikitravel.org/en/Gemmayze, accessed January 25, 2012. 30 https://smex.org/

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Lebanon and the Arab world”.31 SMEX provides training in all kinds of social media applications in order to “help develop a participatory media literacy in Lebanon”,32 on specific issues such as privacy and security, visual thinking and much more. It offers both free workshops and customised training. Amongst other things, it offered a “Training of Trainers Program” in 2009 and hosted the second Arab Teechies workshop for women in May 2010.33 As an institution in the field of social media in Lebanon, it also provides a space for the online community to meet, which I could observe in their office-warming in autumn 2010, which several bloggers also attended. The youth-driven media outlet hibr34 is another actor in the social media field. The journal is published both in print and online and covers a range of issues of social, political and cultural interest in Arabic and English. It started as Sawt Ashabab (Voice of the Youth) in early 2009. Its local office was located at Rootspace, a “multi-use workspace” that it shared with other initiatives.35 In 2011, it then moved to AltCity, a “media / tech / social impact collaboration & startup space”36 in Hamra. Along with its publishing activity, hibr also organises events and workshops on a regular basis. “As of October 2010, over 500 young people have been trained throughout all parts of Lebanon on various topics related to Web 2.0/social media, citizen journalism methods and ethics, information & media literacy…”37 Hibr provides training units in schools, youth centres, refugee camps and elsewhere. Thus, far beyond publishing, the institution is active in teaching and spreading social media competences and awareness among Lebanese youth. Hibr provides a space for these diverse activities and discussions, such as about the state of the Isqāṭ anNiẓām movement in Lebanon, which I attended in spring 2011.38 Among the bloggers in my sample, Beirutiyat Blogger is active in hibr and has published more than a dozen articles since its establishment.

31 http://www.smex.org, accessed January 27, 2012. 32 http://www.smex.org/training/, accessed January 27, 2012. 33 See: http://www.smex.org/2010/05/atwomen-rewiring-the-world/, accessed January 27, 2012. 34 http://www.hibr.me/ 35 http://www.therootspace.org/site/fr/node/2, accessed January 27, 2012. Rootspace hosts, amongst other websites, the Mideast Wire (https://www.mideastwire.com/page/index.ph p) office, a website providing English translations of reports on key events in the Arab media. 36 http://www.altcity.me/, accessed January 27, 2012. 37 See: http://www.hibr.me/about, accessed January 27, 2012. 38 On March 23, 2012.

100 | I T HE FIELD Both institutions, SMEX and hibr, are characterised by activities that transcend the online. They function as mobilisers of the social media community and provide offline meeting points for various actors within the field. They can be understood as “field stations” where “field agents interact with other agents, ideas and technologies on a regular basis” (Postill 2011: 7). Along with these rather institutionalised stations, there are also more temporary stations that provide a platform for exchange within the field. Among the occasions where bloggers meet face to face in Beirut are the social media events that have been held in Beirut over the last years. Among them is the GeekFest that took place the first time in February 2010 in the Art Lounge Beirut. Several bloggers made active presentations during the event, especially the Englishwriting bloggers such as Samer Karam, Liliane and Maya Zankoul.39 “Lebanon’s Online Community Emerges Offline at GeekFest Beirut!” was the title of an article by Jessica Dheere from SMEX covering this event.40 While the title somehow suggests a former divide between the online and the offline, most of the actors are aware of each other. Yet such meetings offer additional platforms for exchange und getting to know each other’s activities. The GeekFest was held again in May41 in the same place; in November 2010 in a bar in the Monot quartier,42 famous for its nightlife; and subsequently at the Beirut Art Center in June 2011.43 The blogger Liliane covered the latter event photographically.44 The venues of the events reflect their embeddedness in the cultural field and hint at the social location of such meetings. The PechaKucha night, “an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public“,45 attracts a similar group of people and bloggers, but

39 http://maniachi.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/geekfest-beirut-2-geek-overdose-anyone/, accessed January 27, 2012. 40 http://www.smex.org/2010/02/geekfest-beirut/, accessed January 27, 2012. 41 Just to mention one blogger’s contributions, Finkployd (Blogging Beirut) presented his new live blogging project, see: http://bloggingbeirut.com/archives/1725-GeekFest-Beirut -3.14.html, accessed January 27, 2012. 42 http://www.facebook.com/pages/GeekFest-Beirut/214550037693, accessed January 27, 2012. 43 For a blogger’s report on the 3rd GeekFest in Beirut, see: http://threadofdesire.wordpress .com/tag/geekfest-beirut/, accessed January 27, 2012. 44 https://picasaweb.google.com/beirutfunk/GeekfestBeirut4El3ab, accessed January 27, 2012. 45 http://www.pecha-kucha.org/, accessed February 11, 2012.

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more visual artist bloggers take part in it (such as Maya Zankoul46 and Nadine Feghaly, another comic blogger47).48 Another key event in the social media domain is the ArabNet49, a conference for the web industry, held for three days on a yearly basis.50 It showed a significant participation of bloggers. In 2010, for instance, the bloggers Maya Zankoul and Finkployd (Blogging Beirut) livetweeted about the conference. Furthermore, the conference nominates official bloggers; they are granted free entry in exchange for publishing a certain number of posts covering the event. Beirutiyat blogger was nominated as one of these and participated in the overall conference in March 2011. In the same year, on community day, which in contrast to the other days was open for everyone, speakers from SMEX and hibr participated in the discussion about social media. I met several bloggers who were attending this event in their spare time. Furthermore, the tweetups held in Beirut are a common occasion for bloggers to meet, as tweeples often engage in blogging as well as tweeting. On the Lebanese blog aggregator, a photostream of tweetups held in 2010 was posted on the portal’s main page (posted in January 2011), reflecting the common links between blogging and tweeting. As the blogger and tweeple Liliane told me, “many of them have blogs, but many of them I did not know as bloggers before”,51 so tweetups also provide the opportunity to learn about each other’s blogging activities. The bloggers participating in these meetings, however, tend not to be political activists, and the meetings are more a social gathering in which tweeples meet occasionally to have dinner together or do other things. As I was told by media activist and journalist Mathew Cassel, at this point the Lebanese tweetups were quite different from the Egyptian tweetups, which were in contrast very political.52 As Maya Zankoul explained to me: “Tweetups: it’s really to have more fun stuff. That’s not for a cause, even if we should.”53 Nevertheless, tweetups are a way to socialise and also some-

46 Maya Zankoul told me about her participation in the event in an interview on December 9, 2009 (see http://mayazankoul.com/2009/10/23/pecha-kucha/, accessed February 11, 2012.). I visited the event in April 2011. 47 http://www.nadinefeghaly.com/, accessed February 11, 2012. 48 http://www.pecha-kucha.org/night/beirut/, accessed February 11, 2012. 49 http://news.arabnet.me/ 50 March 2010, March 2011 and March 2012. 51 Interview January 20, 2010. 52 Interview with Mathew Cassel on March 25, 2011, Beirut. 53 Interview with Maya Zankoul on December 1, 2009, Beirut.

102 | I T HE FIELD times lead to common actions, as at the twestival in 2011,54 in which funds for “supporting the cause of breast cancer”55 were collected. Overall, the social media meetings listed here tend to attract the English-writing bloggers with a background in IT or design, such as Maya Zankoul, Liliane, Finkployd and Rami from Plus961.56 They are also partly connected to the entrepreneurial side of social media. Along with these events and meetings, smaller social media campaigns are an example of interaction and cooperation beyond the online realm. In early 2011, the blogger Liliane (From Beirut With Funk formerly Independence05) and others active in social media launched the Ontornet initiative.57 Ontor is colloquial Arabic and translates as “I wait”. The campaign aims for better internet connection and infrastructure. The initiative’s website is, as Liliane told me, meant to be “scientific”, “we just provide data […] and we want people themselves to decide on their own” (i2). During the initial period of the campaign, the group met once or twice a week to work on videos or texts. Common interest in social media may thus lead to practical interaction and face-to-face meetings. Beyond that, blogger training programmes are another area of cooperation. The bloggers Hanibaael and Adon were active in giving training sessions for young people, for example in Zahleh in the Bekaa Valley in March 2010.58 The bloggers intended, as they told me, to continue blogger training sessions in other areas of Lebanon in order to spread the idea of blogging beyond Beirut, where most blogging activities were situated.59 Political activism Not only the strictly social media-related institutions and events provide spaces for bloggers to meet offline. A domain of practice closely linked to blogging is social and political activism. One example that reflects the online-offline continuum among activist bloggers was the demonstrations against the Egyptian wall on the Egypt/Gaza Strip border in front of the Egyptian embassy in Beirut in early 2010

54 http://beirut.twestival.com/, accessed February 11, 2012. 55 Ibid. 56 The Arabic blogger on http://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/ is thus an exception. 57 http://www.ontornet.org/ 58 This took place in the context of a project called “12 Bridge Builders: Bloggers for peace and justice” organised by the Alternative Society Organization, a local NGO. See http://a lternative-society.org/, accessed February 11, 2012. 59 Field notes, March 17, 2010.

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(see 1.2). Some activist bloggers60 were first active in organising and mobilising and then in reporting on this demonstration. Their efforts were also covered, for instance in a short documentary in a programme from the Lebanese News portal iloubnan about the blogger Farfahinne’s preparations.61 In the aftermath, a number of bloggers posted about the event, criticised the army’s reaction62 and started to share their blog posts online.63 Farfahinne told me about this rather new experience as follows: I felt there is really cooperation between a blogger who posts about another blogger; it was more connected than before. I think it was Hanibaael who put all the blogs written about this on his thing [blog]. Yes, there is a small group.64

And some got to know about each other’s respective blogging activity. Farfahinne continued that she did not become aware until this occasion that Hanibaael and Adon were blogging, though she knew them before. Thus, cooperation online between the activists was strengthened after this event. Farfahinne further expressed that she would always push other activists to become active within social media: “I always try to encourage activists to open a Flickr account, a channel on YouTube, open a blog. Like the Egyptian comrades did, I try to transmit this, it’s important to do so!”65 In a similar vein, in an interview shortly after the demonstration, the blogger Khodor aka Jou3an told me about his attempts to encourage his “leftist comrades” to launch their own blogs.66 A second example is the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām (Down with the [sectarian] system) movement in spring 2011, which showed cooperation in the online-offline continu-

60 http://farfahinne.blogspot.com, http://hanzala.blogspot.com, https://jou3an.wordpress.co m, https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com, https://hanibaael.wordpress, https://saghbini.wordp ress.com. 61 http://www.iloubnan.info, the report was posted on Farfahinne’s blog, see: http://farfahin ne.blogspot.com/2010/01/manifestation-pour-gaza-beyrouth-en.html, accessed January 30, 2010. 62 https://jou3an.wordpress.com on January 24 and 26 (no longer accessible) and Hanzala on January 25: http://hanzala86.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post.html, accessed March 25, 2010. (Part of Hanzala’s article was published in Al-Akhbar newspaper) See also postings on https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com, http://farfahinne.blogspot.com, https://hani baael.wordpress.com and https://saghbini.wordpress.com. 63 See http://hanibaael.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/, accessed January 30, 2010. 64 Interview with Farfahinne on February 25, 2010, Beirut. 65 Ibid. 66 Khodor i1.

104 | I T HE FIELD um. Bloggers were involved and met on the ground, during preparatory meetings and at the demonstrations itself, as the Beirutiyat blogger mentioned above. Several bloggers actively participated in organising and/or documenting the movement, including Assaad (Beirutiyat), Jou3an, Farfahinne and Trella – for instance, the Beirutiyat blogger who set up the movement’s website67 and was also a moderator for one of the movement’s Facebook pages. During the demonstrations, I could occasionally observe bloggers’ meetings, where they exchanged news and impressions and took photos of each other that later appeared on their respective blogs, for instance Trella’s. The discussion about the movement was both on- and offline. The blogger Adon told me that he had discussed (offline) with Jou3an and Hanibaael before the movement really started and also had “talked online” to Trella to exchange their views.68 However, not all activist bloggers were engaged in the movement. Self-ascribed secular bloggers, such as Hanibaael and Adon, opted not to take part and criticised the movement from within in discussions on- and offline (see also chapter 8). Whether supporting this particular movement or not, political activism is a domain of contact between bloggers, and some of the activists in this field also became active online as bloggers. Since the fields of civil engagement, whether in NGOs or small initiatives, are rather small in Beirut, those who are active within these circles tend to have already known each other before they began their blogging activity. The same goes for other domains such as (web) design, illustration and IT. Along with these domains of social media and political activism, there are individual contacts between individual bloggers. A quite surprising relationship developed between two bloggers from two completely different political backgrounds. The founder and the main blogger of The Ouwet Front69, a blogger collective close to the Lebanese Forces, a Christian right-wing party, told me that he and the MarxistFromLebanon70 blogger meet for discussions on a regularly basis.71 Thus, at times blogging leads to modes of exchange beyond existing political and social circles. Furthermore, blogging may also lead to more personal contacts, as blogger Liliane told me:

67 http://isqatalnizam.org/. Initially he wanted to use the website’s template for his own blog, as he told me. 68 Informal communication, March 15, 2011. 69 http://ouwet.org/ 70 http://marxistfromlebanon.blogspot.com/ 71 Interview on March 5, 2010, Beirut.

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[Some bloggers,] I know them personally, friends of mine, actually we used to be bloggers and then we became friends, especially after the war, we started a lot of bloggers meetings, we met each other, and some we’re friends, not best friends, we’re sort of friends who check up on each other and everything [...] we’ve been together for sushi, you know these kinds of thing, I know several persons, not everyone of course, but I met them through Twitter or through blogging. (Liliane i1)

This quote indicates the various levels of contacts established through and beyond blogging, in a similar vein as the introductory citation from Assaad (Beirutiyat). This does not mean that all intensive bloggers in Lebanon know each other personally. Some social online and offline worlds are separated and do not overlap, especially the rather techie bloggers who blog in English and those who are involved politically in the leftist spectrum and blog in Arabic. Linking up to likeminded people obviously structures on- as well as offline life. However, the two domains are not clearly distinct, and some actors manoeuvre in both domains. After having outlined various “field stations” (Postill 2011: 7) – institutionalised forms as well as more temporary spaces of interaction – I will now turn more specifically to bloggers’ meetings. Bloggers’ meetings In the period of this study (summer 2009 - summer 2011), a range of blogger meetings was held in Beirut. One of them was the bloggers’ meeting at T-Marbouta on September 15, 2009, in which over a dozen bloggers participated.72 Among them were my interlocutors Finkployd, Maya Zankoul and Rami (from Plus961). The latter posted about the gathering on the next day: It’s all over the Lebanese blogsphere now… Yesterday night I went to T-Marbout along with several Lebanese bloggers to meet with Philippe Couve, Pierre Haski (www.rue89.com), and Eric Scherer from Radio France Internationale. The meeting purpose was for the French journalists and bloggers to get to know more about the Lebanese blogsphere and its status. We discussed several issues such as why blogging isn’t very popular here in Lebanese, and why

72 https://29letters.wordpress.com, http://bloggingbeirut.com, http://beirutntsc.blogspot.co m, http://www.choueichoueibeyrouth.blogspot.com, https://diaryofahalfandhalf.wordpres s.com/, http://hanane.me/blog/, http://klekeesh.blogspot.com, http://kibot.blog.com, http:/ /chroniquesbeyrouthines.20minutes-blogs.fr, https://mayazankoul.wordpress.com (at this time still on WordPress), http://www.onoffbeirut.com, http://www.plus961.com, http://ww w.rue89.com, http://www.qussa.nl, http://thereforedesign.com/blog.

106 | I T HE FIELD do some bloggers post very frequently when things heat up in Lebanon and then dump their blogs when everything calms down. [sic]73

Bloggers who had not met face-to-face before had the chance to meet for the first time. The meeting, however, was not confined to internal exchange, but aimed to facilitate interaction with French journalists who wanted to learn more and report about the local Lebanese bloggers. Thus, in part, the meeting had a representative character and an external orientation. Some of the attending bloggers were subsequently interviewed by the journalists. Yet the meeting turned out to have been an important catalyst for the local field. As Maya Zankoul told me enthusiastically, “Mostly the T-Marbouta one was really the one that put us together and we met for the first time.”74 All those who posted about the event were quite positive about the experience. As the blogger Tarek Chemaly wrote, “It was so nice to finally put faces on people I had only met through posting comments...”75 The French-writing Rue89 blogger, who was among the initiators, labelled it “une première réussie”, a first success: Relatively isolated, in a country where Facebook is king, but more in a playful fashion than in networking for exchanging information, where the continuous political tensions tire a part of the youth out, who refuse certain clan cleavages, the bloggers do not claim any representativeness, not even in their own generation. Yet they discovered Tuesday night that they are isolated but not alone.76

Overall, the meeting indicates the importance of offline gatherings to strengthen a particular blogger community, here the mostly externally oriented English- and French-writing bloggers. The T-Marbouta was not the first meeting among Lebanese bloggers. In 2005/2006, the Lebanese Blogger Forum (see 1.2) held several

73 http://www.plus961.com/tag/radio-france-internationale/, accessed January 28, 2012. 74 Interview on December 1, 2009. 75 http://beirutntsc.blogspot.com/2009/09/maya-zankoul-talks-about-yesterdays.html , accessed January 28, 2012. 76 http://www.rue89.com/media-internet/2009/09/16/les-blogueurs-libanais-reunis-a-beyro uth-une-premiere-reussie, accessed January 28, 2012. Original citation in French: “Relativement isolés, dans un pays où Facebook règne en roi mais sur le mode ludique plus que dans la mise en réseau d’échange d’informations, où les tensions politiques constantes lassent une partie de la jeunesse qui refuse certains clivages claniques, les blogueurs ne revendiquent aucune représentativité, pas même celle de leur génération. Mais ils ont découvert mardi soir qu’ils étaient isolés mais pas seuls.” (Translation by the author)

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offline meetings. However, for the mostly third-generation bloggers present here, this meeting was among the first. Some Lebanese bloggers took part in the Second Arab Bloggers Meeting in December 2009.77 Other Lebanese bloggers’ meetings have been planned, such as the First Annual Lebanese Bloggers Convention78 at the American University Beirut (AUB) in May 2010, which had to be postponed due to student protests.79 It was then relaunched in December of the same year under the title “Blogging Lebanon”.80 There have also been several attempts to organise a permanent Lebanese bloggers’ league or association, i.e. more stable field stations, during the last years in order to strengthen exchange and cooperation between bloggers. A second trial to institutionalise blogging in a blogger’s league or association started in early 2010. I will go into its history in some detail, since it sheds light on basic features of both cooperation and competition within the local field. Cooperation in practice 1: The Lebloggers The blogger Imad Bazzi aka Trella took the initiative to establish a Lebanese Bloggers League. I heard about its first meetings through some of the bloggers who participated in it and consequently also met Trella for an interview in the Regusto pub on Hamra Street in February 2010. Trella told me that he started the search for Lebanese bloggers mainly online. Although he was already well connected with foreign bloggers, he had not started connecting with Lebanese bloggers until recently. T: I came up with the idea, and the first guy I contacted was Hanibaael, I like this guy, and another Lebanese blogger who was with me in Jordan and that’s how it started, and then we met everybody and I started meeting everybody on Twitter and… S: So do you have a group there on Twitter? T: No it’s hashtag Lebanon, that’s how I met everyone, actually a blogger from Jordan, she gave me contacts with most of the Lebanese bloggers who attended the bloggers’ meeting, so I contacted them and I went online and started searching for

77 http://lyalk.net, http://www.ethiopiansuicides.blogspot.com, https://beirutiyat.wordpress. com. 78 http://www.beirutnightlife.com/events/calendar/the-first-annual-lebanese-bloggers-conve ntion-at-aub/, accessed January 27, 2012. 79 http://www.onlinecollaborative.org/2010/10/press-release-relaunch-of-blogging.html, accessed January 27, 2012. 80 http://www.onlinecollaborative.org/p/blogging-lebanon.html, accessed January 27, 2012.

108 | I T HE FIELD Lebanese blogs through 961 and through other blogs and I started invitations for everyone: “Come to the bloggers meeting.”

The bloggers meeting referred to here was the Arab Bloggers Meeting in December 2009. The extract shows that the search for Lebanese bloggers passed through several networks and also beyond Lebanon in the case of the Jordanian blogger. It was an individual blogger who tried to get bloggers together: an already active blogger at this point, but not very well connected among Lebanese bloggers. As the blogger Hanibaael told me, “Trella told us that it’s now time to do it, we should do it, and so we had a meeting and did it step by step to establish our league.” (i1) The first meeting was, as Trella put it, “just to get acquainted with everyone, to meet everyone, to meet everyone face to face for the first time”81. The group that came together at the second meeting on January 16, 2010, in which I participated, consisted of young journalist and human rights activist bloggers. Along with Trella, there was a female journalist and researcher, a lawyer, three young students who were also occasionally active as journalists, a human rights activist working in programming, the organiser of the social media café82 etc. Several of the bloggers already knew each other before through common activities in NGOs and human rights activism. The meetings were held in Club 43 (1943 being the year of independence), an NGO-operated bar/restaurant in Gemmayze.83 Questions discussed at the meeting included who was to be part of the league, whether every blogger should have access, whether a board should decide on applications, and who would be excluded? And finally, should the bloggers be exclusively Lebanese in Lebanon, or also foreigners writing in Lebanon about Lebanon, and what about the Lebanese diaspora bloggers and Palestinians in Lebanon? Different opinions were expressed and no clear strategy was agreed upon. The discussion showed the difficulties of defining the boundaries and criteria of who is a ‘Lebanese blogger’ and was followed up at the next meeting. This reflects the general discussion within the local field of who is supposed to belong to it and points to the fact that “the boundaries of the field, and the definition of who populates the field, is a matter of constant struggle” (Warde 2004: 12). Overall, a rather pragmatic approach was adopted in the ongoing activities of the league, whose name developed to Lebloggers, a play on words with Lebanese and bloggers. The size of the Lebloggers committee was to be limited to 20 bloggers, which included those taking part in the meetings so far plus some ‘candidate’ bloggers suggested during the

81 Interview on February 10, 2010. 82 Organised by the Swedish Institute in March 2010. 83 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/Jun/07/Beirut-nightspot-looks-to-end-sect arianism.ashx#axzz1kZK4FRN6, accessed January 27, 2012.

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meeting. In talks I had with other bloggers who were not asked to join, some expressed their astonishment that certain prominent bloggers were not included or asked at all. In the following meetings held from January to May 2010, the goals and structure of the organisation were discussed and actions planned. The association envisaged spreading the culture of blogging, sharing experiences and providing training and support.84 A heavily debated topic was whether foreign funding would be accepted.85 Whether to organise as an NGO or a company was discussed in detail, and the first solution, which involved a rather complicated administrative application process, was planned. The executive committee or board was to take the decisions and every blogger who would like to could join as an ordinary member. Furthermore, a Google group was set up to facilitate internal discussion. After various ideas on how to start and what kind of online or online-offline event would be the best kick-off for the association, the upcoming municipal elections in May 2010 provided the occasion marking the beginning. At the time of the elections, I was not in Lebanon anymore, but could follow the group’s coverage of the elections on various spots on the Lebloggers’ newly launched website and on Twitter. Trella posted an invitation for all Lebanese bloggers to participate in this joint effort by “Calling on ALL Lebanese Bloggers out there...” Let’s take the Lebanese Blogosphere and the use of social media in Lebanon to a totally new level, People at home deserve to watch unbiased-neutral-apolitical coverage of the municipal elections, and it is our duty to deliver that!86

At this point, the Lebloggers thus opened up to new members. Some new bloggers joined, and those who were active in covering the election were not necessarily the very early members of the group. The group was also logistically supported by SMEX. The bloggers interviewed voters and posted the resulting videos online on the Lebloggers’ website. They thereby gained some attention in the mainstream media: a short feature on the group’s activity was shown on the Lebanese TV channel LBC;87 one of the participants was interviewed on Future TV in May 2010;88 and an article about their coverage of the elections was published in As-Safir. The

84 For a short history of this association, see an article by one of its members, Hani Naim, in the journal hibr: http://hibr.me/ar/issue4/lebaneseblogging, accessed September 17, 2010. 85 I will come back to this separately in chapter 7 when dealing with the ethos of blogging. 86 http://trella.org/invitation-Lebloggers/, accessed April 26, 2010, not available anymore. 87 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqpq14sE3mo&NR=1, accessed February 14, 2011. 88 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-8iis94aS0, accessed February 14, 2011.

110 | I T HE FIELD article highlighted that Lebloggers wrote about different subjects from the mainstream media, such as the absence of women in the elections lists in certain election districts etc. This example shows some things that bloggers clearly strive for: publicity in reaching out to the (here Lebanese) audience and media attention, which can be seen as a tool to make people aware of the group’s activities. The group’s first media success was celebrated, and the involved bloggers were happy about the media attention they attracted.89 Just when the first successful action was completed and even media attention had been gained, the association ceased its work. As I was told by some of the bloggers (and also observed by being part of the group’s mailing list), this was partly due to conflicts over representation of the group and mainly the question: who represents and speaks for the group in the media?90 In the end, the divisions in the group seemed to be too strong. Despite the media attention and successful coverage of the elections, the cooperation among bloggers turned out to be more difficult. As I was told, the controversy about external, especially US funding was another factor in the breakup. In my interpretation, the interests of individual bloggers and of the group did not always overlap, and these conflicts of interest could not be resolved. As one of the bloggers, to whom I talked when back in March 2011, put it laughingly, “It’s complicated to work together, because bloggers are all individuals, the blog is a very individual thing...”91 Overall, the Lebloggers example shows some common features in the local field of blogging. Cooperation for specific goals (here: coverage of the election) can be organised rapidly and successfully by a loose group of bloggers. However, permanent blogger institutions are hard to establish, which the example of the Lebanese Blogger League in 2005/2006 also reflects. Whereas most bloggers intend to bridge internal political/ideological differences, it is difficult to do so in practice and longterm when something is at stake. Beyond that, the dilemma between inclusiveness, i.e. being open to include all bloggers, and setting up an effectively working institution is hard to resolve in practice. The notion that blogging is an “individual thing”92 hints at some of the obstacles to establishing institutionalised forms of cooperation. Coming back to the notion of a field station, the bloggers’ association did not succeed in developing into a permanent field station, but rather turned out to be a site of conflict (or arena) in which inclusiveness, external funding and external representation were debated.

89 As I followed by being part of the group’s e-mail list. 90 Informal communication and interviews with former members of the group during my fieldwork in Beirut in March and April 2011. 91 Informal communication with a former member in March, 2011. 92 Ibid.

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Cooperation in practice 2: common causes Nevertheless, there are some instances in which this individualism in blogging is certainly overcome. Especially when bloggers are intimidated, they are willing to cooperate. A significant example is the solidarity meetings and posts after the Army’s security forces interrogated the blogger Jou3an in February 2010. The issue was first discussed among activists and with fellow bloggers (Hanibaael, Adon) at a bar in Hamra on the evening of the interrogation. In the beginning, it was around twelve people who met in the Simply Red, some others joined later on. Adon and Hanibaael and Mohamed from a leftist Lebanese forum were the ones I knew. It was mostly a meeting among friends. Jou3an reported about the interview in detail and the others asked questions. The article that had led to this interview was the one about the president, Sleiman, who was seen as an “affront” to religious communities, as well as the two articles about the Egyptian military after the demonstration in front of the Egyptian embassy earlier in January. There was a lot of jokes and laughter. […] Jou3an wanted to discuss how to proceed now and it was in particular his fellow bloggers Adon and Hanibaael who joined the discussion at this point. Adon suggested that one could start a campaign on several blogs; everybody could post the same entry as he did, so that there would be a dozen persons then. But they should decide the next day on how to proceed in the campaign. (Field notes, March 18, 2010.)

The next day, Adon posted a solidarity message for his blogger fellow.93 Beyond that, Jou3an was invited to report on the incident at the next meeting of the Lebloggers association on Wednesday, March 24. Although the bloggers present did not share Adon’s idea of posting the same message as Jou3an did, they decided to write a solidarity post right away that was finished that evening in a communal effort. The text was posted on several bloggers’ websites – although they did not necessary agree with the content of Jou3an’s post.94 The statement was also sent to several newspapers, and two articles on the incident appeared in As-Safir, one by one of the Lebloggers themselves.95 The incident shows that freedom of speech lies at the

93 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/, accessed March 23, 2010. 94 http://trella.org/872, http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/03/march-18-memorial-and-beginni ng-of.html, https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/, all accessed March 25, 2010. 95 Mayssa Awad: “Mudawwanūn yunāfisūn al-iʿlām ›at-taqlīdī‹: hakadhā nughaṭī al-intikhābāt al-baladīya” [Lebanese bloggers compete with the ‘traditional’ media: that’s how we cover the municipal elections], As-Safir May 1, 2011; http://assafir.com/Article/197 975/Archive, accessed January 27, 2012. Assaad Thebian: “Dawwin… hādhihi mukhālifa intikhābīya” (Blog… this is an electoral fraud), in ibid., May 5, 2011.

112 | I T HE FIELD heart of the blogging ethos96 and that bloggers take common action even if they have different political agendas. Another example of cooperation in defence of freedom of speech was bloggers’ resistance to the Lebanese e-transaction law (see chapter 1, p. 49f). Bloggers also take a common stance against the structural constraints on their own publicness that are caused by Lebanon’s poor internet infrastructure, as I argue in chapter 8.2. This points to the fact that bloggers unite mainly temporarily and against political or economic constraints that the local field of blogging as such confronts. A field of cooperation and division In this section, I situated the practitioners, who are mostly ‘young’ Beirutians, in terms of their educational/professional backgrounds as well as in Beirutian youth culture. In terms of access to the field of blogging, social boundaries are reproduced, rather than overcome. The main actors are the young and educated, who often feature some common links between their blogging and professional activity, whereby educational and professional backgrounds are a significant commonality among the bloggers. Moreover, the continuities of blogging with other domains of practice such as political activism and social media engagement often build the broader basis for the blogging activity – at least for those intensive bloggers whom this study concentrates on. The borders between these different practices are fluid and overlapping. Accordingly, in the local setting of Beirut, field stations often include bloggers as well as other social media actors and (non-blogging) political activists. Blogging is thus not clearly distinguishable from wider fields of social media production and political activism. Beyond that, blogging can also be understood as a subfield of the field of cultural production (Bourdieu 1996[1992])97 and shows continuities with various other subfields within this field, such as design, journalism etc.98 Consequently, blogging is not an autonomous field. Nevertheless, features of a local field of blogging are recognisable in my material. First, as I showed above (1.2), the actors recognise and refer to the history of blogging (see Warde 2004: 12). Moreover, there are common field stations, such as institutions and meetings points, and various forms of cooperation between bloggers that transcend the online realm, such as working together for specific goals like better internet access (Ontornet), political causes (anti-sectarianism) or a specific aim, such as giving

96 I will discuss the ethical component of this issue later in the thesis (chapter 7). 97 See also Hesmondhalgh 2006 for a discussion of the application of the notion to media production. 98 I will come back to this point in chapter 3 when I look more closely at the actors’ backgrounds and professional fields.

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blogging training sessions or covering an election (Lebloggers). The bloggers’ meetings further reflect the bloggers’ common perception of belonging to the local field of blogging, although its boundaries are constantly negotiated – which is another characteristic of a field. Beyond that, attempts to build permanent institutions are made, as I showed with the example of the Lebloggers. Analysing the association’s short history has made some basic structures within the field apparent. The field can be characterised as having various ‘areas of tension’: the communal aims, such as freedom of speech, making blogging more public, advocating a better internet infrastructure and the individual aims of bloggers, such as promoting their blogs, being visible and defending/promoting their political projects. Overall, I demonstrated that the local field of blogging is by no means merely a virtual field limited to the online realm. Various continuities between the on- and offline realms can be noted. I will discuss how this is reflected on the level of the personal blogger’s experience in more detail in chapter 3 when presenting the main case studies for this monograph.

II. Actors and Practices

Actors and Practices – Introduction Practice is not a natural object but a frame of reference that we use to interrogate a complex reality. HOBART 2010: 62

After I contextualised, entered and described the local field of blogging in the first part of this monograph, in the second part I focus on specific actors and production practices.1 Now, the main sample of case studies2 comes to the fore. Practicetheoretical approaches and discussions informed the way I approached actors and production practices and the way this part is written. Before entering the ‘scene’ and presenting the main case studies, I will therefore give a short introduction to practice theory.

P RACTICE

THEORY

The overall anthropological and sociological discussion of media practices strongly relates to theories of practice that go back several decades. Bourdieu, Foucault and Giddens were the “first generation” (Postill 2010a: 6) or the founders of practice theory. Notions such as habitus and field (Bourdieu, see introduction part I), discipline (Foucault 1979) and structuration (Giddens 1979, 1984) are essential in different strands of practice theory (see Postill 2010a: 6ff). Important contributions from the second generation of practice theorists, who test and extend the founding theories, are Theodore Schatzki’s account of practice theory from a Wittgensteinian perspective (1996) and Reckwitz’s article “Toward a Theory of Social Practices”

1

Accordingly, this part deals with actors, production context and practices – and not the blogs’ content, which will be discussed at different points in part III.

2

For my choice of case studies, see the introduction.

118 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES (2002).3 Those scholars currently working from a practice-theoretical angle – who, continuing Postill’s framing, could be called the third generation – rely mostly on a mixture or further development of these approaches, making them meaningful for their field of study. In all these – at times divergent – theoretical formulations, practice is understood as a concept and tool to overcome the divide between structure and culture (see Swidler 2001) and to go beyond the opposition between “system and individualism”.4 In particular the first generation wished to liberate agency – the human ability to act upon and change the world – from the constrictions of structuralist and systemic models while avoiding the trap of methodological individualism (Postill 2010a: 7).

Instead, most practice theoreticians assume, as Schatzki puts it (1991: 13), that “both social order and individuality result from practices”. Practices are understood as “inherently social activity” that includes a set of doings and sayings (ibid.: 104). Both the practical activity (doings) and its representation (sayings) are thus, according to Warde (2005), to be integrated in the study of practice. Reckwitz (2002: 249) offered a comprehensive definition of practices as: a routinised type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one form: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, things and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge.

This definition highlights once more that a practice-theoretical approach always entails looking at bodily activities and concrete materialities. The main stances within the field of practice theory – summarised comprehensively by Warde (2005) – are: practices are socially differentiated; they have a trajectory and there is an increasing multiplicity and diversity of practices; furthermore, practices hold various kinds of rewards. With regard to media practices, the general discussion about incorporating practice theory in media studies was encouraged by Nick Couldry’s (2010 [2004]) call

3

See also the edited volume “The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory” (by Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina and von Savigny 2001) and Sherry Ortner’s article “Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties” from 1984, which “is often regarded by anthropologists as marking the discipline’s “turn to practice” (Postill 2010a: 9), as well as the contributions by Warde (2004, 2005).

4

See Schatzki 1996 and Ortner 1984.

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for a new paradigm in media research. This paradigm “sees media not as text or production economy, but first and foremost as practice” (Couldry 2010: 35) and insists on taking into account social sciences’ debates on practice into the study of media. The volume “Theorising Media and Practice” (Bräuchler and Postill 2010) provides a comprehensive overview of the discussions. I will come back to discussions on media practice with regard to blogging as practice in more detail in chapter 5.

P RACTICE

AND FIELD THEORY

For the sake of clarity, another point needs to be addressed, namely how is the relation between practice and field theory (see introduction part I) to be understood? Postill’s (2008: 418) definition of a social field as a “domain of practice” suggests that field and practice are intrinsically linked. As Warde (2004) outlines in an analysis of the relation between field and practice in Bourdieu’s work, the relation between practice and field theory is not static.5 “The same practices appear in several fields, and most fields have effects on many practices. Fields and practices cannot be isomorphic.” (Warde 2004: 18) He argues that the theory of practice needs to be further developed to make it consistent with field theory (2004: 11). However, certain phenomena are both a practice and a field, as Warde shows for the case of eating practices in Britain, which he also describes as a “culinary field” (2004: 19-24). Recourse to a concept of practice captures common understandings, conventional procedures, internal goods, non-purposive and non-competitive behaviour. The concepts of practice and field encompass different facets of the same phenomena.

Overall, Warde concludes that both concepts refer to “domains of activity”: while they are neither synonymous nor isomorphic, they are also not “mutually incompatible but have rather different logics”. Including practice in the study of fields makes it possible, among other things, to shed light on non-competitive forms of action

5

Warde argues that the relation between the two remains unclear in Bourdieu’s work. Some scholars argue (Calhoun 1995) that practice and fields were relevant for the analysis of two different types of societies in Bourdieu’s work: field for modern societies, practice for traditional societies (see Warde 2004: 9f). According to Warde, Bourdieu does not distinguish between practice as a coordinated entity and as a series of performances, whereby he denies them a “strong sense of institutionalisation” (2004: 18). He also fails to recognise the “internal goods” of a practice, a term coined by MacIntyre (1985).

120 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES and the limits of Bourdieu’s game analogy, which Warde thinks “overemphasises consensus about the rules governing action” (2004: 26). Transferring this to the case of blogging permits various conclusions to be drawn. In my use and understanding of blogging as a field and practice, the two notions are compatible, but shed light on different aspects. First, as I showed in part I, local blogging activities in Lebanon display features of a field, and a field-theory approach makes it possible to see common goals, internal struggles and the negotiation of boundaries. Yet, as I also showed and will elaborate in the subsequent chapters, blogging is not an autonomous field, but linked to other fields, those of cultural production; and it also presents a subfield of media production, as well as of the literary and artistic field. Approaching blogging as practice, as outlined here, implies looking at procedures (such as production practices), non-purposive behaviour beyond the competitive logic of fields and the rewards that blogging as practice offers. In the following, I will provide portraits of the seven bloggers of my main sample, situate blogging in their wider life structures (chapter 3) and analyse their blog production practices by providing thick descriptions of the stories of the production of specific blog posts (chapter 4). Following up on the findings of the previous chapters, blogging will be conceptualised as practice (chapter 5).

3. Seven ways to be a blogger: bloggers in context

In the following chapter, I portray the seven main protagonists of this monograph, who were also the key informants for the research.1 I had interviewed all of them during my first stay in Beirut and then undertook follow-up interviews during the second fieldwork.2 The basis of this chapter is thus two formal interviews with each blogger and a varying number of informal meetings and talks in various contexts, such as during social media events and demonstrations, visits to their workplaces, meetings in restaurants and hanging out with them and their friends in their homes or public spaces in Beirut. As I argued in the introduction, to understand blogging as practice in its proper context, it is necessary to study the daily lives of their practitioners in context and to shed light on their class, education and professional backgrounds. Contentfocused studies on blogging in the Middle East often tell little about bloggers’ backgrounds or about blogging in relation to the bloggers’ daily lives. Also, media representations often concentrate on political events and the role of bloggers within them, but little is known about their daily lives beyond these exceptional circumstances.3 The ‘thick descriptions’ I present in the following thus have value in

1

See the introduction for my selection criteria and the question of ‘representativeness’.

2

Maya Zankoul is a minor exception, as I only conducted one formal interview with her. However, along with seeing her at several social media events in Beirut, I met her for another informal talk and she responded to the questions of my second guided interview by mail. I included her in this sample, as she is one of the best-known bloggers and also represents the format of comic blogs.

3

For three examples out of many, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/world/africa/ablogger-at-arab-springs-genesis.html (article on the Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni), http://www.taz.de/Aktivisten-in-gypten/!80974/ (article on the Egyptian activist Alaa

122 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES themselves. They provide a fuller presentation of Arab bloggers and show a more complex picture of the bloggers’ life context than one reads in the latest hype about social media activism in the mainstream media. Moreover, comparing the cases of seven individual bloggers makes it possible to grasp some greater trends in the relation between media practices and daily life that are relevant for both Arab media studies and media ethnography. The following chapter shows how these seven bloggers integrate blogging into their daily lives and analyses the conditions of blog production more broadly. I will sketch their entry into blogging and what keeps them at it. Moreover, their use of media and how much time they spend online will be outlined. The latter, in particular, is relevant for understanding the relation of blogging to other media practices and to see where bloggers obtain their information, which in turn is pertinent to the production modes I discuss in chapter 4. An important feature of the portraits is also the discussion whether and to what extent blogging is linked to their professional activities. The chapter concludes by shedding light on similarities and differences among the bloggers of the main sample of this monograph. The portraits provide snapshots of the bloggers’ actual life contexts during my fieldwork and their personal media use at this time.4 Although the picture has certainly already changed by the time I am writing this chapter,5 the snapshots reflect some greater tendencies in the fluid and temporary field of blogging. Showing the young practitioners’ temporary living conditions, from their employment to their housing situation, reveals structural features in the production conditions. The disparities in the portraits are explained by the fact that, although I asked all the bloggers similar questions, not all answered all of them in the same depth, and they preferred to emphasise different parts of their lives and leave out others. The portraits thus also reflect the bloggers’ self-representation.

Abd-El Fattah), and https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/18/jailed-egypt-bloggerhungerstrike/ (the case of another Egyptian blogger), all accessed February 18, 2012. 4

Writing these portraits in the present tense reflects the bloggers’ ‘current state of being’ in spring 2011. I use the past tense here when referring to the interviews/fieldwork notes that I took in 2009/2010.

5

And once more by the time of publication of the research; see the foreword to this book.

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3.1 H ANIBAAEL :

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AN ALTERNATIVE CONTENT PRODUCER

A few minutes to 7 pm, I arrived at Hani’s place. Since he was not at home yet, I observed the people living in the quiet street in Ain ar-Rummaneh,6 a Christian-dominated suburban district of Beirut. And they observed me waiting at the entrance of the building. Hanibaael sent me a text message that he was late due to heavy traffic. It began to get dark and I could see into people’s living rooms on the narrow street, which somehow gave the area a homey feeling. The houses here are only three to four storeys high, and the district is less metropolitan than other parts of Beirut. About half an hour later, Hanibaael arrived, quite exhausted, locked his electric bike that he needed to recharge and said that he was very sorry for being late. When we climbed up the stairs to the fourth floor, he told me that there was no electricity again. Anyway, in the stairwell there seemed to be no functioning lighting. When we arrived in the tiny two-room flat with a living room and one bedroom that he shares with a friend, daylight had already quite faded. Thus we opted to sit outside on the small balcony, where some light was still left. Hanibaael looked tired and told me that at 10 pm he would have another photo shoot for the beirut.com website and that he was actually supposed to be at two different places in Hamra, an art exhibition and a concert. He was not quite sure how he would manage this. (Field notes, March 30, 2011.)

This extract from my field notes gives a first insight into Hanibaael’s life context, as well as into the conditions of my own work, which I already discussed in chapter 2.1. The blogger whose online and blogger name is Hanibaael lives the life of a young Beirutian sharing a flat in one of the suburbs of the city. The area where he lives is affordable compared with the high rents in the central district, but still connected with minibuses to the centre. Being in the early years of his professional career, Hanibaael has a busy life juggling work commitments, and even his leisure time is often filled with political and cultural activities. His working life is divided between his daytime job at SMEX (Social Media Exchange, see 2.2) and his nighttime work as a photographer for Beirut.com 7, a website that provides news and event notes. He started working for SMEX in January 2011 and is an Arabic-language content producer. Writing and photography are thus his main professional activities. In his role as a photographer, he visits all kinds of events, from concerts, exhibitions and plays to film screenings. This means working in the evenings during the week and occasionally at the weekend as well. Along with this, he is involved in various NGOs and political activities and is wellconnected and known in Beirut’s alternative and leftist activist scene.

6

Districts in Beirut are spelled in accordance with local pronunciation and spelling (which indeed has great variety) and not transliterated, as citations and other Arabic texts are.

7

https://www.beirut.com/

124 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES As Hanibaael’s apartment is on the outskirts of Beirut, power outages every six hours are not unusual, but rather part of daily life. Hanibaael chose not to have internet access either at home, which would have been limited due to the outages anyway, or on his mobile phone, which would also have been an expensive option. As he told me, he is online during his entire working day, searching for content, producing content and communicating with others. When he starts his working day at nine o’clock in the office, his media use proceeds as follows: First I check e-mails, then Facebook, then the blog. I see if there are new comments or if I have new posts that I started and want to continue. And after the e-mail check, the personal email, the work e-mail. During the day, at eleven, I normally start to look at Twitter, especially right now, [to see] what happens in the Arab world, especially in countries like Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Egypt. (Hanibaael i2)8

This description shows that Facebook and the blog are the primary tools he uses and that they come before checking his work-related e-mails. As he told me, he mostly uses Facebook as a tool to communicate with others, since “they are all on Facebook”, and recently “especially for getting to know people” (i2). Beyond also using it to connect to his blog and to news, he relies more and more on it. As he explained to me, this is because the discussions in the current Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement were taking place on Facebook; and it was also the best option for following the “Arab revolutions”: …for knowing the news, especially the videos of the Arab revolutions. I have easy access to them, I don’t have to look for them, I see them through friends of mine, most of whom are activists and journalists. (i2)

Facebook has thus become the main tool for Hanibaael to follow local and regional developments, especially since he is connected to many activists and journalists. Along with other online tools, Facebook has led to a decreasing use of other media, which could not keep up with events, as he outlined: I watch TV a bit, but newspapers that I read… much less, very little, when I see someone who shares one, then I read it perhaps, but the newspapers nearly... it is getting less, AlAkhbar newspaper for example… Now a lot of information is fast and the newspaper is sometimes already [out-dated]. (i2)

8

Interview 2 took place on March 3, 2011 at his house in Ain ar-Rummaneh. I translated all quotes from this interview from Arabic to English, if not indicated otherwise.

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After being extensively online during his main job, he chooses to be offline after work from 5 pm on. Then he is reachable only on his phone, and photographic work comes to the foreground. At the weekend, he also opts for a different kind of life: The weekend, I have to profit from it and meet people, meet my family or go dancing, or just take the time to relax, because the whole week I work online, and the weekend I take a rest from everything technological. I prefer to go to the sea, stay in the sun, meet people who I perhaps don’t know or look at people who are passing by, or I go to Bekaa Valley, more than being online. (Hanibaael i2)

For a blogger and someone working in social media, his decision about what to do in his spare time seems at first glance like an exception to the cliché of a blogger continuously connected 24/7. In my analysis, this specific way of limiting his internet use lies somewhere between dealing with an economic constraint, as internet connection is quite costly whether at home or on the phone, and a strategic choice for creating time out. As will be illustrated, Hanibaael is not alone in trying to regulate and limit the time he spends online. Born in 1987 in Beirut, Hanibaael has a modest family background. His father works as a caretaker for a building in the Hamra district, and his mother does basic administrative work for a bank. Educated in Arabic and French, after leaving school Hanibaael completed a Bachelor in Political Science at the Lebanese University. The Lebanese University is the only public institution of higher learning in Lebanon; all other universities are private. His studies there were in both Arabic and French. During his university years, he got involved in politics and was a member of the youth branch of a nationalist secular political party that he left in 2007; he then reoriented himself politically. During the July War of 2006, he worked with the NGO Samidoun in a relief centre founded during the war and became more and more involved in NGO activities. Despite his political involvement, he is not currently a member of any political group or organisation. In 2006, he started to work for Al-Akhbar, a leftist journal founded that year, and subsequently also for other leftist outlets. In addition, he began writing for Menassat9, a bilingual (English/Arabic) website that offers news from the region and is a platform for Arab journalists, as well as for a small magazine called Riḥla (travel). He also got involved in the communications department of LADE, the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections. In this period, he also started his Arabic blog in December 2007. He explained to me that there were a lot of topics

9

http://www.menassat.com/

126 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES he could not write about in the newspapers, “it’s not a style for the newspapers”, and thus he opted to create his “own page” (Hanibaael i1)10. In my opinion, in journalism today, it’s not enough to write in the papers, because not everybody uses the papers. There is the internet. It is necessary in our life and there are many people who use only the internet for news and articles. So I started my blog. (i1)

When I asked him whether someone in particular had inspired him to start blogging, Hanibaael told me that he started reading about electronic journalism on his own. He thought that, if he wanted to be successful and spread his ideas to others, he should use a blog. Consequently, he opened his account on the WordPress platform in December 2007. He chose Hanibaael as blog name, which is close to his real name. Hanibaael [Hannibal in English] was a leader, a military leader in Carthage, you know, it is a small union [sic] in Tunis. Hanibaael entered some battles, at the end with the Romans […] To this day, his strategy is an example in courses at military faculties of the world. It’s a national name in Lebanon. (Hanibaael i1)

As he told me, it was the name his father, who was a member of the SSNP,11 initially wanted to give to him when he was born. He then slowly started to develop an identity for his blog. The full title of his blog is Hanībaʿil…yatasakkaʿ fī -l-arjāʾ which can be translated as “Hanibaael…hanging around in procrastination”. Now if you say hanging around, tasakkaʿ in Arabic, if you say tasakkaʿ, many people in Hamra or maybe also others, will tell you it’s […] Hanibaael’s blog. (i1)

The quote illustrates that one of his places to hang out is Hamra, where he is also known for his blogging activity. When I met him in Hamra on various occasions, I could observe that he knew and was known by quite a lot of people hanging around there. In journalism as well as on his blog, he is interested in writing about cultural and political movements and what he calls “the underground”. For instance, he

10 Interview 1 I conducted in English on January 28, 2010 at the café/bar T-Marbouta in Hamra. I have made only some minor corrections for better understanding. 11 The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, founded in 1932 in Beirut, is a secular nationalist party active in Syrian, Lebanon and Palestine. The party advocates for a ‘Greater Syria’ that encompasses the Fertile Crescent. In Lebanon it is part of the March 8 Alliance.

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posts photos of street art in Beirut on his blog and writes about cultural events and films. Sometimes I wrote about new rappers […] they have their cause, but not everybody knows about it. So I write about it. I wrote about the underground. I like this job. Because many people don’t have the tools to express themselves, I am interested in these people, not in snobbism. (i1) I constantly try to talk about what happens underground, underground Beirut or in the Arab world, because the real things always exist underground, and I try to write about what happens that the media does not talk about and the people normally don’t see a lot, what they don’t know about. I prefer to talk about these events and groups. […] I also always take photos of stencil art on the city’s walls [ʿa-judrān el-medīneh]. It is often used by the groups in society and people who live most of the time under oppression. And they mostly take stencil art to express their ideas etc. I always try to write about it to spread it to more people. It is like archiving the city through the stencils. (Hanibaael i2)

Accordingly, his blogging agenda is clearly set up in the alternative scene and he understands it as a kind of archive for what happens “underground” in the urban space. Hanibaael tries to shed light on topics and cultural phenomena that are little represented in the media and “not everybody knows about” (i2, see above). As he indicated, he thereby developed a particular identity for his blog and also his own style of writing. I wrote and I developed my skills in writing, because you know when you’re writing you can’t stay like… […] you must develop and you must work on your way of writing. […] In the future, I want to write my [own] novel, I don’t know, I have this idea in my head. (i1)

Blogging is thus experienced as a tool to improve one’s writings skills, something Hanibaael obviously enjoys. Thus far, while his blogging activity was not meant to enhance his professional career as such, it still supported it; and the tools he learnt online helped him in his current job at SMEX and elsewhere. This stands in contrast, as he pointed out, to the fact that his educational background did not help him very much in his professional life in journalism and civil society organisations: Everything that I worked at after university, I don’t care to specialise in a direct way. I studied political science but then I worked in journalism, worked in civil society organisations, and also I started to give training sessions on social media, also the job I am doing (at SMEX) does not build on my specialisation. But in what I worked myself, my experience in social media, this brought me to this job now, and additionally photography work. (i2)

128 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES Accordingly, by learning on his own how to use social media and improve his writings and photos, he built up his own career. His activity and experience in social media has thus enhanced his professional specialisation, although he never had and still does not have a specific professional aim in mind. He acquired the necessary experience, dealing with diverse online tools; he is up to date with new developments within the social media, and he is connected to a great many other social media activists. In terms of skills and networks, blogging is consequently strongly linked to his professional life and career.

3.2 L ILIANE

AKA F UNKY O ZZI : A DEVELOPER WITH VARIOUS ONLINE ENGAGEMENTS

On a sunny April midday, I met Liliane in a salad bar in Ashrafiyeh for our second interview. Ashrafiyeh is a residential and commercial district in Eastern Beirut, where her work office is also located. The only free time slot she could find for a follow-up interview was this work break. The last time we had met for an informal talk was in a restaurant in Jounieh, where she could have her car washed at the same time. Today she had one hour off for lunch, for the first time in what she declared was the “most stressful week in my life”. During our meeting she received ITM12 messages on her phone every other minute. Normally she turns off the internet on her phone, she explained to me… (Field notes, April 7, 2011.)

Liliane is in her early thirties and lives in Dekhwane, a Christian municipality north of Beirut, in her family’s house. Most of the time she stays there alone with her brother, because her parents are often abroad in the US. Her family background can be described as middle class. Her father formerly worked for an ice cream company and now is involved in the car export industry; her mother is a housewife. Liliane is French-educated and also received her first degree in French; her second degree is in English, a language that she always preferred to French. At the Lebanese University, she then obtained her first degree in applied mathematics. After having taught for two years at a technological university, she then took her MA in Computer Science at the American University of Science and Technology. Since finishing her studies, she has been fully involved in her professional career in IT. She has worked as a project manager in software developing and programming, as an analyst and as a developer. When I met her in April 2011, she had recently changed her job. In her new job she is now involved in online marketing, “not the social, but the technical part of it, related to online search” (Liliane i2)13.

12 ITM stands for Instant Trade Messenger. 13 I conducted interview 2 in English on April 7 at the restaurant Schtroumpf, Ashrafiyeh.

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Thus her professional background is already very much related to online activities. In her spare time, she is also busy online and often connected to the internet, yet not as much as she used to be. “When I was much more addicted, I used to check it the whole time.” (i2) Now she even managed not to check the internet for some hours when she went out, sometimes up to ten hours, as she highlighted (i2). “When I’m going out with friends, no [I don’t check the internet]; or if I do, once every couple of hours, just to see if someone sent me an ITM, private message or anything.” (i2) She thus also tries to limit her time online in her spare time and mainly did everything one hour before going to sleep: “checking Twitter, blogs, reading an article”, as she told me (Liliane i2). Furthermore, she reserves her Sundays mostly for taking photos,14 which involves being outside and offline. Liliane’s online experience, as she told me, had started in 2002 with Diaryland15, a sort of public diary that in her assessment had not been as well known and accessible as blogs were nowadays. “But the real experience started with the war” in 2006: I was in the US. I was coming back three days after the war erupted, you know, but then the airport was closed and I couldn’t come back, so I stayed in the US for another two months. But I don’t know if it’s one of the reasons when you’re abroad and you’re seeing your coun16

try burned, you know, my blog used to be called My Lebanon is being burned to ashes. (i1)

On her English blog, she then published articles, links and guest bloggers writing posts. In the beginning, Liliane maintained this blog together with her brother, but after the war she continued on her own. The domain as well as the blog’s name changed several times,17 as she reflects in a post on the fifth anniversary of her blog: It all started as a result of the July War. It went through different name changes (Israel War on Lebanon, My Lebanon is being burned to ashes, Independence05 and now Funky Beirut). It was a pretty political blog with some social aspects, now it solely focuses on social / cultural and what not.18

14 E-mail communication, April 4, 2011. 15 http://diaryland.com/ 16 I conducted interview 1 in English on January 20, 2010 in the Costa Café, downtown Beirut. 17 The domain changed from http://blog.independence05.com/ to http://blog.funkyozzi.com/ (her current blog From Beirut With Funk). 18 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/09/5-years-and-still-here.html, accessed June 15, 2011.

130 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES Since “Independence05 was too political […] and sometimes I just wanted to talk about silly things you know”, (i1) Liliane felt the need for an additional blog to publish things online. So she started one called Incoglilo in 2007. On this blog she posts personal observations and reflections, or in her words “in a not so personal way about stuff I see everyday”.19 In the first post titled “Not so many”, she reflects on her various online accounts: Well, what should stop me from having another online account with another blogging experience. Yes I have a page on live msn, and another on myspace and of course on diaryland, 2 yahoo accounts, 2 gmail accounts, 2 hotmail accounts, and 1 work account. I got an account on Flickr to store my photos and one on YouTube to store my videos. I even have one on deviant art. Finally I have 3 blogs and this is the 4th. Well to be fair, concerning the blog, I got one pointing to one, and another one just for donations information as reference. Why did I create this one too? Well why shouldn’t I. I will actually do anything to keep me from working, well sort of speaking.20

The wide range of accounts and tools reflects her experimenting approach to media usage. When I met her in Spring 2011, she actively maintained three blogs. In addition to From Beirut With Funk (formerly Independence05) and Incoglilo, she opened a third blog called Go Social Media!21 in 2010. The latter provides technical information about social media tools and reflects on challenges and difficulties within the ever-changing social media landscape. By then, From Beirut With Funk no longer focussed intensely on major political issues anymore, but also discussed other topics such as climate change and social issues, as she explained. Sometimes she felt all three “mix up in some things” (Liliane i1), but she tried to maintain them separately.22 Overall, blogging made an impact on her daily life, as she told me: I changed, because I’ve been to many places and now everyone knows me. I’m taking pictures, writing notes, because […] I wanna blog about it again you know. Or I see something [and think] this would be good material to blog – this is how I change. I start to think: what would people like to read. It gives you sort of a business mind in one way or another, or a marketing mind to see what people like and what they don’t like. And I changed as a person,

19 http://incoglilo.blogspot.com, accessed November 11, 2011. 20 http://incoglilo.blogspot.com/2006/10/testing-1-2-3-4.html, accessed November 11. 2011. The text is copied from her post and thus uses her spelling. 21 http://gosocialmedia.wordpress.com/, last accessed February 18, 2012. 22 In chapter 8, I will come back to the negotiation of boundaries on different platforms and discuss them in relation to ways of going and being public.

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I guess not because of blogging, but because of blogging I know that I changed. Sometimes you think that you didn’t change, that you’re still the same person, but when you see that you used to say barely two words and now you won’t shut up, you see something is different, and maybe blogging helps out. (i1)

Blogging is thus intrinsically linked to her way of perceiving the world around her and pushes her to think in terms of finding material to blog about. She thereby also tries to anticipate what potential readers might like and what not, which shows the influence of the ‘imagined audience’ in the production process.23 Beyond that, blogging gives her a sense of her own history and development, a point I will come back to in chapter 8. Along with her various blogs, Liliane is also committed to a range of other social media activities and projects. First, she maintains the Lebanon Aggregator 24 that she started on her own in 2006, in which she tries to integrate as many Lebanese blogs as possible. “I don’t want to put in just political or just art, I try to merge between the two, social and everything” on the aggregator (Liliane i1). Beyond that, she also is one of the initiators of The Cube, an online book club that encourages people to read,25 and she is one of the initiators of the Ontornet campaign for better internet connection (see chapter 2). In spring 2011, the internet campaign in particular took a lot of her energy and time, as she tells me: “The Ontornet thing is really high priority, sometimes we give it time from our work, which is not good, but we have to because this is a national cause in my opinion…” (i2) This led her to neglect her blog a bit, but to improve the aggregator a lot, as she explains further. There she tries out different tools she learned at work in order to promote the aggregator, such as initiating a vote for the blog of the week, and posts on social media on the aggregator.26 Last but not least, she has been very active on Twitter and is one of the organisers of tweetups27 in Beirut. Thus, she is very involved in the local field of social media that I described in chapter 2.2 and knows lots of bloggers, tweeples and other actors in the field face-to-face from various meetings and forms of cooperation. All this shows that social media occupy a central place in her life, including her personal life. As just indicated, Liliane was “much more addicted” to being online in the past. On her tweeting habits, she told me:

23 For a more thorough discussion on imagined audiences, see chapter 6. 24 See also chapter 1. 25 https://thecubelb.wordpress.com/, last accessed February 7, 2012. 26 Informal talk with Liliane on March 17, 2011 at the restaurant Car Wash in Jdeideh. 27 A tweetup is a meeting of tweeples (people on Twitter).

132 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES I felt like if I missed five minutes I don’t know any longer what is going on. So I had to keep up with them [the other tweeples], they’re tweeting this, this is an article, check out this picture! What I liked about this is that I got to see things that I never would have on my own, because I would never sit there and search for things. (Liliane i1)

By following what others post, she discovered lots of new things online, yet the quote shows that the fear of missing out on something can easily arise when one stops following online media constantly. Since she started using Twitter, she no longer visited individual websites to read things – at least not as much as before. Twitter also functions as a way of organising her readings: I have a special list where I put all the news Twitter like BBC, PC World […] all these news sources, technology and news, I put them in one list I go and I check this list, and the title and the news that intrigues me the most, I click it and I go see it. (Liliane i2)

Liliane thus uses Twitter as a primary tool to obtain information related to politics and technology. At the beginning of 2010, she told me that she usually had all her social media tools open at work, but then her employer blocked all sites like Facebook, Blogger etc. In her new job, these sites are not blocked, yet everyone at work knew that she was blogging and tweeting, so she could not do it at work. “I try to close it [Twitter] and check it once every hour instead of having it open the whole time because it is really distracting.” (ibid.) In some measure, there is a constant tension over dividing time between work and her various online activities. However, her professional career and her social media activities are also compatible and influence each other in various ways. On Go Social Media, for instance, she shares her professional expertise on searching modes, key words and much more, uses her professional background to set up and maintain the blog aggregator and experiments with online marketing tools she learned at work.

3.3 A SSAAD :

FREELANCER BETWEEN ACTIVISM AND JOURNALISM Maybe because I don’t have a full-time job, that’s why I have more free time to express myself. ASSAAD I228

28 I conducted interview 2 in English on April 9, 2010, Café Younes, Hamra, Beirut.

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Theoretically, Assaad, who is in his mid-twenties, is in his last year of studying journalism. Yet in fact he has too many things to do to complete his courses. He is busy with various freelance jobs and activist engagements, as I outlined in chapter 2.2 in describing our attempts to meet for an interview. However, as the introductory citation indicates, not having a full-time job also allows him to pursue different activities and organise his time more freely. Assaad received his education in private schools on a full scholarship. He attended different schools; the first was rather “conservative religious” (ibid.), the second a renowned secular school, and later he attended the Shouf29 National College. At the latter, he took courses in Sociology and Economy. All institutions had a joint Arabic and English curriculum. He then took up his studies of Journalism at the Lebanese University in Beirut and has been working freelance in journalism and social media along with his studies. His future career plans, as he told me, were not fixed yet, but he was thinking of starting his own company for social media training, control and research as soon as he has saved enough money. At the time of my second fieldwork, he is engaged in various projects and organisations: he works as a communication officer for an EU project training the internal security forces (ISF) in Lebanon. Besides this, he is busy as a freelance journalist for As-Safir journal and also works with hibr, the online youth journal (see 2.2), where he writes and gives training in media consciousness. The income from these various jobs allows him to rent a modest one-room apartment in Hamra and to help his two sisters with a little extra money. When we were entering the quite fancy entry hall to his house, which was decorated with flowers, and there was even a reception desk, I said, “Wow”. Assaad replied laughingly that is what they all said, yet from the outside the house did not look that fancy, and his flat didn’t, either… Assaad shares the one-room flat with a flatmate. In the middle, a divider was set up to separate the living room from the bedroom. I saw no windows. The room was quite chaotic and Assaad was upset about his flatmate, who left a mess, and he complained that he always needed to clean up when he came home. (Field notes, March 22, 2011.)

This scene and the general working context indicate that Assaad is struggling to make a living. This is also reflected in the fact that he has no internet connection at home. He told me jokingly that he hoped a restaurant would open at the corner near his house; he would try to befriend the owners to be able to log onto their wireless network. As he puts it quite prosaically, “Let’s say I have a problem, no internet at house or [on the] cell phone.” (Assaad i2). As most of his work is freelance, he thus works in cafés or in various offices, such as the hibr office. He also uses an internet

29 Shouf is a district in Mount Lebanon south-east of Beirut.

134 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES café some blocks away from his house. Since in spring 2011 he is deeply involved in the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement (see 2.2) and busy with daily meetings with the other activists, his time online is reduced to three to six hours per day. On an “average day”, however, he is online between six and ten hours (i2). Overall, Assaad is a heavy user of a range of different media. As he outlines while talking about his media habits during our second interview in April 2011, his daily media use is structured as follows: after getting up in the morning, he always checks TV – “I don’t leave the house unless I see what [news] there is on TV” – in order to catch up with “the urgent stuff that I missed” (Assad i2). The TV channels he watches are the pan-Arab satellite stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, as well as the Lebanese TV stations LBC, New TV and MTV. The second kind of media he consumes is radio, in what he calls his “car phase”, i.e. on his way to work in one of Beirut’s collective taxis. In accordance with the driver’s choice, he listens to “sometimes shitty, sometimes useful” (i2) information on the radio. At his workplace, he then goes online: “I first go to Facebook, second Twitter, and I also check my blog, I read their blogs.” (Ibid.) Among the blogs he reads are the Lebanese blogs Trella, Hummus Nation and Qifa Nabki, and then the Syrian Goverosh, by a Syrian living in Spain. He also reads news websites, such as Elnashra, a Lebanese news website with a live ticker, the New York Times, Daily Star, Al-Akhbar, AnNahar, As-Safir and Shabab as-Safir. Thus, being up to date about ‘world news’ and news of the Arab world and Lebanon in particular is important to him. For this, he relies on a mixture of different media in both Arabic and English. In the late evening, after having met friends and colleagues, he again turns to catch up with the news again. Before I sleep, the TV again. And on the laptop, if it is offline, I read the articles that I didn’t have time to read in the morning, so I keep them open and I read them in the evening, [also] pages on the web, I read them before I sleep, in case I missed anything... (Ibid.)

In order not to “miss anything”, Assaad’s daily life is structured by the use of various media: television news in the morning and evening and in between heavy use of online news in various forms, such as newspaper websites and blogs. This overview demonstrates that keeping up with the news structures his daily life, and he uses both mass media and personal media to keep track of what is going on. In his case, being a journalist and blogger is an all-encompassing project. He described his path to blogging as a search for a different kind of platform to publish his writings, which is quite similar to Hanibaael’s account. In January 2010, after having been a blogger for a year, Assaad explained to me:

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Well, first of all I’m a journalist and I publish my stuff in the newspaper and some magazines and other stuff, but sometimes I write things and they don’t get published, maybe because they’re politically not accepted or sometimes because they’re big in lens or short in lens [perspective], sometimes because they don’t fall within the context of any newspaper or anything. So I wanted to find another field for myself in order to express my opinions more, other than the small status of Facebook, and make it available for people to discuss and read and have an opinion about. So this is how I knew about blogging. I consider myself a blogger-illiterate a year ago, I knew nothing about bloggers, I didn’t know they exist. […] Then I told myself, why don’t you start a blog of your own?! Since Beirut is the city I love and I always go back to it, I decided to call my blog Beirutiyat and then it was like I started blogging about stuff going around Beirut, about myself, about my political opinions, about the Lebanese regime and other stuff. (Assaad i1)30

Since then, he grew more and more engaged in blogging. His path into blogging and the blogosphere was accelerated by reading blogs and meeting other bloggers. Among these was the Lebanese blogger Farfahinne, who inspired him to start: “[her blog] has various social and political issues that she deals with and I thought it is very nice to read about and maybe to do something similar” (i1). The Arab Bloggers Meeting in December 2009, in particular, as he said, helped him to optimise his blog and to connect to other blog activists in Lebanon and the Arab world (i1). Face-to-face meetings and networking with other bloggers were, as for other bloggers in this sample, a strong motivation for ‘becoming a blogger’. The full name of Assaad’s Arabic blog is Kharbashāt Bayrūtīya31, which translates as “Beirutian scribbles” and indicates that diverse notes and observations about living in this city are published on this blog. He published his short stories and poems on his blog, especially in its beginnings; today political causes are in the forefront. Assaad has a strong political agenda and describes “blogging for a cause” (i1) as his main agenda. Human rights, women’s rights and refugees’ rights are three of the essential themes. His engagement against the sectarian system in Lebanon is also heavily reflected in his blogging. Along with his journalistic and political writings, Assaad also writes fiction and has published two books of poetry in Arabic. Through his blogging he learned a lot, personally as well as professionally. Personally it made me think more about what could concern other people, because when you have a blog you don’t start only thinking about yourself and what you’re blogging for, you also have to respect the opinions and the points of view of your readers, so it taught me how

30 I conducted interview 1 in English on January 26, 2010 in the café/bar Simply Red, Hamra, Beirut. 31 Short title Beirutiyat.

136 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES to become more professional in journalism, actually, because I started looking at the two sides of each story. (i2)

Practicing blogging, consequently, is not only a tool to publish his writings, but also helped him become more professional in his journalistic practice.

3.4 R AMI :

A CONTINUALLY CONNECTED

IT

PROFESSIONAL

Rami: Basically as soon as I reach my office, I usually check my blog’s e-mail and my Twitter account before even checking my corporate e-mail. I keep on following Twitter throughout the day. I log on several times to Google Reader to check any new post on the Lebanese blogosphere. I engage in some conversations in Twitter […] I frequently check my e-mail, I just don’t stop, and I don’t have specific times during the day for me to check my e-mail or check my blog. I just do it continuously, as I’m opening my Outlook to check my corporate e-mail I also have my Twitter client open at the same time and my small notifier that a new e-mail has reached my email account or my blog. Sarah: So you’re kind of… Rami [laconic]: …obsessed. (Rami i2)32

Rami was born in the mid-eighties in Beirut, and due to the Lebanese civil war his family moved several times across the city until they settled again in 1990. His father is an agriculture engineer and received his higher education in Algeria. His mother works as a French teacher. Thus, his parents received higher education, which is not the case for all the bloggers in the field. When I met him in April 2011, Rami lived in his parent’s house in Ras al-Naba, in South Ashrafiyeh, a Christian district of Beirut. He was French-educated and then studied at the American University of Science and Technology, from which he graduated in 2007. Rami, like many of the other bloggers, is in his mid-twenties. Like Liliane, he is a computer scientist, and he works as a team leader in the IT department of a company. Besides his full-time job as an IT manager, he is pursuing an MBA in Management of Information Systems, attending class twice a week in the evening. The studies enhance his career in IT auditing, i.e. checking the security of the IT infrastructure of organisations. His work allows him to be online all day and thereby to follow blogs and Twitter posts continuously, as indicated in the introductory citation. He describes him-

32 I conducted Interview 2 on March 29, 2011 at Café Younes, Sodeco, Beirut and Interview 1 on December 17, 2009 at Starbucks, Hamra, Beirut, both in English.

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self as being “continually connected” (Rami i2), at least during working hours, which are from 9 am to 6 pm. After work, he normally takes a break for one or two hours and gets “back to the net” in the evening for around five hours before going to sleep – except when he is spending time with his friends or his fiancée. At home, as he explained, “I am sitting at my computer, I don’t do anything else, I don’t for example watch TV all day long. Instead I work on my computer all day long.” (Ibid.) Although his phone has the ability to go online, he is not connected to the internet on his phone because the price of mobile providers is high. He expressed that this was the better choice, especially as he saw friends who are always busy with their smartphones even when they are in social settings, which he thinks is impolite. “It doesn’t feel right when you’re within a group, it feels like that you are isolating yourself.” (Ibid.) In his leisure time, he is very dedicated to following developments in the Lebanese blogosphere and ‘twitterverse’.33 I work for nine hours, from nine to six, and that’s when I basically tweet the most. I used to tweet a lot even during the night,34 but lately I have stopped checking Twitter at night, I prefer to khalaṣ [stop], disconnect, just check my blog’s e-mail, like two or three times during the night and then khalaṣ, I read something else on the net […] news, tech-related stuff. (Ibid.)

He had started blogging in 2007 with a technology blog called Zero Hours Sleep, which proved to be a “total failure”, as he told me (Rami i1). At first his aim was to make money out of it, but then he understood that this was very hard since there was a lot of competition from technology-related blogs. In addition, as he pointed out, “you cannot succeed in something you are already fed up with” (ibid.). After eight hours of work dealing with subjects similar to those on the blog, it was too work-related to write about networking and security. He then started his English blog Plus961 for his “pleasure” (Rami i1). I later discovered what I like to write about is Lebanon and what happens around me. I was first thinking about just posting some photos that I take randomly in Lebanon, about wired stuff I see, stuff that I see on Facebook, but then later on I was motivated to write articles about what happens, so that’s how it was born. (Ibid.)

33 According to the Urban Dictionary, “The cyberspace area of twitter.” See http://www.urb andictionary.com/define.php?term=twitterverse, accessed on January 18, 2012. 34 In my understanding, here “night” means late evening hours, but not all night.

138 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES Rami invested considerable time to get this domain name, as he told me. +961 is the country calling code for Lebanon and thus stands as a synonym for Lebanon. “It seemed like a cool alternative for ‘Lebanon’ since all of the domains I had in mind were registered,” he remarked on his blog’s “about” page.35 It had belonged to someone else before and he waited four to five months for it to be free before he could purchase it. “Maybe it is because I used to love journalism when I was very young. Plus961 is one way of practicing journalism.” (Ibid.) Moreover, since Rami is also a hobby photographer, on the blog he can combine text and photos. His blog with the subtitle “Destination Lebanon” deals with diverse topics, from food and culture to social issues, all related to Lebanon, and provides a weekly blog roundup. He always schedules time on Sunday afternoon to prepare the roundup and looks through his Google Reader36 for one or two hours to gather the most interesting posts. At the beginning of the week, he then publishes it. He thereby links with many other bloggers on a weekly basis, which is also one of the reasons his blog figures high on the linking analysis of Riegert and Ramsay (2011). As the most important links in the blogosphere, he mentions Maya Zankoul, Finkployd (Blogging Beirut) and Liliane aka FunkyOzzy, all of whom he has met offline, as well. This quite obviously displays the on- and offline linkages within a certain group of English-writing bloggers that I touched upon in chapter 1 and 2. When he had just begun Plus961, Rami told me, he checked the number of visitors constantly. I used to check the visitors, the number of visitors, on an hourly basis, or on a minute-byminute basis to see the increase and stuff. But right now I have my e-mail connected to my mobile phone, so whenever a comment is made on the blog I just get an alert per SMS. (Ibid.)

The citation indicates that he is quite preoccupied with following readers and comments and was especially so at the beginning of his blogging. Since his mobile phone is connected to his blog, he is continuously linked to his blog. In contrast to Hanibaael and Assaad, he has no experience working in journalism; and like Liliane, he has a professional background in IT. Despite this background, the topic of his current blog is not technology at all. Although there are no thematic links between his blogging and his professional activity in the strict sense, Rami told me that having a background in IT had some advantages:

35 http://www.plus961.com/about/, accessed February 7, 2012. 36 Google Reader is a web-based aggregator for (Atom and RSS) online feeds.

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It is easier for people to host the blogs on a private domain rather than just registering on a free blog on Wordpress or Blogspot or I don’t know. And then managing a blog is much easier for someone with a good knowledge of IT. (i1)

Thus, his knowledge can be made fruitful to maintain his blog, for instance by choosing the right keywords to make it easier to find on Google by etc. Thus, he uses his expertise to enhance the functionalities of his blog, as he told me (i2), but after a trial he realised that he does not like to write about the field he is specialised in or about work-related topics. It took him a while to use his Twitter account actively. “In the beginning, I did not think that Twitter was good for me as a blogger,” (i1) he mentioned, but still linked his blog to his Twitter account without being active himself. Only some months later did he discover that a lot of other Lebanese are active. So I reactivated my account and started tweeting, but I was not very active. For example, I used to tweet three times from the office and then some tweets at night, but then when the election37 started, the whole Lebanese twitterverse started to become very active, so I just went with the flow and I started earning a lot of followers. […] What is nice about Twitter is that it allows you to transmit the news to all your followers. So the more followers you have, the more important you feel when you transmit some important news on your account and then you start noticing the reaction to what you have written from your followers. (Ibid.)

This temporary political event led Rami to become actively involved in tweeting. Being aware of a growing number of followers and more intense interaction with them led him to feel “more important” when posting information on Twitter (ibid.). This indicates that knowing about the numbers of potential readers and getting concrete feedback is an important feature of these social media practices. Overall, for Rami, tweeting and blogging are closely connected and have some similar features in terms of transmission of information; he understands both as “civil journalism” (Rami i1). Thematically, he does not touch upon political issues very much, “unless” as he said “I want to make fun of something” (ibid.). It is very important for him to avoid political bias in order to keep his credibility. “That’s what I try to do at Plus961, I try to be as distant as I can be from the political events.” (Ibid.) As he continues, this implies not attacking political leaders as most of the mainstream media have already done, but to “keep independent” (ibid.).38 The same goes for the

37 Here Rami must have been referring to Lebanon’s parliamentary elections held on 7 June 2009. 38 I will come back to the different understandings of and stances towards politics in more detail in chapters 7 and 8.

140 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES weekly blog roundup, where he avoids integrating controversial political posts. In this point he is quite different from such politically engaged bloggers as Assaad and Khodor, whom I present in the following.

3.5 K HODOR

AKA

J OU 3 AN :

A POLITICAL WRITER

On a Sunday afternoon, Khodor gives me a little tour through Dahiyeh, the mainly Shiite southern suburb of Beirut, where he lives with his family. When we meet at Mar Mikhael Church, we start walking up the road, the beginning of Dahiyeh. Khodor shows me where his house was, just right after the bridge; I just needed to enter the street and I could see his house at its end. He tells me that the bridge was destroyed in the war of 2006. He points to a little café on the left side of the street. Some plastic chairs and tables are put up, and some young men are sitting outside. This is the Tasty, Khodor tells me, the place where he hangs out the most. The second place where he spends a lot of time is the Simply Red in Hamra; these are the two main places. […] We end the tour at another family’s place, where we meet some of his friends who are all sitting in the family’s living room. I am served yoghurt and bananas from “the South”, from whence the parents just came back from a weekend visit. Khodor is smoking Arghileh with one of his friends. While the TV is running, jokes are made about the looks of Saad Hariri [former Lebanese Prime Minister, Future Movement] and Hassan Nasrallah [Secretary General of Hizbollah], who were just shown on TV. (Field notes, March 13, 2011.)

Khodor was born in 1986 and, in 2011, is in his mid-twenties, like most of the intensive bloggers in my main sample. He attended different kinds of schools, including an Islamic school close to Hizbollah, a public school and a Christian Maronite School, in which he obtained a French/Arabic education and from which he graduated. Thus, he passed through quite a diverse range of schools and experienced different religious environments. After having finished school, he left Lebanon to study social science in France and finished his Bachelor in 2009. One of the most important things in Khodor’s life is politics. “The family environment I was born into, that’s like I was raised on politics.” (Khodor i1)39 His father was “a militant during the civil war with the Left and with the Palestinian resistance” (i2),40 and his wider family, too, is involved in politics. Khodor became politically engaged in high school:

39 I conducted Interview 1 on January 24, 2010 at the café/bar T-Marbouta in Hamra, Beirut and Interview 2 on April 14, 2011 in a café in the Beirut Mall in Ain ar-Rummaneh, Beirut, both in French (and partly in Arabic), and translated them into English. 40 His mother, as he told me, worked in a kindergarten.

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I started to read, listen to poetry, especially the poems from the ’70s that are recorded on old cassettes, poems by Iraqi communist poets […] All this left an impact [“touche”] in my mind. […] And then during the war in Iraq in 2003, ok, then it was the complete political involvement, we are against the war, we started to do demonstrations, big demonstrations, to attack the embassies, to attack McDonalds, everything that resembles the American mentality. […] The war in Iraq put me on the track that you have an enemy and that is capitalism. (Ibid.)

The time he spent in France accelerated his political involvement: There were “so many things to demonstrate for”, Khodor tells me, and that he was close to the anarchists and the black bloc41 in particular, with whom he shares values. Just before he came back to Lebanon, he participated in the international camp against the NATO Summit in Strasbourg 2009. Since he came back to Lebanon, he has been pursuing his political activities with “some ideas to reconstruct the Lebanese Left” (i1), which proves to be a difficult endeavour. Besides, he has been trying to find a job. First he worked as a freelancer for the journal Al-Akhbar. In spring 2011, he divides his working time between three different jobs: the first is as a freelance journalist for New TV (or Al-Jadeed) a Lebanese TV channel, for which he prepares one report each week; the second is with the women’s magazine Nesreena,42 where he works for the cultural section and writing book reviews etc. Thus, the first two are situated in the domain of journalism. As his third job, he gives workshops on social media for the organisation For Development. In Spring 2011, he was still searching for a more permanent job. Three jobs, especially with the heavy traffic in Beirut, were impossible in the long run, as he told me. Most of the time he works in the office of the magazine, mainly because the internet connection there is the best. At home his connection was not so great; he could use Skype and Facebook a bit, but not really work there. (Khodor i2) As he told me in 2010, he did not manage to put a photo album on his blog from home, since the internet connection in the suburb was too bad (i1). When I asked him about his media use he stated laughing: “I am still very attached to my mobile,” and “I am receiving phone calls all day long (laughing), as you see,” (i2) since his phone was constantly ringing during the interview. He starts his normal working day by checking his phone at 9 am, then checking Facebook on his work PC. Facebook was the most important tool that he uses, followed by email. Mainly in the late evening, from 11 pm, on he frequently uses Skype and other videoconferences to keep in touch with friends and to get news on what is going

41 A demonstration tactic developed by anarchists in the 1980s that involves wearing black clothes and hiding one’s face. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc and http://de. indymedia.org/2003/04/48299.shtml, both accessed February 7, 2012. 42 http://www.nesreena-mag.com/, accessed February 7, 2012.

142 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES on in the Arab world and in France. Last but not least, he checks the blog, “all day long” (ibid.). For Khodor, as for some of the other bloggers, Facebook has become the main tool for information: In the last period, during the revolutions, I discovered that you can just read the news from Facebook, the groups’ statuses. There are even pages only for news, like the Egyptian RNN, or Rasd like we call it. So it’s been a long time since I stopped television and all this, it is only Facebook. If I want details I enter news sites, like lebanonfiles.com, but rather Twitter and Facebook. I don’t have Twitter, I had it but I didn’t like very much. So I stopped it [using it actively], but I enter for reading the tweets of others. (ibid.)

As he told me in early 2010, he regarded Twitter as a tool for “the elite”, and he did not consider himself someone who wants to communicate with them but rather “the people” (i1). Yet despite his heavy reliance on social media tools and in particular Facebook for obtaining information, he still reads some of the newspapers, mainly Al-Akhbar and As-Safir, especially, as he outlined, the cultural pages that he did not find elsewhere (i2). Khodor describes his path to blogging as starting when friends and comrades criticised him for not starting to blog yet. But, as he told me, he only found time for it when he came back to Beirut in August 2009. With the help of a female Syrian friend, he then set up his own blog on a WordPress template. His blog’s name is the nickname he obtained in his political circles – Jou3an (jūʿān [hungry or famished]) or Abu Jūʿ (father of famine) – as he was very engaged with the topic of famine in Africa. The blog is subtitled muwāṭin ḍid al-anẓima al-muzawwara (a citizen against the faked regimes), which indicates his political involvement in and beyond Lebanon. He publishes three sorts of writings in his blog: political readings (and views), prosaic writings and poetic essays.43 When he talks about his blog, “critique” is the most frequently used word, and indeed on his blog one finds different forms of social and political critique, whether of the Lebanese army and security forces, the conditions of freedom of speech, the Communist Party’s leadership, sectarianism, or the state of women’s rights in the region (Khodor i1). His critical blog posts about several politicians, including the president, led army security forces to visit him one late evening in March 2010 and to summon him to the Military Security Services Office in South Beirut the next morning. “You risk something when you write… but I don’t mind,” he had told me before (ibid.). Khodor was among the first Lebanese bloggers of his generation to face any state repression because of his

43 For more on his blog’s content, see chapter 8 in particular.

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blogging activity, as I already mentioned in part I.44 In the interview it was ‘suggested’ to him that he close his blog or only write poetry. The case was not legally prosecuted.45 After the incident, he received some public attention when Al-Jazeera interviewed him on freedom of speech in Lebanon and the New York Times published an article on him.46 Khodor’s main ambition for his blogging activity is to connect to other activists, in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere. That is one of the reasons why he chose to write in Arabic and not in French or English. He linked his blog through the leftist Lebanese forum Sawtak (Your Voice), where he is active as an administrator, as well as via Facebook and some of its various leftist and activist groups. And he is encouraging other leftist activists to start blogs, too. In the long run, he hopes that they can have an impact on the next parliamentary elections in 2013, in which the voting age may be reduced to 18. Yet, his writing is not focussed solely on political activism. He also writes poetry. I am a writer, I write a lot, either poems, political analysis or… I am always writing, always, always, even during work, if I have an hour, two hours break, I start to write. (Khodor i2)

Whether for the blog, on Facebook or for a newspaper; writing is very much part of his personal as well as professional daily life. Blogging reflects and binds his different forms of writing and provides a platform to circulate his texts. Beyond that, he told me (i2) that he is thinking about publishing his blog posts as a book when he has enough money to do so, in order to spread his posts more broadly. Thus, overall, he sees himself as a writer, and not solely on the internet platform, and writing is an intrinsic part of his daily life.

3.6 M AYA Z ANKOUL :

A DESIGNER AND COMIC ARTIST

I visited Maya in her new office in Jal el-Deeb, in the northern suburb of Beirut, to which she had recently moved. It took me over an hour to get there by public transport, even though the office is close to the Beirut-Tripoli coastal highway that connects the northern part of Lebanon with Beirut, with a lot commercial activity, malls, big supermarkets, as well as restaurants. In her own little company for design, Maya designs iPad and iPhone applications and

44 See chapter 1 and 2.2 (Cooperation in practice 2: common causes). 45 See also: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/01/lebanon-first-threatened-voice/, where other bloggers’ support posts are included, accessed September 16, 2010. 46 In an article by Josh Wood (2010). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/middleeast /04iht-m04m1leblog.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y/, accessed April 12, 2010.

144 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES offers graphic and web design. She shares the overall office with other young professionals and artists: a production company, a singing teacher, photographers. Each little business has its own office. They have put a lot of work into renovating the apartment, as Maya tells me. Now it looks very clean, the walls are super-white and the floor is a rather expensive-looking, dark, wooden parquet. After the short tour through the office, we sit down in Maya’s office space on her white sofa beside a white table and white shelves on the wall with still a lot of free space. I see her two comic books on the shelves and a book about the graffiti artist Banksy. Two months ago (in February 2011), she went into business for herself, Maya tells me, and she is so happy about it. A full-time job was not for her. Now she can work however and whenever she wants to. Her self-employment starts off quite ok, as she tells me, although she has not done any publicity yet and is still working on her website. She invites me to the upcoming ‘office cooling’ party on April first. Instead of doing an office warming they decided to name the event a bit different than usual. (Field notes, March 17, 2011.)

Born in 1986, Maya grew up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she received a French, (and as she highlights) secular education and obtained the French Baccalaureate (i1).47 She focused on Mathematics and Science, though she liked literature as much.48 As Arabic was not included in the French curriculum, she took special courses. When she was 18, her family moved to Lebanon, where she then began her BA in Graphic Design at Notre Dame University in Jounieh. Jounieh, a municipality just to the north of Beirut, is also where her family home is. Her family background is middle class. Her father works for a Saudi company as an electrical engineer, after his studies at the AUB; her mother studied psychology and did not pursue her career because of the children. Thus, both have higher education. After completing her studies, Maya has been working in the field of graphic design. When I first met her in December 2009, she had a full-time job as a graphic designer with a foreign subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company, which, as she told me, gave her some freedom concerning working times and also more flexibility for her blogging (i1). Afterwards she changed jobs and worked for a Lebanese international company. Her boss had seen her blog online and hired her for his company.

47 I conducted Interview 1 in English on December 1, 2009 in Gemmayzeh, Beirut. I did not conduct a formal follow-up interview with her during my second fieldwork, but visited her once in her office for an informal talk (March 17, 2011) and also participated in the office cooling shortly afterward. Yet she was too busy, as she wrote me, to find time for an interview afterwards. I consequently sent her interview questions by mail; she responded promptly and briefly. 48 E-mail communication, April 30, 2011.

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This shows that blogging actually functioned as a tool to promote her career. 49 However, she quit this job and then began her own business in February 2011. Maya still lives in her family home in Jounieh. This is normal in Lebanon, as she tells me; only a few young people manage to move out and live on their own. Her new office space is nearby, which she likes because it eliminates the stress of driving through heavy traffic to Beirut that she experienced in her old job. Maya opened her own comic blog, Maya’s Amalgam, in early 2009. My teacher always told me you have to use those illustrations and the style of the illustration is powerful, use it to do something, do something about them. And then I was checking online and I just saw many [comic blogs]. I didn’t know that there is the concept of a comic blog, a blog where you only add illustrations, and I loved the idea. I felt this is what I have to do, it clicked, and I decided to start doing my own stuff that happened with me. (i1)

She later connected to a lot of other bloggers and tweeples on- and offline. In a ‘blog roundup’ that French journalists initiated in September 2009, she got in touch with a range of A-list bloggers, to whom she now belongs. She participated in social media events, such as tweetups, the ArabNet, a digital summit held in Beirut (see 2.2) and similar events. On her blog, Maya publishes mainly drawings of daily life experiences in Lebanon (with English texts) that entail light humorous criticism, whether of aspects of daily life like finding no parking spot in Beirut or political election campaign billboards and wider political events. She also posts her “Sunday recipes”50 or talks about her trips to the Cedars. After the attention her blog posts received during the elections in 2009,51 readers and friends encouraged her to publish a book of material from her blog. Consequently, she self-published her first comic book.52 Since then she has become one of the most well-known Lebanese bloggers and has also shifted her blog from WordPress to her own domain.53 She was interviewed by several newspapers, invited to a TV show on New TV, drew a comic for ELLE orientale,54 presented her works in an exhibition at the French Cultural Centre and was

49 This blogger is the only one in this sample to have an entry in Wikipedia, which reflects her prominence. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Zankoul, accessed February 9, 2012. 50 See http://mayazankoul.com/sunday-recipe-updates/, accessed September 12, 2010. 51 For instance, she was interviewed by NOW Lebanon (Maysam Ali 2009), http://www.no wlebanon.com/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?ID=96030, accessed October 18, 2011. 52 Maya Zankoul’s Amalgam Vol. 1. 53 From http://mayazankoul.wordpress.com/ to http://mayazankoul.com/. 54 http://mayazankoul.com/2010/02/03/meet-the-3-elles/, accessed March 10, 2010.

146 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES asked to design posters for several events. She then released her second book in November 2010, which also gained considerable media attention. In her blog, she posts about (and invites people to) these events and shares her experiences with the blog’s audience.55 This development shows that the blog helped promote her design work and also exposed her work in other, offline contexts, such as in print and exhibitions. It is thus clearly a tool of self-professionalisation in the domain of design and helps advance her career. Yet, this is not to say that blogging was a purely strategic endeavour. In our first interview in December 2009, she highlighted the personal satisfaction of having a space to reflect on daily life problems in Lebanon and to communicate with readers (i1)56 – an experience I will elaborate on in chapter 8. Maya is an enthusiastic user of all kinds of social media. Not only due to her work, she is online most of the time during the day: I communicate online all day long. My laptop is with me wherever I go and the first thing I do when I wake up is check my e-mail. When I don’t have my laptop with me, I check my email or check the latest FB & Twitter updates via my phone. (E-mail communication with Maya, April 30, 2011)

She says she spends around ten hours per day online: Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, and her blog are the sites she uses the most. Following other blogs on Google Reader is her “addiction” (ibid.), she said. I’m subscribed to so many blogs, and every morning, I check my e-mails and I check the blogs and I comment on them […], it’s a nice interaction, I like to connect to people through blogging. (Maya i1)

This quote indicates the importance of networking and connecting to other bloggers that makes blogging a lively endeavour. She is particularly interested in reading other blogs on cooking and food, design and style, as well as local Lebanese blogs. When I met her in Beirut in Spring 2011, she told me that she was quite busy preparing the office space before the opening and thus not able to keep up with posting. As kind of an excuse for not having blogged as much, she invented the “Zankoulizer” web application57, with which one can compose one’s own avatar

55 For instance in her posts about the Salon du Livre in November 2010: http://mayazankoul .com/2010/03/31/announcing-cc-salon-beirut/, accessed April 4, 2010, and http://mayaza nkoul.com/2010/11/09/salon-du-livre-is-over/, accessed September 12, 2011. 56 See also chapter 8 for more on what it means to her to go public with personal experiences. 57 http://mayazankoul.com/zankoulizer/

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using various head, hair and accessory templates she offers. Shortly after, in May 2011 she then decided to stop her comic blog, or at least to take a break from blogging. Addressing her readers, she wrote: “I believe falling into habit can be dangerous, and taking a break can only do good. This is what will happen to this blog. So let’s call it the end of season 1.”58 I cannot assess the degree to which this end of or break in blogging is linked to the beginning of her recent self-employment,. What is certain is that Maya has become quite well-known as a young designer through her blogging in Beirut and beyond and will certainly profit from the networks and contacts she has established on both the personal and professional level.

3.7 A DON :

A YOUNG ACADEMIC WITH AN

“ AGENDA ” 59

Some months ago, Adon finished his Master thesis in Political Science on the energy crisis and alternative energy. Today was the day of its defence at the Law Faculty in Jnah, which I attended. […] After the defence, Adon and I decided to head for lunch. As he had done so well, there was something to celebrate, at least until he had to get back to work in the afternoon. We drove with his mother’s car in the direction of Hamra, where Adon suggested we eat at Regusto, an Armenian bar/restaurant we had been to before, where he hangs out from time to time. We chatted a bit about what we were doing at the moment, since it was the first time we met after I returned to Beirut. He told me that he was still living with his mother and sister at the moment, but was planning to move in to Hanibaael’s place. Yet, the second flatmate still lived there. However, they were all encouraging him to get married, since he has already been engaged for five years. Adon currently works full-time for a magazine called Mysteria, which focuses on the environment, self-help and mysticism. The office is outside of Beirut, in the direction of Jabal Beirut [Beirut Mountain], but, as he told me, he would like to spend more time in Beirut than he did before. Beyond that, he was too old to live at home, he added, laughing. (Field notes, March 15, 2011.)

Adon received his education in a Catholic school (College de Pères Antoinelle) in French. However, he hardly speaks French nowadays, he admits laughingly, and much better English because he simply used it more after he completed school. He grew up on a little farm in the Bekaa Valley with his parents and grandparents, but then his family stopped farming and moved away. They now use the house in the village only on weekends and holidays. After finishing school, Adon transferred colleges several times: initially he started studying Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, but then changed to Political Science at the public Lebanese University,

58 http://mayazankoul.com/2011/05/17/closing-time/, accessed May 18, 2011. 59 Adon i2.

148 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES where also Hanibaael and in part Liliane studied. As he told me, his branch of the university was in a Muslim area and consequently mostly Muslims were studying there. “You know in Lebanon it is divided according to sects,” he explained, and since his name indicated that he was Christian, “they assume that I’m therefore a Christian”(Adon i2),60 which he is. He was one of the few bloggers who mentioned his religious background, which might be related to the fact that it was quite exposed in this setting and he was used to being clearly the only “Christian” there.61 The time at university had been rich in experience in political and social activism, as he told me. His political engagement started in 2000/1 with the Second Intifada. At this time he joined a semi-militaristic Palestinian organisation that he left after a short while. He then joined a national Lebanese party for five years,62 where he also met Hanibaael. They and some others split from the youth party and decided to start their own branch. Nonetheless, in 2007 he eventually quit this party branch as well. Adon describes his political ‘career’ as follows: I evolved beyond the traditional activism, beyond the traditional ideology of the left of the nationalistic worldview and most importantly beyond violence as a, first as a tool and second as a, well, as seeing it as an interesting art of things. (i2)

After having passed through different stages and gained experience in different forms of political organisation, he is no longer part of any party or organisation. “It’s mostly the network of contacts, like Khodor, Hanibaael [et al.], the guys who are activists,” as he told me (Adon i2). These networks also reflect the contacts between bloggers in the activist spectrum of Lebanese blogging. After his studies, Adon worked for one and a half years as an editor for AlAkhbar newspaper in the international news section. He also wrote for As-Safir as a freelancer. However, after a while he was not satisfied with his work at Al-Akhbar anymore and continued to work as a freelance journalist. When I met him in spring 2011, he was fairly busy with his job with the magazine Mysteria. His working day normally started at 9:30 am and lasted until 6 or 7 pm. He considered starting his Ph.D. besides this job, since he is interested in academic research and had also published his Arabic-language thesis as a book.63 Yet, as there are no fellowships in Lebanon, as he told me, he planned to write it in the evenings and at the weekends.

60 I conducted Interview 2 in English on March 31, 2011 on the terrace of my flat in Badaro, Beirut. 61 For more on online discussions of religious identity, see chapter 8. 62 SSNP, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, see footnote 11 in this chapter. 63 Saghbini, Tony (2011): Al-Azma al-akhīra [The last crisis]. Beirut: Arabic Scientific Publishers Inc.

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His future career would definitively not be in journalism; he rather sees it “between academia and political science and anthropology and activism, it’s like multidisciplinary” (ibid.). When I talked with him about his media use, he pointed out that he may not be a ‘typical’ blogger, because he was not the person to be online 24/7. It’s just checking Facebook and e-mail and blog, so these are the tools I use, like everyone else I guess, but the difference is in time, during weekends it’s minimum or no internet at all […] because the extensive use of internet during the week, [I] need to like, balance my eyes and everything and my personal relationships and everything […] it wasn’t always like this, I used to work online also on weekends. (Ibid.)

Adon rarely uses Twitter, in contrast to very active tweeting bloggers like Rami and Liliane. He has an account but checks it only from time to time. Yet, he dedicates a considerable amount of time to reading different kinds of websites, blogs and more. Then there are the news websites, I used to read news more than now, I used to read two or three Lebanese newspapers, Al-Akhbar, An-Nahar mostly, and two or three websites NowLebanon, Lebanonfiles, and some blogs that I have on the friendly blogs list. […] and the New York Times sometimes and Washington Post. Also, I just remembered, the forum Sawtak [Your Voice] I checked like once a day, to see what the people are saying. (Ibid.)

However, during spring 2011, like Khodor and others he focuses mainly on Facebook to obtain news through the various links posted. “Now I use Facebook because my friends usually share the important links, and I read them.” (Ibid.) This citation indicates that Facebook thus partly replaces previous ways of accessing websites, since the preference is to follow the links ‘friends’ post rather than accessing websites individually. Facebook thus functions as an aggregator of news for him, yet still entails reading articles from different sources. Facebook was the most convenient tool for knowing what was going on during the Arab uprisings, as I also showed for other bloggers. Despite Adon’s claim not to be online extensively and to take a break at the weekend, he is still an intensive user of various kinds of social media. However, in general, he decided to concentrate on blogging. Because if one would follow all the online social media, Facebook, Blogger, Twitter and Delicious, he won’t have time to have a real life, so it consumes time and effort, so with the blog it’s just fine. (Adon i2)

Adon started his Arabic-language blog Ninar in 2007 and thus belongs to the third generation of bloggers, like most of the bloggers in my sample. Primarily, he was

150 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES frustrated with the “editorial censorship” in the newspapers he was writing for. (i164) I figured out that my part, my part in all of this, would be to start a small blog, away from the conventional censorship, also away from the issues, the main issues that form the society here don’t appear in conventional media […] to confront all the political issues, the social issues, even the environmental issues, to tackle development plans and all of this, but the technical issue was censorship. Three consecutive articles of mine were censored, so this was it; I want to start a blog to publish on my own. (Ibid.)

Eventually, it was his friend Hanibaael who then convinced him to start his own blog. Thematically, his Arabic-language blog deals with environmental issues and also touches upon questions of religious diversity. The topics on his blog thus show various links with his professional activity in journalism and research, such as environmental matters, which he deals with in his academic work, and religions (especially paganism) and spirituality, which is also a topic of the magazine he works for. Writing as such is the main continuity between his blogging and his other professional practices. Other Lebanese blogs he is connected to include those of Khodor, Hanibaael and Trella. These were the only Lebanese ones that he checks – at least this was the case when I first met him in early 2010. Beyond that, he also practices photography; he started this together with Hanibaael, and they try to work together on developing their skills and have also opened a photo blog together.65 Overall, blogging provides motivation for Adon to keep on writing. The mere existence of the blog motivates me to write more, to express more. When I stopped blogging for about ten months, I stopped because of work, I got overwhelmed by work and by college and my girlfriend actually, so I stopped; when I stopped, my rate of writing articles and such decreased; and when I get back on the blog again, the rate increased. (Adon i1) It takes a lot of effort to sustain. […] In the long term, I’m working to be a writer and to publish what I write, so it’s a good idea to sustain it even if I feel obligated sometimes to do so. […] (ibid.)

The citations show that it is sometimes hard for Adon to keep up with blogging along with working commitments and his private life. Yet the motivation for writ-

64 I conducted Interview 1 on February 9, 2010 in Café Laziz, Hamra, Beirut. 65 http://horizongraphy.wordpress.com/. They did not continue posting after March 2010 except on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Horizon-Photography/14 3553692397887, both accessed February 18, 2012.

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ing on it made him return to it, and the more he writes the more he is motivated to continue. Beyond that, he envisages himself as a writer; and for that purpose, continuing blogging is a convenient tool to keep in practice. Adon describes the blog as part of, as he calls it humorously, his greater “agenda”, i.e. “a socio-political, cultural, environmental and even spiritual project that goes through many phases” and that is expressed on the blog (i2). Synopsis At first glance, the seven portraits in this chapter present individual cases of bloggers and show the variety of what it can mean to be a blogger in Beirut and its suburbs between 2009 and 2011. Yet, despite the differences in my sample, some traits that recur in the material and major common tendencies can be highlighted. All of the bloggers in my sample obtained higher education and have what can be roughly described as a (lower and middle) middle-class background,66 as the occupational fields of their parents show for most of them. The young bloggers stem mostly from a parental home that supported them in their higher education. A considerable number of them still live with their parents, and only some of the male bloggers have just started to live on their own. At the point of my last research, none of them were married and only a few were engaged. They are all in their midtwenties to early thirties. Thus, they still can be described as youth, and, since they are not responsible for a family, they have a certain amount of spare time at their disposal, along with their work commitments. Furthermore, all of them are in their early professionalisation years. When I came back for my second fieldwork in spring 2011, it was quite striking for me to see that nearly all of them had changed their jobs since I had left Lebanon one year earlier: those who had been studying when I met them during my first fieldwork were now fully engaged in jobs. Those who worked freelance were searching for more permanent positions. Those who had fixed positions had changed to other jobs or prepared their transitions to another workplace or field. Hence, shifting jobs can be related to career choices and point to the subjects’ agency and construction of their professional futures. Their economic position depends very much on whether they have a steady job, like Rami and Liliane, or are freelancers who struggle to make a living, like Khodor and Assaad, in particular.

66 What ‘middle class’ means in Lebanon and the Middle East in general is contested in research about the region. This is not the place for a thorough discussion of this matter; by ‘middle-class background’ I mean broadly a family background that provided the bloggers with higher education.

152 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES The main professional fields bloggers are engaged in are journalism, social media, IT and design – a fact that my observation shows can be generalised to apply to the entire blogosphere – and are more or less linked to blogging activity in manifold ways in terms of competences and tools. For some bloggers, blogging functions as a tool for professionalisation, for example for Hanibaael in social media or Maya in design etc. Their blogs proved their knowledge and capabilities in a certain domain and helped both of them to find a new job. Often blogging and the professional domain are fruitfully interconnected. For those who are freelance or hired journalists, such as Adon, Assaad and Khodor, blogging functions as a tool to publish their texts and motivate them to write. Furthermore, articles published elsewhere can also be published on the blogs, as Assaad in particular does to a considerable degree. However, the bloggers have different stances on whether blogging promotes their work in journalism. While Assaad clearly sees his blogs in this way, Adon rather sees it as a way of exercising writing. In other cases, professional knowledge in IT can be made useful in blogging and vice versa: on her blog and the blog aggregator, Liliane tries out various tools and strategies she has learned in her job. Yet, some bloggers also try to distance their blogging thematically from their job. For Rami, it is rather a playful tool in which he tries out “civil journalism”, as he puts it; he just does not want to write about work-related topics (i1). Overall, however, the blurred boundaries between the professional and personal lives of most of the bloggers in this sample are quite striking. Blogging is to be placed somewhere in the continuum between leisure activities and professional employment; neither hobby nor work, it combines different activities and domains of life. Yet, since most of the bloggers are active in the ‘field of cultural production’, whether in the media, design or elsewhere, blogging certainly helps strengthen their position in this field (see 5.2 for more on this specific point). The motivations for starting to blog are quite individual, yet here, too, some common tendencies can be outlined. Many of the bloggers mentioned their frustration with their work: in Maya’s case, frustration with her work was a starting point for looking for other forms of artistic expression; those who were involved in journalism mentioned the restricted possibilities of publishing. For the latter, blogging was partly a continuation of their writing activities on another platform, but with the possibility to express themselves more freely, as Assaad, Hanibaael and Adon highlight. Another trait in my material is the bloggers’ experience of having lived abroad, which is quite typical of Lebanese society, which is greatly characterised by diasporic connections. A common point between Maya and Khodor is thus their experience of returning to Lebanon. This experience may have strengthened a certain external perspective on events in Lebanon – certainly stronger in Maya’s case, who has lived abroad for the greater part of her life and who explicitly refers to this. Liliane, for her part, had started blogging when she was in the US, being pushed by

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the events of the July War 2006 to express herself. It is evident that language use and professional background are linked for all bloggers; while those active in design and IT opt for an English-language blog, all those active in journalism/writing opened an Arabic-language blog. I will discuss the complexity of language choice in more detail in chapter 6. Another common feature is the bloggers’ struggles with time constraints. During my fieldwork, I experienced them all as extremely overloaded with different kinds of work commitments and a vast number of ‘projects’, be they political, social or media-related. Almost none of them explicitly mentioned being exhausted; only those who did not have a proper full-time job mentioned at some point that they would need one in the near future to escape juggling many freelance positions (Assaad and Khodor). Moreover, as Assaad put it, the freelance life also permitted him to express himself more freely, his blogging being one aspect of this freedom (i2). All addressed the problem of finding enough time for blogging between work commitments and/or political and social activism. The freelancers are busy organising their lives between different jobs, and they try to find a way to integrate blogging in their working life. Those with steady jobs somehow try to find some spare time during the working day or in the nighttime as well.67 Yet my overall argument is that blogging is not perceived as being something external to life that needs to be ‘integrated’, but rather as an already integral part of it. At times, blogging itself structures the daily life of bloggers, as Rami’s case indicates; he regularly works on his blog roundup on a Sunday afternoon. Thus, it is not simply about ‘taking time’, but about organising one’s life also through blogging. Political activism in particular is a domain of practice that for some of the bloggers is closely connected with their blogging. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that none of the bloggers is a member of any Lebanese party. Those who are politically engaged do this rather in the NGO sector, in free associations and ‘merely’ by belonging to a network of activists (like Adon). This indicates that, especially for those activists who are not organised in parties or fixed structures, blogging can be considered a convenient and relevant tool for their political activity. Beyond that, a major tendency in my material is that internet access is a constant struggle for most bloggers, which somehow contradicts the cliché of the continuously connected blogger. Here in particular, the economic situation of the bloggers and their work settings come into play. While for those with steady jobs, internet access at work and home are taken for granted, for those who work freelance and have a lower income it definitely is not, in particular due to the high prices in Lebanon. This leads to the situation that the freelancers choose their working place

67 I will come back to the whens and wheres of the production practices in more detail in chapter 4.

154 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES according to where the best internet connection is provided. Even internet access at home cannot be taken for granted, as both Hanibaael’s and Assaad’s examples show. Furthermore, even those who have a stable internet connection at their disposal have to deal with Lebanon’s weak infrastructure (see chapter 1). Deficiency of internet access and speed combined with the high price is something all bloggers are confronted with, but in varying measure depending on their economic situation. By the same token, internet ‘addiction’ or extensive use of the internet – as bad as the connection may be – is an issue for all of them. They have different strategies for limiting their internet use and “balancing” their eyes and personal relationships (Adon i2). Most of them have slightly reduced their internet use at the weekend and create time off the internet. Hanibaael opts for not having a connection at home, which is partly also related to economic constraints; he mostly disconnects during the weekend, as does Adon. Rami, who seems to have accepted his ‘obsession’, still keeps his phone offline. This is partly due to the high price, but is also a choice not to be online too much in social settings. Overall, the various insights into the bloggers’ media use show how social media change their lives and habits. Facebook and Twitter stand out as intensively used online tools. As my material indicates, Facebook is more extensively used by the Arabic-writing politically active bloggers, Twitter more by the English-writing bloggers with a background in IT and similar areas. In part, this may reflect the state of the Lebanese twitterverse and that it is not a prominent tool for political campaigns (see part 2.2). For all, Facebook and Twitter replace other ways of accessing information, such as printed newspapers and also TV consumption, which latter only Assaad mentions explicitly. Consequently, this also shapes the production process of their blogs, in terms of inspiration, search and information gathering. I will discuss this in more detail in the following chapter. The use of personal media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter does yet not mean that other kinds of media are not relevant anymore. In particular, the online articles of newspapers are shared on Facebook, and YouTube streams of a TV show are posted. Accordingly, more traditional media formats are not completely obsolete in the bloggers’ media consumption; rather, the bloggers’ strategies of access and transmission differ – from direct access to access through social networks online. As the fieldwork note from an afternoon with Khodor showed as well, TV watching in a social gathering and discussions about it are still part of the blogger’s life. In this chapter I have outlined the production conditions of blogs in the cases I deal with primarily. Against this background, I will go into more detail on productions practices in the following chapter.

4. When “thoughts burst into writing”:1 practices and modes of blog production

After having outlined the conditions of blog production and presenting my case studies in the last chapter, this chapter focuses on the practices of blog production. What characterises blog production, how do bloggers produce their posts? It is not always that thoughts simply “burst into writing” (Adon i2); blog posts are often the result of a process of preparation, research and editing. This chapter sheds light on the whole process of production: how bloggers search for information, how much time is spent on research and the writing process and how bloggers choose the ‘right moment’ to publish a post. In research on blogging in the Middle East, production practices are often taken for granted and the focus lies mainly on the blog’s content. One hardly reads any background stories of how specific posts were actually produced. When production practices are mentioned, rather general trends are described, without reference to specific bloggers and qualitative material. Thick descriptions of production are in my view important not only to show how production is strongly embedded in the life context of bloggers and builds a structural part of their daily life. In accordance with a practice-oriented approach, blogging as a domain of practice must be understood as part of other practices of the bloggers, such as social activism, journalism and design. Beyond that, I argue that in order to understand the cultural meaning of blogging – the new kind of practices and subjectivities that evolve from media practices such as blogging – the production process must be integrated in the analysis. This research gap might be related to the preoccupation with the political impact of blogging and other social media in the Middle East. In broader research, studies of media production have a long history in sociology and anthropology and neighbouring disciplines. Media studies since the late 1970s have been involved in

1

Quote from the blogger Adon (i2).

156 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES examining the production context of news, in particular. Guye Tuchman’s Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality (1978) highlights the importance of the journalist’s context in news production (see also Tuchman 2002: 80). Classic studies of television, such as Herbert Gans’ Deciding What’s News (1980), have examined both production and text, yet often fail to relate the production practices to the specific texts, as Ytreberg (2000: 53) argues.2 A wide range of studies of production of both TV and print news has been undertaken from an anthropological viewpoint (Hannerz 2004, Pedelty 1995, Ståhlberg 2002 etc.). An exemplary ethnography in the field of Middle Eastern Studies of production and reception is AbuLughod’s (2005) Dramas of Nationhood.3 Overall, the relation between the media ‘text’ and context has been emphasised differently in the various studies on media production, yet with a strong focus on the institutional, political and professional context. While this chapter constantly revolves around the texts of blog posts, the main focus lies on the set of practices around. On the one hand, this practice-oriented approach decentres the text, but on the other hand, the text nevertheless plays an essential role. As Ardèvol et al. (2010a: 275) phrase it trenchantly: Thus, in media practices the ‘text’ or the ‘media object’ plays a crucial role, because the object is exchanged, shared, produced, and consumed; it is the practice around the object that anchors and gives meaning to a great amount of diverse interwoven practices.

However, how can we have access to and observe those practices; what can we actually know about other people’s practices (see Hobart 2010: 61)? Although I include the observations I made in the field in this chapter, it is not based on observations in the strict sense of the term. What I present in the following is mainly based on what bloggers told me about how they write and post as well as little mind maps that I asked them to draw in the second, follow-up interview. Thus, the material that I rely on is mainly their own representation of their blogging practice. I was hardly able to watch bloggers blogging, as the actual blog production is mainly a lonely endeavour, sitting at home, often at night or in the evening, or occasionally in breaks during work. Nevertheless, during coding and making memos of my material, I detected different modes of production that I will present in the following. By ‘modes of production’ I understand ways of producing that differ in regard to time

2

Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding concept (1980) is another conceptual attempt to grasp the relation between context and text in production, focussing on reception more than production (Ytreberg ibid.).

3

The author investigates TV series in Egypt and sheds light on the producers’ socialistfeminist agenda, which strongly influences the media product.

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investment and scheduling: search and material-collection procedures, guiding (ethical or practical) principles and relations to other production modes, such as journalism. I do not use the term modes of production in the sense of a Marxist analysis, but rather broadly to mean ways of producing. In the first part of the chapter (4.1), I will shed light on general features in the bloggers’ production practices concerning the time of writing, the scheduling for the publication of posts and the organisation of posts. In the second part (4.2), I will then present different types of blog production that crystallised in my material, which are again linked to specific blog types. Against this background of my own analysis, I will (in 4.3) set my findings in relation to two influential concepts: produsage (Bruns 2007, 2008), an approach to research processes of “user-led content creation”,4 and media convergence (Jenkins 2004), which describes the increasing convergence in the current media environment. I will examine the degree to which these are applicable to my material and, vice versa, what aspects of contemporary media production are revealed by my material that have not been grasped by these academic discussions.

4.1 T EMPORALITY

AND ORGANISATION

OF BLOG PRODUCTION I can’t stand the fact that I don’t blog something in seven days, I have to keep constantly blogging. ASSAAD (I1)

Blogging regularly is one of the key rules in blogging, as most of the bloggers in my sample also expressed when I talked to them. In the introductory citation, Assaad formulates it as a personal need; but it is also the best strategy to keep readers interested in the blog. “[R]eputation (and thus social status in the community) can be accumulated through positive participation over time” (Bruns 2008: 79) and is thus one of the musts of blog production. Blogging constantly must thus be understood as one of the guiding principles in blog production and all bloggers in this sample try to follow it as much as their daily life structure allows. In the following, I will outline the main tendencies in blog production in terms of temporality and elaborate on developing ideas, production time and eventually posting time.

4

The concept is presented on the Produsage website; see: http://produsage.org/, accessed February 14, 2012.

158 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES Production: developing ideas First of all, before the writing process can proceed, ideas for posts need to be developed. In my interviews, the bloggers mentioned various sources of inspiration for blog entries, ranging from observations on the street, from an advertising bill or the pricelist hanging in front of a petrol station (Assaad i2), to a talk with a taxi driver (Hanibaael i2, Maya i1). Inspiration can also come from the media themselves, for example when a blogger reads an article that pushes him to follow up on a certain topic, as Hanibaael for instance told me. He read an article in Al-Akhbar newspaper about homosexuals in the US army, which led him to write a three-part series on minorities in the Middle East. Also friends and acquaintances may provide the blogger with material to blog about, as for instance a poorly translated food menu5 or a document about a Lebanese company that has been banned from several countries in the Gulf (Rami i2).6 Daily observations, a communication whether offline or online, an article read, a friend who tells a story or forwards a link – all this may end up in a blog post. A broader tendency is that all these various sources of ideas are closely interlinked with the daily life of the bloggers: things they stumble upon, read online or offline, hear from someone etc. This requires a constant state of awareness of what is going around them and what could possibly be transferred into a blog post. Looking for material for a new post also becomes a habit and part of the daily routine of bloggers. Blogging time But when do bloggers find time for writing in their overloaded lives? Most of the bloggers in my sample often complained about not finding enough time for blogging. Sometimes they published on their blogs apologies for not blogging as much as before. Maya Zankoul, for example, developed an online application called the Zankoulizer7 as a sort of excuse to her blog’s readership for letting it down when she was busy preparing her new office and freelance life, as she told me.8 Often the actual writing time of posts is not fixed in the daily schedule, but rather fit in ad hoc. When I asked Adon when exactly he actually wrote, he answered:

5

http://www.plus961.com/2011/03/this-menu-will-leave-you-in-awe/, accessed March 27, 2011.

6

http://www.plus961.com/2011/01/when-will-lebanon-have-the-balls-to-ban-zein-al-atat/, accessed February 2, 2011.

7

An online application in which you can design your own avatar based on her drawings: ht tp://zankoulizer.me/.

8

Field notes, March 17, 2011.

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Adon: Actually, there is no specific time, sometimes I write like 7:30 in the morning, because I wake up and there is a thought that (laughing) I wanna grab it before it’s gone, so I write, sometimes at work, at work I have like one hour or two hours to work on my blog posts, just don’t tell my boss, and sometimes in the evening. But right now, because my schedule at work is long, the writing in the evening is decreased, because I come home tired. Sarah: You do this [writing] already during the day. A: Sometimes, actually, I write in the middle of the night, because if there is a thought that is still ringing and ringing it grows and grows like… and it just bursts into writing. I try to schedule it, but it’s really difficult, because I can’t force the writing process. I cannot decide right now: I want to write about this and this and I write it. With me it doesn’t go this way, it goes like I feel writing it and I write it, no matter […] what the hour is or what the day is. When I can’t write it for a logistical reason, like when I’m at work, I post, yaʿnī.9 I plan it and I write several sentences of it and then I get back to it later, but I have the main idea, the main flow if we can use the word. (Adon i2)

In contrast to Adon’s structured process of background research for the blog post that I will present in more detail shortly (4.2), the actual writing time, as he emphasises, cannot be scheduled. First, it depends on when he finds time, which is difficult in his busy working life. He rather creates or takes time for writing or jotting down some notes – whether in the early morning or during the working day. Furthermore, as Adon stresses in this quote, the writing process cannot be decided upon in advance. When a thought “bursts into writing” (i2), when the feeling is right, is not something that can be planned. Other bloggers, too, told me they organised their writing around their weekly and daily rhythm in work. The majority told me they wrote during breaks at work, for instance Khodor and Liliane: “Even during my work, when I have an hour, two hours of break, I start to write.” (Khodor i2) During the days in my breaks, for a quick post, I post by e-mail to blogger.com, it gets published automatically, instead of going to blogger, opening the account etc. I just send an email, it’s very easy and very fast. (Liliane i2)

However, the work conditions have to allow such short writing detours and the blogger must already have a computer as his central tool for work. Otherwise it

9

Arabic filler word for “that means” or “i.e.” The interview was conducted in English.

160 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES would be much harder to integrate blogging into working time.10 Yet, all the bloggers in my sample basically work in front of the computer anyway most of the time. These examples indicate once more that writing for their blogs is an integral part of the actors’ daily life, not a task perceived to be integrated additionally. For longer posts, however, more time is required than work breaks permit, and in their interviews with me the bloggers often mention the night as writing time. Sarah: When do you find time for blogging? Maya: Lately I am barely finding time to blog few times a month. Usually I do that late at night, when I’m done with all the work of the day and still can’t sleep. S: From where do you do it the most? M: From my bed. Laptop in my lap. (Maya, E-mail communication April 30, 2011) The night thing is usually when I’m, when I have a post that I have in mind, that I have been thinking about for one, two...one month, five months, I’ve been thinking about it and not finding time until I’m really motivated enough and I feel like I have enough knowledge or patience or to actually go to do the research and blablabla, and do it, this is really the night or the weekend. (Liliane i2) I don’t like writing in cafés. Most of the time I blog after midnight, when it’s calm and everything, with an Argileh. (Khodor i1) [During the day] I do the Google search, I collect all the information and files and take them and read them at night and work on the topic. I write everything in the night and the next day I do the posting or something a week later, it depends... but mostly at night at home, because at night I don’t know, there is more calm and quietness, it is better for me, sure, I am relaxed from work, there are thoughts I am working on a lot. (Hanibaael i2)

In Hanibaael’s case, the production time is also related to his internet access. At night when he is offline at home anyway, he finds the calm and ease for writing. Yet also for other bloggers who have internet access at home, nighttime, when daily work requirements and other engagements come to a halt, is the time to write – in Maya’s case also to draw, even already in bed. Since the bloggers do not always have time to realise their ideas immediately, some gather ideas over a period of time. Liliane tells me of “a to-do-list” for topics to write about (Liliane i2). Furthermore, Rami told me he sometimes starts posts

10 As I showed in the portraits, none of the bloggers in my main sample except Liliane goes online by phone, which is mainly due to the high price in Lebanon.

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but doesn’t finish them for publishing, leaving them pending as drafts, and that he only adds a sentence from time to time until his fiancée then reminds him to finish the post. Blogging, as described in this overview, is thus a continuous practice, a permanent ‘companion’ in daily life. The amount of time bloggers spend to produce a single blog post varies quite a lot. Some “quick posts” can be written in fifteen to twenty minutes and other posts composed simply by copy pasting articles written for newspapers, which only takes five minutes, as freelance journalists Hanibaael and Assaad told me (both i2). However, there are other posts that take hours or even several days of preparation, with doing the research, looking for sources etc. Hanibaael told me of having spent seven hours of research for a post on minorities, including searching and writing: “I started to write about the topic and I wrote, it was 2 o’clock in the night, and I found myself writing until 9 in the morning!” (i2) He published the text in four parts and also compiled it later as a PDF file to download from his blog.11 The extended production cases that I present in 4.2 show the varying length of actual blog production. Some of the bloggers tend to do more quick posts, others concentrate on longer posts. Another common strategy that Hanibaael practices is to make quick posts, such as photos, and work on an additional longer project at the same time. Posting time Bloggers, as my data reveals, often develop their own rhythm of publication. For instance, Adon told me that he usually posted twice a week, either Monday or Tuesday and then either Thursday or Friday This is related to when he has spare time to write: during the weekend, he had time to work on a post or rework an already existing draft; during the week he could work on another post to publish at the end of the week. Rami, for instance, always publishes the weekly blog roundup, which he prepares on Sunday afternoons, at the beginning of the week. In a similar vein, Khodor told me about his posting rhythm: “Every three days I post, I publish a post of what I have written.” (i2) Besides their self-established rhythms, the time of the actual posting is related to external circumstances, such as the political context and events in Lebanon that the bloggers write about. At times the time of publication “depends on how urgent it is for a piece of news to be published,” journalist blogger Assaad explained to me (Khodor i2). The posting time is also related to the temporality of internet use in

11 https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/, parts published subsequently on January 5, 10, 14 and 19.

162 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES general. Most of the bloggers do not publish at the weekend,12 because, as they told me, then they had far fewer readers, since less people are online (Adon i2, Rami i2, Liliane i2). Although the weekend can be used for writing, as most bloggers with a regular job do not work on the weekend, it was not be the best posting time, as Liliane explained to me: Sometimes I prepare posts on the weekend and schedule them to be posted during the week, because when you publish something at the weekend nobody reads it. You don’t want people to come to a post, read it, see that it was posted two days earlier and has zero comments, it is like it has been this long and nobody commented, this must be a sucky post and they don’t read it. (i2)

The citation indicates that it is not just the timely freshness of blogs that counts, but also signs of intensive reception made apparent by comments. As Liliane amplifies further, a post without comments would look like an “empty café” that you do not enter because nobody else is sitting in it (ibid.). She says readers equate a post with “zero comments” (Lovink 2008) with low quality. This example suggests that commentaries also function as signs of distinction. Beyond that, the credibility of a post can be diminished by publishing it at the wrong time. Bloggers thus often shift their postings to the beginning of the week, when the number of possible readers is much higher, in their assessment. This also applies to posts written at night I write in the night and I do the revision and then I schedule the post to appear in the morning, because this is when people are mostly at work at around 9 or 10 am, it’s when they come to their office and then they start checking first their e-mails before even checking the work e-mails and maybe they start checking their RSS feeds what new posts are there, so it’s just to get people to notice your post. (Rami i1)

Although there are no fixed times for posting for all of them, publishing a post is not done haphazardly. The posting time mainly has pragmatic reasons and is related to the activity of the readership. While it is often highlighted that on the internet in general a “continuous” rather than “punctual” form of circulation (which involves publication) is to be found (Warner 2002: 68f), there is still a certain rhythm to be recognised that is bound to rather down-to-earth activities like working, day and night, etc. This implies also that the local time zone and audience is central.13

12 For most parts of Lebanon on, ‘the weekend’ is Saturday and Sunday despite the country’s significant Muslim population. 13 For more on the audience’s locality, see chapter 6.

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OF BLOG PRODUCTION

After presenting some general tendencies in blog production, I will now shed light on specific production stories by providing thick descriptions of production that are based on what bloggers told me about how they produced blog posts, partly linked with my own observations. The bloggers mostly refused to put a specific category label on their blogging, yet as their blog production stories display, they orient themselves towards a certain writing model and, beyond that, are very reflective about their way of production. As I will show, the production stories show different production modes with regard to the writing models the bloggers orient themselves toward: be it journalistic efficiency, academic credibility, a literary-artistic presentation of reality or a mix of different ways of producing. These models structure their way of producing and give them a specific form that I will describe and summarise as comparable modes of production. They are not to be understood as clear-cut, selective categories and do not represent an overarching classification of blogs; rather, by designating them as modes, I try to grasp the specificities of the production stories. Although I present them mainly by using one blogger and specific production stories, they are not confined to the particular actor but are more general modes of blog production in the field I studied. Most of the examples are situated in spring 2011, the time of my second fieldwork. The background of the post’s production is thus a quite specific, highly politicised historical moment (see foreword, chapter 1 and 2). The production stories presented here also indicate how different actors positioned themselves in or towards the anti-sectarian movement and highlight the significance of the production context. Journalistic efficiency linked with an activist agenda I’m used to writing an article in very short time. I remember in Egypt: in three days, I stayed in As-Safir, eight different articles […] I was covering live for the As-Safir website, we wrote eight articles in three days, so […] I am used to giving ideas about new angles. (Assaad i2)

That is what Assaad replied to me, when I asked him how he managed to write so many posts in a short period of time. I had shown him a list of his posts from January to March 2011 and he was surprised at the amount of articles he had posted, since he rather had assumed the frequency of his writing was decreasing (Assaad i2). While talking about the whens and hows of his blog production, Assaad highlighted his efficiency in finding material and writing. He also mentioned republish-

164 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES ing on his blog posts that he had published before on the youth journal hibr or elsewhere: For the other one, now, it is already published on hibr, I’m writing an article for As-Safir and it will take, I made the questions and I send them, and people will be replying, it will take two to three hours to translate them and fix them and write the article. And then after it’s published on the website, I publish it on my blog. (Assaad i2)

He finds this easy way of ‘filling’ his blog, as I hastily categorised it, is a convenient and efficient way of publishing his writings on different platforms. He does not perceive it as something harmful to the blog’s credibility at all. In his understanding, this production mode is part of journalistic proficiency, in which efficiency in terms of promptness and accuracy is key. Beyond that, as I will show next, he uses his journalistic efficiency for his political activist involvement at the same time. In particular, the blog posts Assad produced during the period of the Arab uprisings reflect this interplay between journalism and activism. In the following I will refer to the production story of two of his posts during this time. During spring 2011, as I described above, activism against the ‘sectarian system’ in Lebanon was at its peak. Thousands of people in several demonstrations expressed the demand to abolish the sectarian system and some tents were set up in central Beirut.14 Assaad himself was very much engaged in the whole movement, at times as a spokesman for the main tent situated next to the Sanayeh garden; he participated in meetings and demonstrations and also covered the protests on his blog. During the attempt to set up a tent in downtown Beirut on March 18, he was among the activists in the first row.15 Police and other security forces were trying to hinder the small manifestation from entering Down Town Beirut, where the Parliament is situated. At the same time, the activists were trying to find ways of outsmarting the police in order to leave the little area in which they had been fenced. Assaad and some of his companions built a chain of people and tried non-violently to get through the fence. One of the officers prevented them from doing so. Finally, half of the group tried to leave the fenced area on the opposite side, and while the security forces were busy holding them back, the rest of the activists managed to set up a little tent. Roughly two hours later, when only a few activists were still on the spot, I accompanied Assaad to the tent in the Sanayeh garden. During our walk, he told me that while they tried to get through the fence one of the officers held him by

14 For a detailed documentation, see the movement’s website: http://www.isqat.org/, accessed February 15, 2011; also see the foreword to this monograph for further references. 15 The following description is based on my field notes from the same day.

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the throat and choked him; a scene that I had observed only from behind. A few days later, I met Assaad at his place with an Egyptian fellow blogger. Assaad asked me whether I had read his last blog post, which showed the photo in which the officer held him by the throat. This was what had happened to him at the last demonstration! A photographer from the Al-Balad newspaper had taken a photo of this incident and it had been printed in the newspaper. Thereupon his sister had called him, crying and confused about what had happened. He then felt impelled to write something about the event, Assaad told me, in order to show that they, i.e. the demonstrators, had not been violent or anything else and to criticise the system. The picture had landed on Interior Minister Ziad Baroud’s desk. Mahmoud, his Egyptian fellow blogger, asked him whether this had made any impact. He did not expect anything, Assaad answered, but at least it was for a good cause. (Field notes, March 22, 2011.)

Before Assaad himself wrote about the incident, the print media covered it. This is a rather unusual chronology. However, the newspaper portrayed the demonstrators as violent. Eventually, his sister’s reaction made Assaad realise that he needed to write about this incident in order to clarify the situation. In the blog post “When the system tried to choke me”,16 the picture of the Al-Balad newspaper was placed in the centre. He was doubtful whether the incident would have an impact, but “it was for a good cause”,17 as he summarised laconically. The story of this post shed lights on the production context. Another example from the same period displays the production process in more detail. Likewise, at another demonstration during spring 2011 in Saida, Lebanon’s third-largest city, Assaad was in the middle of a violent incident. The security services of a political party disrupted the demonstration and he was beaten. After this demonstration, a press conference was held in Beirut (on April 7, 2011) in which Assaad participated with his activist fellows. The same day, he published a blog post about his view of the incident, titled “He beat me and cried…he got ahead of me and complained: the truth about Saida’s mob.”18 In the following mind map,

16 “ʿIndamā ḥāwil an-niẓām khanaqī”, https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/, accessed March 22, 2011. 17 See field notes above. 18 “Ḍarabnī wa-bakā… sabaqnī wa-ishtakā: ḥaqīqa ghawghāʾīyī Ṣaydā”, https://www.beiru tiyat.wordpress.com/2011/04/7/, accessed April 8, 2011.

166 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES which I asked him to draw during an interview,19 he illustrated the material that went into the post and also what he wanted to get out of it: Illustration 1: Mind map by Assaad

Assaad, April 4, 2011

What he included in the post was, according to Assaad: “feelings/thoughts/ideas”, and “facts”, “videos”, “National News Agency” texts, as well as the “Press Release” (see mind map above). The post is primarily based on his personal observation and experience, as well as his afterthoughts about what had happened. “Facts” (ibid.) such as videos and reports by other institutions (National News Agency), apart from the movement’s press release, also went in. Other activists had shot videos during the demonstration, including of this particular incident, which he used now to prove what had happened on the spot. When I asked him to give more details about his production process, Assaad told me: I kind of copied stuff from online […] from the National News Agency there are strings [written records] I said, someone typed. […] When I made the press conference they typed

19 I asked him to draw a mind map for this blog post in terms of what inspired him to write it, what information and sources he used, how he searched for them and what the main goal of the post was.

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them, they made it less troubling to retype, it, so I copied some and I had... it only took thirty to forty minutes. (Assaad i2)

Assaad highlighted that being able to rely on already-written material reduced the time it took to write the post in his own words. This is a very particular way of gathering material that does not occur often. However, the point to make is that Assaad perceives this as a convenient way of production, as it saves time. Overall, his mode of production is very much oriented towards being to the point and efficient, as he designates it (see quote above): copying “stuff”, putting it together, as he put it in the initial quote, being “used to writing in very short time”. These abilities help him in his journalistic work commitments, but equally in writing about his activist engagement on the blog. This shows how Assaad joins his journalistic proficiency with his activist agenda. The goals related to his political activism and the message he wanted to get across structured his way of writing. Assaad’s aim was to: Clarify things, and show the […] unbiased versus biased media, which in this case was citizen media versus the authority media, the ability to use social media, which is YouTube, and here personal engagement in the subject […] freedom of expression, because I believe in it, change the idea about the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām campaign, since everybody was accusing us of being […] not peaceful, to change it, so that it [the idea] is more peaceful. (Ibid.)

The post is set in the centre of conflict between “citizen” and “authority media” (see quote above). Since he felt the incident at the demonstration in Saida was inadequately presented in the mainstream media (television and print), Assaad wanted to show the other side.20 In the quote, Assaad emphasises the power of social media, i.e. here in particular YouTube. His main aim is to provide another image of the movement. The same is true of the post, discussed just before, about the incident at the demonstration in Beirut. His being involved and his political goals thus structure his way of producing and writing the blog as much as his journalistic work experience does.

20 See chapter 8 for more on the bloggers’ critical stance towards the mainstream media.

168 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES Blog production with academic ambitions Illustration 2: Mind map by Adon

Adon, March 31, 2011

The blogger Adon drew this mind map for the production of the blog post called “Asbāb ʿadm ḥuḍūr ›at-taẓāhura ḍid an-niẓām aṭ-ṭāʾifī‹” (Reasons why I did not take part in the demonstration against the sectarian system)21, published on February 26, 2011. I suggested to him that we choose this blog post to discuss from among many others, because in my view it is characteristic of Adon’s mixture between involvement and distance in political action. Furthermore, I hoped to get a ‘deep story’ of the post’s production process, as it was only recently written when we met and was related to the current political events in Lebanon. The map shows how clearly structured Adon perceives his own blog production process to be. On the left side of the map, as he explained to me, he put “where this blog post came from”, the quarter on the right bottom side displays things that, “I take into consideration while writing a blog post” and the upper right quarter shows the blog post’s structure. These three aspects are essential for the production process (see mind map above).

21 “Asbāb ʿadm ḥuḍūr ›at-taẓāhura ḍid an-niẓām aṭ-ṭāʾifī‹”, https://saghbini.wordpress.com/ 2011/02/26, accessed February 27, 2011.

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The post was published one day before the first demonstration of the antisectarian movement in spring 2011. Right at the beginning of the post he states, “the headline had probably surprised some of the friends that know my secular enthusiasm.”22 In the rest of the blog post, he explains his reasons for his lack of participation. I will now recapitulate the different kinds of material and research that went into the post’s production: First, as the mind map shows, personal talks as well as personal observations form an important part of the production process. In this instance, some of us who are secular activists felt like something is happening, and we are outside it, outside not just in the organisational sense of the way [word], but also in the, what’s the word, psychological, on the inside we didn’t felt like we belong in this movement […] so the discussion in this instance was important because I felt, oh this is not just me. (Adon i2)23

In the days and weeks before the manifestation, Adon talked with people from his network of friends who are also secular activists in one way or another and participated in two preparatory meetings. He was accordingly both an insider of and outsider to the evolving movement at this point. On the one hand, he was part of the social field of secularists; on the other hand, he did not feel that he belonged to the movement. Experiencing that he was not alone with his stance was a main inspiration for writing the post, as he told me. Personal talk is important to get some feedback on one’s own personal observation, one point of view isn’t enough, so this is where an idea for a blog post starts. I should talk about this, this is the main line that comes out, we should talk about this, we should get it, yaʿnī online. (Ibid.)

Adon realised that several others shared his objections about the aims and means of the movement. This impelled him to eventually talk about his objections and publish a post about the topic. To “get it […] online” (see quote above) was consequently his – critical – involvement in the movement. Personal talks and observations during the meetings were important not only for getting information about the movement, but also for actually writing the post at all.

22 “Asbāb ʿadam ḥuḍūr ›at-taẓāhura ḍid an-niẓām aṭ-ṭāʾifī‹”, https://saghbini.wordpress.co m/2011/02/26, accessed February 27, 2011, translated from Arabic (SJ). 23 All following quotes dealing with the blog production process stem from this interview, if not indicated otherwise.

170 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES A second kind of material Adon mentioned having used for his post was academic reading. For example, there is a book by Mehdi Amel24 about classes and sectarianism, and the relationship between classes and sectarianism and the relation between class struggle and sectarianism. I’m not interested in, no, it’s not that I’m not interested, I’m not a Marxist, but this was a very interesting analysis. […] There is another book by Salibi, about the history of Lebanon, it’s called bayt…house of many mansions.25 […] I just checked if there’s something that needs to be checked, like historical facts, like what happened hundred years ago, because sometimes we need a historical perspective on things, an academic perspective, a deeper analysis about what’s going on, beyond the daily chatter and the daily noise, if we can say that.

Although he ultimately did not include the book references in his article – which contains no citations of or links to the book – Adon felt the need to get a historical perspective on current events. By aiming at going “beyond the daily chatter”, he has set the aspiration of the post relatively high. He does not simply want to provide observation and comments on what is currently going on, but to add a historical perspective that sheds light on broader tendencies and developments. This is also due to the fact that Adon is conscious about the problems that may arise if he does not have thorough background knowledge about the topic of the post. Every blogger who has spent a fair amount of time online knows that each blog post, he must expect that he will be questioned on the most minute details. So he must know, he must know his subject. And I don’t have a problem changing my mind when I have, when I find it’s […] not right, but I need to say it right from the first time…

By being accurate and only publishing well-researched information, he wants to make sure that he can later respond to comments, a goal that most of the bloggers in this sample share. Although Adon may change his opinion about a certain topic later, as I read his statement, the basic information should be right from the start. Another source of background information that he used for this specific blog post was reading other blog posts.

24 Hasan Hamdan aka Mehdi Amel was a Lebanese Marxist philosopher who was assassinated in 1987. 25 Kamal Salibi is a Lebanese historian, and the book referred to, first published in 1988, is one of the few histories of Lebanon.

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Reading other blog posts, it’s like the personal contact but with people I have no contact with, to see their opinion, their view on stuff, what the others are saying. In this instance it was very important to see what are they expecting from it [the manifestation], and the general atmosphere was like they were expecting to topple the regime in several months, which prompted me to think more that there is something wrong in the way things are organised.

This quote illustrates the post’s embeddedness in a whole set of online discussions that took place about this topic. Adon expressed that he saw the need to read those other opinions in his ‘sphere of blogging’, i.e. his network of contacts. Other bloggers’ enthusiastic writing about their high expectations, in particular, made him critical of the whole movement. Besides other blog posts, “the news” in general was another thing he integrated in the blog post. Adon observed: In general, when I checked the news, and there were question marks from the outlets on the organisers of the movement, so I need to also check my facts, i.e. are they saying true stuff about the organisers or not?

As Adon told me at another point in the interview, he did less newspaper reading in this period of time than he was used to before. Nevertheless, for the blog post he followed the current discussion on the topic in the print media and on TV. In general, he observed that the news outlets were more critical of the organisers of the movement than were the bloggers who were more involved in the movement. Last but not least, Facebook served as a source of background information for the blog post. On the group’s page, there were like three or four groups, and I checked them for one week like one hour, two hours a day and even more, refresh, refresh, to see the new posts and new comments, new posts, new comments to come out with a clear picture about who are the people supporting the movement, what are they thinking, are they politically affiliated or not. It’s more like intelligence agency’s work.

Various movement Facebook Groups were set up in early spring 2011, for example the Facebook Group26 for abolishing the sectarian system in Lebanon with over 20,000 members. Adon obtained most of his information about the movement by following these Facebook groups. Reading the posted comments gave him an idea about the movement, the actual members and their background. By “intelligence agency’s work” he thus meant peeking into the groups’ open discussions to obtain

26 http://www.Facebook.com/lebrevolution

172 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES information This resembles forms of investigative journalism as well as ‘online ethnography’, i.e. a close following of actors online. The background for the actual blog post was amassed by following the news (print and online), reading two academic books about the general background (in this case, Lebanon’s political history), talking to friends and activists, doing what could be labelled ‘participant observation’ in some of the movements’ meetings and finally following the Facebook Groups for a week for one to two hours every day. Following Facebook discussions online is also part of Adon’s online life in general, but the time he invested was probably greater than he would have invested if he had not been planning on writing the actual post. The context of production for this post was strongly interlinked with his political life as an activist and with being connected with other activists through ties of friendship or looser networks. All the research and the readings are a part of Adon’s production practice. The production story so far shows that the production process, seen from “where this post came from” is also very much a process of reception or consumption of different kind of media: books, news (newspaper and TV) and discussions on Facebook. This indicates that production and consumption are strongly interlinked, a point I will come back to later in this chapter (4.3). The total amount of time needed for the post was, as he told me, “one week; actually from first meetings to personal contacts to the Facebook, it took like eleven, twelve days, less than two weeks…” Not all blog posts take that much, but some blog post take even longer, for example the blog post I wrote about Egypt, I just got info about its oil, its food levels, so it took me like two weeks to gather other information, because I didn’t do it continuously, to come up with the final blog post. Some blog posts just take like one hour, like the last one titled “Kay lā taḥkumnā dhahnīya aṭ-ṭāʾifa”27, it took like three hours of writing and editing but the process is almost the same, the writing process is just 20% of the production of a blog post, for me at least. I know other bloggers for whom the writing process is the whole process, yaʿnī they just sit and write, but I can’t do that.

Compared to the preparation and research process of a blog post, Adon highlights that the actual writing takes only 20% of the whole amount of time. Yet, although the writing process takes less time than the preparation, still Adon invests time in it.

27 “Kay lā taḥkumnā dhahnīya aṭ-ṭāʾifa” [So that the sectarian mentality does not govern us], https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/, accessed March 26, 2011.

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For me, one blog post, I don’t write a blog post in one day, rarely, when there is like something I feel the need to comment on it in the fastest way possible. But the other blog posts, yaʿnī, it goes into a process of refining and reediting and sometimes whole rewriting.

In this ‘writing and structuring part’ of writing a blogpost, as the mind map indicates, five different components are important: core words, links, visual information, literature structure and timing. Thus, actual writing is only one element among others. Linking to other blog posts, to news, this also takes time. I don’t know if I have any links in this one […] I just had two, three links at the end […] I usually have more links in the core of the blog post. Like if Hanibaael or Trella, for example, were saying something I wanna use in the blog post, I just link it in a sentence. We have the visual influence because pictures are great (laughing); sometimes something makes the idea clearer and they [the pictures] make it easy for reading, and I chose, for example, not for this one, but the second one [post on the anti-sectarian demonstrations], I chose a banner saying “no to violence”, and this is actually very controversial right now, but it wasn’t controversial on the blog post [laughing], eh bas [and that’s it]. Choosing the pictures sometimes takes two days, to choose, just to choose the relevant picture.

Selecting the right picture and installing links is another major part of the production process. Adon is quite aware of the influence of visual elements in blog posts. Besides, in his writing, Adon frequently installs links to other bloggers, which indicates the peer-production character of blogging and also the close ties within a certain spectrum of bloggers. Adon’s blog posts have a very clearly arranged writing structure: “I define it [the structure]. I say what I want to say: one, two, three. I’m usually mathematical in the structure” – and this shows in his texts, which I, as his blog reader, can confirm. Sometimes this made his texts a bit schematic, Adon continued, so he needed to edit and re-edit them to make them more reader-friendly. And eventually “there is the timing! I posted this just one day before the manifestation. The manifestation was on Sunday; I posted on Saturday.” Since his post had a clear reference to the upcoming event (the manifestation) and functioned as an explanation for his nonparticipation, the time for publishing was extremely relevant. This production story reflects Adon’s mode of blog production, which is strongly oriented towards academic accuracy and credibility.28 Yet at the same time, par-

28 Another of Adon’s blog posts equally reflects this self-reflective production mode and also represents another kind of post. In the tripartite series “Towards a new kind of politics” from March 2011, he discusses how politics has changed from formally organised

174 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES allels to journalistic research can also be found. His way of producing entails investing a great amount of time for preparation, searching for background information, setting the information within a broader historical perspective and using different sources to back one’s interpretation. Adon puts emphasis on the accuracy of information. Beyond that, he found a format that fits his writing genre, three- or four-part articles, which allows him to develop ideas over more than one blog post. Indeed, his blog is not an academic or research blog in the strict sense. First, his political activist engagement – here in taking part in a political discussion – is an important feature of his blogging. Second, Adon is a not researcher employed at a university or elsewhere who maintains a blog to publicise his newest publications or theoretical insights, but has a fixed position at a magazine dealing with environmentalism and mysticism. However, he is planning his Ph.D. project, which clearly shows his academic ambitions. For him, blogging is a way to gain academic credentials, such as by promoting the book he published of his Master thesis, but also by writing well-researched articles on a range of topics. By displaying consistence between his online and offline ‘self’, he also shows his academic credibility. To sum up, Adon’s presentation of the production process displays the considerable amount of time he invests in doing preparatory research. Accuracy and accountability towards his readers, i.e. being able to answer questions, are the main standards he sets in the blog production. He is equally conscious of the role of images, as well as the right timing of posting. The self-reflectivity he shows in talking about the production is also reflected in his blog posts. Beyond that, his production mode can be linked to both his political activism and his academic ambitions.

parties to new forms of political engagement in NGOs. He also did extensive preparatory research for his post. As he told me, he read about twenty academic books and also had e-mail communication with an environmental activist movement in the UK and some anarchists in the US about the state of environmental activism and how it might develop. Furthermore, his personal experience in activism is reflected in this post (see his portrait in chapter 3). He then published the whole written text in three subsequent parts.

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Towards a literary-artistic reflection of reality Illustration 3: Mind map 1 by Khodor

Khodor, April 14, 2011 (“Wīkīlīksīyāt ṭizzastānīya”)29 The idea was that out of reality or what we call al-wāqiʿ, videos, news, all of this constitutes reality, with the wāqiʿ I mix sarcasm. […] Sarcasm that is, first, presenting an idea, presenting an idea to the people [“pour le peuple”] in their language. I cannot do it like the communists in the ’70s who talked about the proletariat and demagogy with someone from the village. I don’t want to use these big words. I want to talk with people from Lebanon in their language […] and then to rely on the people and the politicians, finding a common ground, finding a common ground between the Minister of the Interior, or I don’t know, between the President and a taxi driver for example. […] This is like how I do my sarcasm. (Khodor i2)30

Khodor’s way of writing aims neither at journalistic efficiency nor academic credibility, but rather reflects features of the literary writing process. It may be due to this that it was much harder to actually get to know how he produced his posts,

29 “Wīkīlīksīyāt ṭizzastānīya”, https://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/, accessed December 15, 2011. 30 If not indicated otherwise, all the following quotes dealing with the blog production process stem from this interview, which I translated from French to English.

176 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES since he preferred to talk about the content and the style and rhetoric of writing, as the citation indicates. This presentation of his way of writing shows his political conception of his writings and the connections to political activism, as well as selfreflection about the style he uses. In his portrait in chapter 3, I described his political background and the fascination with political poetry he has had since he was a teenager. His production mode is thus related to his political activism. He is closely connected to various Leftist groups in Beirut and is one of the key figures among the young Marxists who are critical of the Lebanese Communist Party. Beyond that, references to communist political writings are quite evident in his reflections on his writing process (see the quote above, i2) One blog post that reflects his production mode is “Wīkīlīksīyāt ṭizzastānīya”31, which the mind map above refers to. This blog post deals with what WikiLeaks has revealed about Lebanese politics. Before he wrote the post, as Khodor told me, he followed the news about these events on the Lebanese mainstream media, but mostly on Facebook and on a website called LebanonFiles.32 This was the ‘factual’ basis for the post. Yet, his approach to the matter is not to provide accurate news on the topic, but rather his own reflections and imaginings. This is already indicated in the title of the post. Ṭizzastān is the name of his “virtual republic” (Khodor i2), as he explained to me: Ṭizz, that is like an insult in Lebanon, it’s like “shit, je t’emmerde, ṭizz fīk” for example. That is what helped me to choose this title “Wīkīlīksīyāt ṭizzastānīya” and the subject around WikiLeaks; it’s a bit sarcastic, realistic sarcasm. First talking of the minister, social stuff, what I felt is going wrong in Lebanon […] and then transforming the faults into laughing, into jokes.

While his post is based on real events, he transforms it in his writings into something less ‘serious’. Facts are translated into stories and images that tell something about Lebanon in a sarcastic way. In this production mode, personal life experiences are mixed with descriptions of political developments. He does not seek accuracy in describing the events and persons envisaged, but finds images and metaphors that capture his perceived reality. Political events and topics are presented in a poetic way. As an example, this short extract of the post in English translation displays this way of writing: Finally the drunken documents prove that the strength of Ṭizzastān lies neither in its weakness nor in its resistance. Instead, the research of the secret services proved that the strength

31 “Wīkīlīksīyāt ṭizzastānīya”, https://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/, accessed December 15, 2011. 32 LebanonFiles is a Lebanese online news portal, see http://www.lebanonfiles.com.

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of Ṭizzastān lies in its youthfulness. The youth has a customised BMW, a CD of Hani Shakr, a quantity of styling gel that is enough to keep Muhammad Ali Clay fixed in his position, and the ability 3D to hit on someone in three different languages… that’s the strength of Ṭizzastān, it lies in its youth.33

Illustration 4: Mind map 2 by Khodor

Khodor, April 14, 2011

This second mind map displays the production of another blog post. The post called “Let us clean the dust from the map”34 was written in March 2011, at the beginning of the anti-sectarian demonstrations in Lebanon. Khodor told me: In this campaign the first demonstration was the essential one, because people saw that one thousand people were marching under the rain, they said, wow they will change. So before writing this there was my personal experience, experience in activism for I don’t know, seven years I think, seven years in activism […] why did I end up hating my nationality, not hating, but let’s say to be a bit far from my nationality, why I am ashamed of being Lebanese, why I

33 “Wīkīlīksīyāt ṭizzastānīya”, https://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/, accessed December 15, 2011. 34 “Li-nanfuḍ al-ghubār ʿan al-kharīṭa”, https://jou3an.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/, accessed March 11, 2011.

178 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES don’t like the national anthem, why I am against the flag, this idea of an identity card, what did it offer to me over the years, I tried to talk about changing all this.

The post is influenced by his longstanding experience in political activism and his participation in the current political campaign in Lebanon, his new “political experience” as he calls it. Khodor not only participated in the demonstrations, he was also among the organisers. At the same time, in this post Khodor reflects more broadly upon his relation to Lebanon and on being Lebanese. In contrast to the types discussed before, Khodor’s mode of production is not as clearly structured in terms of background research and production efficiency – at least not as he presents it to me. In a true literary style, no further links or sources are provided within the posts. Nevertheless, his blog production relies heavily on background information gained by following the news (see portrait chapter 3) and a deep, years-long experience in the field of activism. “Poetic drama” (dramatique poétique in his original French citation), dealing with politics in a personal way, as he calls it, can thus be described as the result of this production mode. Dramatic, poetic, realistic sarcasm – the words Khodor uses to describe his blog posts clearly hint at a particular way of writing and producing his blog posts, as well. It is not oriented towards and influenced by a journalistic way of producing, as in Assaad’s case, but oriented towards political-literary writings and a literary representation of reality. Accordingly, he plans to publish a book of his posts. While Khodor’s production mode can be perceived as quite specific and personal, there are other bloggers outside my sample who reflect at least a similar writing style, for instance the Hummus Nation35 blogger and the Toom Extra (Garlic Extra)36 blogger. They do not share the same political background, but write in a similar free literary style that is marked by irony and sarcasm. I will come back to this particular writing style in chapter 8. Another example of a literary-artistic production mode from this sample that it to be mentioned at least briefly is Maya Zankoul’s comic blogging. Although the genre is quite different, it is also an artistic mode of expression and production. It is based mainly on her own daily life experiences in Lebanon, as Maya tells me: “I tell stories of my life, so all the info is real.”37 Her production mode is oriented towards the display of daily life experiences in an artistic format. The ‘information’ she uses for the posts does not need further research, but consists of the stories of her life. Consequently, “the info is real”,38 as she puts it blankly. Her way of post-

35 http://www.hummusnation.net 36 http://www.toomextra.com/ 37 E-mail communication, April 30, 2011. 38 Ibid.

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ing does not require any additional research, since it depicts her personal life stories. It is, however, related to her professional work as a designer/illustrator. Although she perceives blogging as a hobby clearly distinguished from work, in terms of tools and styles the production process is rather close to her professional drawings. The issues she addresses are, however, certainly different and based on her personal experiences. Mixing it all: alternating between different ways of production As already indicated in the production stories I presented before, the line between different modes is not always clear-cut in the production of individual posts. Assaad, Adon and Khodor all write in the context of their activist engagement, yet each of them is oriented towards another kind of writing model. Furthermore, as I will illustrate now, the free mix of different modes of blog production can exactly characterise the production mode of a blogger. Liliane explained her ways of blogging as follows: There are three ways that I post: [1.] There is totally my own opinion, I research nothing, I listen to nobody, you know, I just put it out there, and this is usually Incoglilo [her personal blog]; if anything I search for a [link] online that I put it with it. [2.] There is the post I really research and for which I state sources at the end. Where I feel like it’s more like a scientific post, and I do this because I want people to make a change or to realise something, like once I evaluated the website of the ISF, the Interior Ministry in Lebanon, so that took time, I had to go read and check every page, check their links, to see if it’s working if its functioning.39 It took me a while to write this post, but this post wasn’t really a big hit, for example, you know, because it was long and people don’t care. [3.] And there is the third one; this is where people inspired me to something, so I take the story they told me, something they said, their opinion, and then I either ask what do you think, or I provide my opinion and ask them what do you think. (Liliane i2)

Liliane’s case exemplifies how a single blogger can thus combine different modes of production and alternate between different ways of posting in accordance with the topic and her mood. Her “three ways” (see quote above) of posting do not correspond to the three modes I presented so far, but present a ‘freer’ practice of mixing different ways of producing blog posts. Her case is special in some way, as she maintains three different blogs that sometimes reflect different production modes, although they are not clear-cut. However, production modes are also mixed in a

39 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/11/lets-go-for-ride-with-isf.html, accessed February 12, 2011.

180 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES single blog. The first mode she mentions here can be labelled ‘personal blogging,’ a different blogging production mode than those oriented towards professional writing genres.40 It does not rely on any previous research and mostly shows no sources or links. The second way of posting is oriented towards producing a “scientific post” (Liliane i2, see quote above), in which she checks and mentions her sources and which demands more time for preparation than the other ways. The third way of posting she refers to could be partly understood as personal blogging, as well; yet its main feature is that it tells stories of friends or acquaintances: it is others who inspire her to write about a certain topic, which she then forwards to her blog audience, asking for their opinion. One example of such an occasion is a post she wrote about what a friend of hers experienced in Lebanon.41 In this post she retold the story of a friend who wanted to come out as a gay to his brother and the problems he faced. I wanted to write about gays in Lebanon, and I don’t know really, I’m not the expert here, I’m not in the Helem, you know there’s a special [group] that’s called Helem for lesbians and gays and bisexuals. […] this was the only incident or experience I had and I felt it would shed a very good light on the subject, so I used it and I wrote about it and about gays, I wanted to raise more awareness. (Liliane i1)

She published a post that reflected her friend’s experience, yet without him knowing that she posted his story. This is mainly related to the fact that she did not yet make her blogging activity public among her friends at this point.42 A second example that reflects her “third way” (Liliane i2, see quote above) of production is the post on “Why you shouldn’t tweet much”43 that she published on her blog Go Social Media!: I was watching a friend of mine, she tweets a lot, and I tried to tell her in a subtle way that you shouldn’t, but then I didn’t really have time to go into details with her and then it popped up, why don’t I just do it as a post that gives people tips and advice?

40 Personal blogging can of course be literary blogging as well. Here I use the category to distinguish it from the other writing models. Personal or diary blogging as a genre is generally marked by presenting daily experiences and thoughts. 41 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/07/im-gay.html, accessed February 12, 2011. 42 I will discuss the private-public dynamics in relation to Liliane’s case in more detail in chapter 8 on publicness. 43 https://gosocialmedia.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/why-you-shouldnt-tweet-much/ , accessed March 30, 2011.

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This is coming from someone who has 31 thousand tweets, to show them, yes, I am not talking bullshit, I am someone who did tweet much and now I am advising you not to tweet much, and I said why and searched for something and I put it as a source to back myself up, I was… everything was in my own words and then in the end I put a link. So that took me about half an hour or 45 minutes to write and that was at night. (Liliane i2)

This post is thus based on an online observation of her friend’s Twitter behaviour. The initial material was then transformed into a post. Yet the post itself is ‘backed up’ with her own experience as an active tweeple. Being part of an online community of tweeples is here the basis for the post. Liliane is not the only blogger who is to be characterised by a mixing production mode; in a similar vein, Rami’s blog production is also a mix of different modes, from research-like posts, such as one on the Lebanese-produced missiles in the 1960s44 or posts that are based on his own experience, like his various restaurant critiques,45 anecdotes of daily life, and much more. These involve quite different production modes. Both bloggers, who have background in IT, opt for this mixing mode, which may be partly explained by the fact that their writing (in a certain genre) is not linked to a specific professional mode of text production. Hanibaael, who works as a content producer and photographer, also mixes different ways of production in his blogging: For a long post on minorities in the Middle East that he posted in four parts, the production was oriented toward journalistic efficiency (he wrote the post in one night, as he told me [i2]) and academic accuracy and thus similar to Adon’s production stories referred to above, yet carried out in a shorter time. These and similar posts are thematically connected to and motivated by his activist engagement.46 For other type of posts, his photographing at work or during his spare time is crucial, and he posts pictures from Beirut, such as stencils

44 http://www.plus961.com/2010/12/arz-missile-lebanese-made-surface-to-surface-missile/, accessed December 6, 2010. The main reference is to a document he found in one of the universities in Beirut (Hagazian, the Armenian university) and a Wikipedia article. 45 See for instance his series on breakfast in Beirut: http://www.plus961.com/2011/01/break fast-at-bread-republic-hamra/ and http://www.plus961.com/2011/01/breakfast-at-paulgemmayze/ that consists mainly of posted photos and an explanatory short note. Both accessed January 28, 2011. 46 Similarly to Adon, he also posted a rather critical post of the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement in March 2011 in which he continues the discussion by secularists like Adon who are critical of the movement. See “Kay lā tasqut al-ʿulmānīya qabl suqūt an-niẓām” [So that the secularists do not fall before the fall of the regime], https://hanibaael.wordpress.com /.2011/03/10/, accessed March 11, 2011. For this post he undertook mainly online research in Facebook groups, blogs et al., as he told me (Adon i2).

182 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES in the city, and from his trips to other places, with short notes giving a title and noting the place the photo was taken at. He alternates between these different types of posting and hence production modes. Overall, mixing different production modes and genres presents one of the crucial liberties of blogging: one is not bound to a particular writing style and can alternate between different ways of posting. However, as Liliane’s case shows, there are limits to this freedom. With her three different blogs (and their different topics and genres), she tries to distinguish her different production modes also formally, since she found it inadequate to mix certain personal ideas and research-like posts in one blog. Summary of different production modes As I have shown above, the bloggers in my sample share certain production practices when organising blog production and the timing of writing and posting. During the daytime, these bloggers writing for their blogs as much as work conditions and other commitments allow for it; the night is then the convenient time for longer posts. The time for publication is oriented towards achieving the greatest impact possible, i.e. when their audience is online. Beyond that, the exchange and collaboration with other bloggers is essential for their blogging: they take inspiration from others bloggers on how to write (see portraits chapter 2), exchange material, engage in discussions and more. Moreover, despite different production modes, most bloggers in this sample share the mode of searching for information online. All the bloggers whom I asked about their way of searching information online mentioned Google as the way to search. “I google stuff, I google a lot.” (Liliane i2); “I entered in Google search every Arabic region in every state and searched about it and found a lot of things that I didn’t know before” (Hanibaael i2): these are just two of the answers. Google functions as the unquestioned research tool per se, and “to google something” becomes the equivalent of searching for information.47 In this section, I showed that blogger not only mix different writing genres, but also recombine different modes of production in their blogging practice: from journalistic to academic and literary/artistic, as I argued on the basis of the material at hand. Assaad, Adon and Khodor are the clearest examples of ways of producing that are oriented towards a specific model, and their writing (blog post style) is also

47 In this vein, Lovink (2008b) speaks of the “Googlization of our lives” and critically engages with the monopoly of this search engine. See also the reports of the conference “Society of Query”, organised by the Institute of Network Cultures, held on November 13-14, 2009 in Amsterdam: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/query/category/conferencereports/, accessed January 28, 2012.

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the most consistent. Other bloggers experiment more freely with different ways of production and do not strive for consistency in the same way. When it comes to the relation between professional practice and blogging, I showed that both domains are connected and influence each other. Adon’s academic ambitions are reflected in his production mode and Assaad’s journalistic production skills structure his way of producing. Also for the other bloggers linkages between blogging and professional activities have become apparent. Despite Maya perceives her drawing for her blog as a hobby outside the daily work requirements, the comic book style is close to her professional drawings. However, what is quite striking is that although four of the bloggers presented in the production case studies share a professional background in journalism (Assaad, Adon, Hanibaael, Khodor), each positions himself differently within the field and practices a different kind of blogging. Thus, no simple relation between professional practice and blogging style can be defined. Nevertheless, all these bloggers use their wealth of political activist experience in their blogging. All modes presented are in a way activist modes of production, yet each blogger opts to realise his or her blogging differently in terms of professional background, intended career and personal preferences. With regard to the bloggers with a background in IT (Liliane and Rami), a more flexible, i.e. ‘mixing type’ of blog production is predominant in my material. Since neither blogger is involved in writing professionally, one could conclude, that this more ‘open’ type is the most convenient and closest at hand. What also has become clear during my fieldwork is that those who do not follow a clear structured production process are not inclined to give detailed information about the production process, and it was more difficult to get insights into how they proceed in researching and writing. In contrast, those who translate their professional ambitions of journalistic, academic or literary writing into blogging are very conscious of their production practice. This reflection is thus to be considered an intrinsic part of their professionalisation strategy. Overall, all bloggers mix and experiment with different writing styles and production practices, and the four modes presented here are by no means mutually exclusive. In contrast, they are characterised by their fluidness and by recombining different set of research practices and writing styles; they thus defy strict demarcation. Professional media practices are incorporated in blog production and reproduced; yet at the same time, they are blurred and opened up for political activist agendas and subjective experiences. Against this background, I will now relate the production modes to research on new media production.

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4.3 P RODUSAGE

AND MEDIA CONVERGENCE

In the following I will discuss two notions: produsage, introduced by Axel Bruns (2007, 2008), and media convergence, theorised in particular by Henry Jenkins (2004). Both are influential concepts for the analysis of ‘new media’ production in the context of media studies and beyond. By applying them to and with my material and contrasting them, the prospects and constraints of these concepts can be outlined. Produsage: production and usage combined Can the modes of blog production, as I have called them so far, be described in accordance with the concept of produsage? Produsage highlights the specific form of production and consumption of user-led creation. Whereas production is oriented towards a ‘product’, which “implies a specific outcome, a process of reaching that outcome, and a set of likely consumer interactions with this outcome” (Bruns 2008: 2), produsage emphasises the ‘usage’ and the role of the ‘consumer’. According to this, production and consumption can no longer be regarded as two separate processes; producers are also produsers, i.e. users, and consumers are also prosumers, i.e. are equally involved in production. In the chapter “News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News” in his book on produsage, Bruns (2008) outlines why (news) blogging is to be understood as produsage.48 He argues that news in citizen journalism49 can no longer be understood as a product in the industrial sense, since the story is a process, not a product like the standardised product in commercial journalism (Bruns 2008: 81). Bruns outlines the difference between commercial news production and production in citizen journalism. When it comes to blogging, he focuses his analysis not on single blogs, but on the activities of the overall blogosphere. According to him, the blogosphere can be understood as a “produsage project” – even if it is a decentralised and distributed produsage project (ibid.: 85) – and in contrast to other produsage projects, for instance WikiLeaks, the blogosphere has a more dispersed set of contributors and products.50 Citizen journalism and blogging

48 See also his and Schmidt’s more recent contribution on produsage: Bruns and Schmidt 2011. 49 Citizen journalism in its various forms, according to Bruns, is driven by the motivation to “act as a corrective and a supplement to the output of commercial, industrial journalism” (2008: 69). 50 I discussed the idea of a blogosphere as an entity in more detail in part I, where I note that the term does not give credit to the fluid state of a national blogging cluster and that

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are exemplified by two of the produsage principles in particular, “unfinished artefacts, continuing process, and common property, individual rewards”, as Bruns argues (2008: 70). The first principle highlights that produsage is not oriented toward the completion of a product, but “engaged in an iterative, evolutionary process aimed at the gradual improvement of the community’s shared content” (ibid.: 27). The second principle concerns the collaborative process of content production. According to Bruns, “participation in produsage projects is generally motivated mainly by the ability of producers to contribute to a shared, communal purpose” (ibid.: 29). Content is held communally, yet individual rewards can be gained from participating in such communal projects. These individual rewards can in turn create new motivation to participate in such projects (ibid.). While his argumentation is conclusive in itself, my material does not make it easy to distinguish the produsage process from other production modes. On the basis of my material, I showed that, within the broad category of civil journalist blogging, there is still a lot of convergence with former established production models. When it comes to the first principle, “unfinished artefacts, continuing process” (ibid.: 80f), my material indicates that the production process of specific posts is in practice a process with a more or less clear end. In practice, blog posts are not changed extensively after publishing, and thus blog practitioners do not perceive them as unfinished artefacts, despite their potentiality to be changed. However, the production of a blog as such is naturally an ongoing project and characterised by its continuous process; for instance, series, like those Adon and Hanibaael write, tend to be open and blog posts can be changed. Beyond that, comments on blog posts and the bloggers’ replies are a sign of the ongoing process of a post, yet they are not part of the initial production process. As for the second principle, “common property, individual rewards” (ibid.: 84), most blogs are not common property or collectively produced, but, as I described above, are produced by individual bloggers. On the one hand, interaction with the audience influences the production process in some cases, and collaboration can be essential for gathering the material.51 Next, many comments, i.e. individual recipients, as I showed above, can even be a distinctive feature of a post.52 On the other hand, for most bloggers blogging is an individual project and the blog is used as a personal website on which they publish their individual writings, photos and drawings, which are also connected to their professional activity. As I showed in the

it suggests a common cause and community, which is not the case for many so-called blogospheres. 51 For instance, Assaad relied on other bloggers’ or activists’ YouTube videos for the aforementioned blog post. 52 In contrast, the reception of print articles is not visible to the reader.

186 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES chapter on the local field dynamics (2.2) for the Lebloggers association, communal projects are often characterised by conflicting communal and individual interests. Consequently, Bruns’ argument on the communal production of information can only partly be applied to the material presented here. This is not to neglect the common activities in the local field of blogging (see 2.2). Features of a communal knowledge production on a greater scale, in which different positions and agendas are in dialogue with each other, are also to be found. Yet the blog production process itself cannot be described as mainly a communal effort; rather, individual agendas dominate. Overall, I would argue that Bruns’ concept fits independent media projects well, but is only partly applicable to individual blog production. When it comes to the interplay between the production and consumption of different kinds of media, produsage practices are clearly to be found during preparation and searching for material. Or, put differently, the production and interpretation of other media texts are mutually dependent, “only through the production process can a text emerge, and only through experience of texts can the production process take place” (Ytreberg 2002: 56). In the local field of blogging in this study, “common property” (Bruns 2008: 70) and “communal purpose” (ibid.: 29) are often in a conflicting relation with the bloggers’ personal interests. Beyond that, the continuities with production modes in journalism and other fields discussed above show that no complete break with ‘traditional’ production modes is made. However, there are certainly new features that vary greatly from news production in commercial journalism. For instance, bloggers are independent of editorial control by an organisation and more open to their peer groups’ criticism and inspiration. Thus, the principles of produsage apply only partly to individual blogs. In contrast, my material sheds light on continuities with professional media production practices, although the bloggers are independent of such forms of editorial control. Media convergence in production Media convergence, understood as an increasing interlinking between different kinds of media, is reflected in and very much a part of the production process of social media products. In general, as Henry Jenkins (2004: 34ff) outlines with regard to the American media environment, media convergence can be observed in media tools that no longer have only one function (such as phones that are also used for games, taking photos etc.), in overlapping and simultaneous media use (chatting, writing and e-mail, playing games, downloading files), in media formats that shift from TV to the internet, in the convergence between broadcast and grassroots media etc. According to Jenkins, convergence between different media is not just a

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technological shift, but “alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres and audiences” (Jenkins 2004: 34). This entails a shift in the producer and consumer relation at various levels. Convergence is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process. Media companies are learning how to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets and reinforce viewer commitments. Consumers are learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other users. They are fighting for the right to participate more fully in their culture, to control the flow of media in their lives and to talk back to mass market content. (Ibid.: 37)

In Jenkins’ analysis, consequently, producers and consumers are involved in a constant struggle, yet at times the relations between the two groups also get closer (ibid.) But, as I discussed in connection with the term produsage, the producer and the consumer are not strictly separated. While bloggers are on the bottom-up side, they are at the same time producers in their own right. However, in Lebanon, the context of my field of study, asymmetrical power relations have not changed substantially for the time-frame of this study.53 The “flow of media” cannot be said to be under the control of consumers, at least not in the perceptions of the bloggers in this sample.54 But convergence trends in production can be found. My material indicates that during blog production diverse links to other media, whether on- or offline, are relevant and blog production already takes place in convergence mode. First, bloggers are heavy media consumers, as I showed when outlining their media use (chapter 3). They read and link to newspapers (print or online) and they are often intensive users of other online tools, such as Twitter and Facebook. The range of media is not thereby hierarchically ordered: whether Facebook information posted by friends or a newspaper article (in print or online), or even a billboard on the roadside – all of these are part of the media environment and part of the production process. Facebook, however, does play a dominant role and functions as an aggregator and transmitter of news through the bloggers’ networks. To obtain news, in contrast, traditional commercial outlets, such as print newspapers and TV stations, are not primarily consulted. The different media are first used for gathering information and then function as either background infor-

53 On a more general scale, Couldry and Langer (2005) argue that it is still the media corporations that decide what is legitimate content. For an overview of the controversy, see Ardèvol 2010a: 263ff. 54 In chapter 8 I will discuss their views on the mainstream media in more detail and the kind of counter-publicness that is at stake.

188 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES mation or direct reference for the blog post. Moreover, the online tools Facebook and Twitter are also used to promote the blog posts. Convergence is thus to be found both in the production and the transmission of blogs. Beyond that, the bloggers’ media use and production modes, especially in Assaad’s case (see 3.3), indicate that professional and personal media practices are indivisibly interrelated. Convergence is thus also to be found in the overlap between professional and private media practices, notably in the cases of bloggers who also work as journalists. Synopsis Despite all the individual differences in blog production and the different production modes, some main tendencies in blog production can be summarised: First, all bloggers show a high degree of time commitment in their blog production. Although it is different for each post, the overall amount of time is substantial, especially considering the bloggers’ highly demanding professional life and the various activities and projects they pursue in addition. For all, regularity in blogging is very important in order to keep their readers interested and also to stay in the flow of writing and publishing. Producing blog posts is very much a part of everyday life. The bloggers search for information during work, and writing is integrated in breaks or practiced in the evenings or at night. Blogging depends upon the organisation of everyday life and at the same time also functions as an organising force for daily life. Second, what crystallised out of the interviews with the actors is their wellorganised writing and posting schedule and their ‘efficiency’ in posting. Nevertheless, blog production is not an industrial production process. The production process cannot be planned in the minutest detail; rather, it is a creative process that is subject to political circumstances, (other) professional demands and personal moods. Third, the high self-reflectivity of the production process was quite impressive to me. Most interviewees started to explain and draw the structure of their production process instantly, exposing how they work, in what formats they post, what they want to accomplish and whom they want to reach with their posts. They are also highly aware of which media tools they use for inspiration, information and dissemination in blog production. A fourth tendency is the mutual relation and influence between professional life and blog production. This is to be found at various levels: bloggers repost on their blog articles they published as journalists/activists elsewhere, and they try to make both activities converge. Often agendas common to both fields are to be found. Furthermore, bloggers use their expertise from their professional activity in their blog production: either when it comes to production skills, as Assaad uses his journal-

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istic skills in his blog production, or technologically, as Liliane uses her technological skills in online marketing for the blog aggregator (see chapter 3). Beyond that, the models they orient themselves towards in their way of production, such as journalistic efficiency and academic credibility, are partly connected with their professional career, as I showed for Assaad and Adon. Fifth, all bloggers use their social networks in order to obtain information and sources (such as videos from demonstrations). At this level, cooperation is to be found especially among the political activist bloggers and the social media campaigners. As I already discussed in chapter 2, face-to-face contacts within common social fields, such as meeting at demonstrations or social media events, is also an important condition of the production process. The notions of produsage and convergence both help to grasp specific features in the production process: produsage the interplay between production and reception; convergence the relation between different media practices and usages. Yet, as I just discussed, my material does not clearly confirm the narratives of a complete change in production modes and media hierarchies that both notions are embedded in. In contrast, my material rather shows continuities with previous production modes (such as journalism) and hints at the convergence between ‘professional’ and ‘private’ media practices. In conclusion, “practice[s] around the media object” (see Ardèvol et al. 2010a: 275), from media practices to political and professional practices, are crucial for the production process and the media product as such. These cannot be grasped by a text-based blog analysis. In the following chapter, I will now conceptualise blogging as practice and its relation to other practices.

5. Blogging as practice

In the last two chapters on the production context and production practices of blogs, I analysed blogging from a practice angle. In the following chapter I will now bind my findings more explicitly to practice theory, which I discussed in the introduction to part II and conceptualise blogging as practice and its relation to other practices. The volume Theorising Media and Practice (2010), edited by Bräuchler and Postill, is an essential reference for this endeavour. “Although practice theory has been a mainstay of social theory for nearly three decades, so far it has had very limited impact on media studies,” Bräuchler and Postill (2010) state on the cover of the volume. The publication tries to fill this gap and presents various scholars’ comprehensive and critical discussion of the implications of theorising media as practice. In trying to conceptualise blogging as practice, I will thus closely link my reflections to the discussion in this volume. The modest endeavour of this monograph is to further enrich the study of media by incorporating practice theory into the field. To recapitulate, in a first step, practice theory informed my approach to the field of blogging in terms of focusing on production practices and materialities. During my research, I then realised that blogging can be understood as a practice that integrates a wide set of practices, blurs genres and is embedded in the daily lives of its practitioners. Thus, practice-theoretical approaches and terms presented a suitable theoretical perspective to analyse the data I gathered. However, it proved to be a particular challenge to understand blogging as a practice because of the particular features of online practices such as its temporariness and its fluidity. These challenges will be addressed in the remainder of this chapter. In the foregoing chapters, I showed the social differentiation of blogging in my field of study. In the following, I begin with a conceptualisation of blogging practice and analyse its relation to other practices. Following up on this, I will delve into the question why the actors in my field of study engage in the practice of blogging more comprehensively and tie the discussion to the question of rewards that blogging practice offers (Warde 2005).

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5.1 B LOGGING

AS INTEGRATIVE

AND RECOMBINANT PRACTICE Practice theoretician Theodore Schatzki (1996) provides a useful tool for the conceptualisation of practices by distinguishing between two types of practices: 1. dispersed and 2. integrative practices. As dispersed practices, Schatzki subsumes practices like explaining, discussing, asking, greeting etc.: practices that are “widely dispersed among different sectors of social life” (1996: 91). Integrative practices, in contrast, are more complex. They are “found in and constitutive of particular domains of social life” (ibid.: 98) and may involve several dispersed practices. As examples, Schatzki mentions business practices, recreational practices, religious practices etc. (ibid.). Media practices are another of these integrative practices. According to Schatzki, dispersed practices are, however, not merely assembled within an integrative practice, but may be transformed by being part of it (ibid.: 99). In contrast to dispersed practices, as he further outlines, people are “almost always […] aware of and have words for the integrative practices in which they participate” (ibid.: 104). This significant feature can be applied to a wide range of media practices, from photography and filmmaking to digital media production practices such as blogging. Thus, a media practice may be understood as an integrative practice that involves a set of dispersed practices of production, distribution and consumption that together constitute a social domain (cultural performance). (Ardèvol et al. 2010a: 275)

In this perspective, each media practice can be analysed with regard to its various practices of production, distribution and consumption. As I have shown for my case studies, blogging as media practice involves a wider range of various media practices. To briefly recapitulate, the various practices involved, as I have outlined in chapter 4, are the following: in production, blogging involves a wide range of practices, such as searching, writing, organising ideas, discussing, photographing, filming and drawing. In distribution, another set of practices is involved that is closely connected with social networking tools online. As the bloggers in my field explained, the most effective way of promoting and distributing blog posts is by posting a link for each new post on Facebook and Twitter.1 Furthermore, consumption is strongly interlinked with blogging practice: reading other blogs, following friends or groups on Facebook and/or Twitter and throughout social networks, read-

1

A few bloggers, for example Khodor, also distribute their posts as printouts to family members to read. He does this in order to reach people other than those online. See chapter 7 for more on the intended audience and ways of reaching it.

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ing a wide range of other online and print media and watching television. As Stephen Downes (2004: 24) pointed out in an article about educational blogging: Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting.

Involving a range of other media practices, blogging as an integrative practice is constitutive of a “social domain” (see Ardèvol et al. 2010a: 275) of life. The social domain is materialised in the bloggers’ meetings and social media events in which bloggers take part and meet that I described in chapter 2. As the bloggers’ portraits have illustrated, blogging is very much connected to other domains of practice, from journalism and activism to literature and art, and linked to their professional lives in various ways. Thus, blogging combines a set of dispersed as well as integrative practices – media practices and “media-related practices”2 – and is intermingled with other domains of practice. These practices are by no means confined to blogging. Moreover, taking the theoretical perspective further, one could speak of blogging as an integrative practice par excellence. It allows bloggers to integrate and bind a lot of dispersed and integrative practices they have already carried out before starting to blog, such as taking photos, writing poetry, being involved in activism and so forth. As I will show later in the discussion of specific practices related to blogging, these practices may be strengthened and also transformed by blogging. Similarly, following Schmidt, blogging can be described as a “recombinant practice”. Schmidt (2006: 41) argues that blogs are recombinant, as they combine different elements and usages, such as those of homepages and discussion forums, in a new way. This can lead to new innovative practices.3 However, as he outlines, blogging is at the same time an underdetermined (“unter-determiniert”) practice because it allows for a lot of different practices and usages (Schmidt 2006: 41). Schmidt’s description of blogging as recombinant practice also hints at the conver-

2

Hobart (2010: 63) suggests the term “media-related practices” rather than Couldry’s (2010: 39) “media-oriented practices”. By looking at media-related practices, one can also integrate practices that are linked to but not oriented towards specific media practices. As an example, Hobarts mentions women cooking meals at times of the day that allow their family to watch their favourite TV programmes.

3

Original citation in German: “[Weblogs] sind rekombinant, weil sie Elemente und Nutzungsweisen verschiedener Anwendungen (insbesondere von Homepage und Diskussionsforen) auf eine neue Art zusammenführen und dadurch innovative Praktiken ermöglichen, in denen neue und alte Bedeutungen zusammenfließen.” (Schmidt 2006: 41)

194 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES gence of blogging with other online tools that I discussed before in chapter 4 on the different production modes. Beyond that, it can be linked to the different ways of blogging that I showed in the bloggers’ portraits and in my discussion of their production modes: from the simple reposting of interesting links with short added comments, to drawing daily life events to writing long articles and much more. Against this background, understanding blogging as recombinant practice sheds light on the wide set of different practices it entails and recombines, such as writing, photography, drawing and much more. In a similar vein, but from another perspective, blogging can be understood as recombinant practice in the context of knowledge work (“Wissensarbeit”, see Beck 2000). Knowledge work, understood as the production and transfer of knowledge, in the form of the acquisition (“Aneignung”) of knowledge, is also a characteristic part of modern daily life (Beck 2000: 232). In the recombinant practice of blogging, while reading, interpreting, analysing writing, posting (transmitting) and so forth, blogging features all three aspects of knowledge work. While my work focuses more on the production of knowledge rather than its representation, transmission or storage, these aspects still have to be considered if one wants to fully understand blogging as knowledge work. But, as Adon’s production story exemplified (chapter 4), the acquisition and transfer of knowledge are also found when analysing production. In the following I will shed more light on the relation between blogging and other practices, but also the timely shifts within online practices. Relation to other practices As just discussed, blogging integrates a set of other practices and is itself integrated in and mingled with other practices. How can this relation and organisation between practices be described and understood? Couldry (2010: 47f) suggests applying Ann Swidler’s approach of ‘anchoring practices’ (2001) to the study of media practices. According to Swidler, anchoring practices are practices that “play a key role in reproducing larger systems of discourse and practice” (ibid.: 90) and may establish or change constitutive rules within a domain of practice. Swidler approaches this question in two ways. First, from “definitional hierarchy: some practices are defined as parts of larger practice which provides their key reference points” (Couldry 2010: 42). Second, as a question of “dynamic change: some practices ‘anchor’ others, because changes in the former automatically cause reformulation of the latter’s aims” (ibid.). An anchoring practice can thus, according to Swidler, be understood as a constitutive and referential practice within a wider domain of practice that has the capability to transform the practice attached to it. Based on Swidler, Couldry (2001: 47) calls for looking at whether media practices

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have a “privileged role in anchoring other types of practice because of the privileged circulation of media representations and images of the social world,” and consequently whether they might organise or even control other practices. Other authors in the Theorising Media as Practice volume are rather critical of this approach. Hobart argues against privileging media practices over other practices and objects that organising practices hierarchically would only lead to new problems (2010: 59, 63). Helle-Valle criticises in a similar way that Couldry’s question is not suitable for all research topics, since it prioritises media practices (2010: 197f). While I share their scepticism in privileging media practices over other practices, I nevertheless find it fruitful to think about the relation between blogging and other practices in terms of anchoring. This does not necessarily entail assigning media practices a privileged role, but can also imply looking at relations between different media practices. As anchoring practice, I understand broadly a practice that presents the basis for another practice and that structures and organises it to a certain degree. In the following analysis of the relation between blogging and other practices, I will thus try to make use of the ‘anchoring perspective’. Is blogging anchored by other practices; if so, to what effect; and which practices are anchored by blogging? More specifically, following Swidler’s two approaches, one must ask how the relations can be described in terms of definitional relations (rather than hierarchies) and dynamics of change. The aim here is not to think hierarchically, but rather to shed light on the relational and mutual influences of blogging and other practices/domains of practice. In doing this, I do not intend to single out media practices from among other domains of practice, or blogging from among other digital media practices, but rather to look more specifically at the interplay between various media and other practices that are the most relevant in my material. I will discuss blogging in terms of two different sets of practices: first, in relation to other, mainly digital media practices and second, in relation to other domains of practice. In each section, I focus on a few examples, namely first Facebook, Twitter and, much more briefly, photography and second activism and journalism, since these are most relevant in my material. Blogging and other media practices I don’t think it would work without Facebook. I know the main way to get to people is on Facebook and Twitter. I think they are very complementary, at least in Lebanon; everyone is on Facebook. MAYA I1

196 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES Facebook is more flexible and on Facebook you have your own picture and you have your own, your life, you can write something in the status you know, in one minute and you can get feedback from hundreds of people who are online, but on your blog you can’t do it. HANIBAAEL I1

Blogging, as already shown, is linked to a set of other digital media practices, among which mainly Facebook and Twitter are to be mentioned. These are microblogging tools and thus exhibit features of blogging, yet in reduced length.4 In contrast to blogging, they can provide the practitioner with intense immediate feedback, as Hanibaael outlines here. Both can be described as integrative or recombinant practices as well, since they combine different elements of other practices/tools. Facebook Facebook, as I have demonstrated in chapter four, is a digital media tool and practice pertinent to the production of blog posts. As Adon’s blog-post production exemplified, it is used for searching for information, being up-to-date about current developments and political discussions. Even though it is not considered a source for background research for new posts in a strict sense, reading other people’s posts on Facebook is nevertheless a source of inspiration: Sometimes Facebook is a good source for ideas, when people mention stuff, when they write some random stuff mentioning something interesting, I build up on these small sentences to grow a bigger idea for a blog post. (Rami i2)

Furthermore, according to the assessment of bloggers, using Facebook is a very convenient and efficient way to disseminate and promote blog posts. In addition to posting their new posts on Facebook, some bloggers also maintain fan pages for their blogs on Facebook (Assaad, Khodor, Maya) in order to promote their blog.5 Consequently, it is not only a tool of production but also distribution and constitutes one of the elementary practices linked to blogging. If we look solely at the production and dissemination of blogs, we could understand blogging as the main

4

Twitter is based on entries that can be up to 140 characters long.

5

A personal Facebook profile only allows 5,000 friends, while a fan page can have an unlimited number of fans.

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or anchoring practice to which Facebook is attached and for which it is used. Yet there is more to it, since blogging depends on Facebook for distribution, as Maya expressed in the introductory citation above, and furthermore Facebook is very much an independent digital media practice. Facebook has been very popular in Lebanon for years, which shows in its high user numbers (over 1,200,000 in 2011, see 1.1)6. All bloggers and journalists I talked to during my second field stay confirmed that Facebook has gained even more popularity since the beginning of the Arab uprisings. As I showed in the two foregoing chapters, it became the information tool for the bloggers in my sample and it even partly replaced other media practices such as reading the papers. Facebook news ‘agencies’ like the Egyptian Rasid7 were among the prominent sites to report on the Egyptian revolution. While it is perceived that “everybody is on Facebook” (Maya i2), few Lebanese youths are involved in blogging. Facebook had become so omnipresent in Lebanese digital media practices that one could argue that it could potentially displace blogging completely, and some bloggers have been moving more towards using Facebook more than their blogs, as for instance activist blogger Farfahinne told me: “It’s easier to use and I realised that people are more attracted by Facebook.”8 During my time in Beirut, I was often asked why I do not study Facebook rather than blogging, since ‘everyone’ uses it. When I talked to a young journalist in Beirut, he asked me whether posting on Facebook could not be regarded as blogging as well and where one could draw the line.9 This reflects that actors in the journalistic field regarded the boundaries between blogs and Facebook as rather fluid. However, blogging remains important especially for those working journalistically, as Hanibaael explained to me: Look, in Lebanon the activist bloggers use Facebook more than YouTube and blogs. The main tool is Facebook. But for the journalist, especially the youth, like me and Jou3an and Trella also and Adon, they are journalists and they write, so they use blogs, you know. (i1)

This indicates that the use of different tools is closely linked to professional backgrounds. Facebook along with other tools is certainly at the forefront for infor-

6

User numbers have raised to 4,577,007 in 2017, see http://www.internetworldstats.com/st ats5.htm, accessed August 8, 2017.

7

https://www.facebook.com/rasidnews, accessed February 14, 2012. Khodor refers to it in 3.5.

8

Interview with Farfahinne on February 25, 2010, café/bar T-Marbouta, Beirut.

9

Interview with Ibrahim Shahara from Shabab as-Safir on April 18, 2011.

198 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES mation and activism,10 but for those who are professionally engaged in journalistic writing, blogging is still a core digital media practice. Twitter The relation between blogging and the micro-blogging practice Twitter is slightly different. First, Twitter also functions as a tool to promote blog posts. “I market my own posts. I say there’s a new post that’s called… check it out here; this helped me also to bring more traffic to my blogs,” as Liliane (i1) explained. In a similar vein Rami (i1) stated: I publish the story on my Twitter account and others start to retweet my tweet or people simply just click on the Facebook share button and they’ll have the post published on their own profile and then their friends will be clicking on this link and eventually come to my blog.

As Liliane elucidated further, Twitter was also a very fast way of getting feedback for certain questions. For example, once she had asked what she could do to improve the Lebanon Aggregator and got instant feedback. Because they follow newspapers and other news outlets via Twitter, for bloggers like Liliane and Rami, Twitter is also influential in the production process of their posts in terms of background research and inspiration. A significant difference in use is that Twitter, unlike blogging, is used when short messages need to be published instantly, such as posting the latest news while participating in a demonstration. “I use Twitter whenever I’m in the middle of chaos,” said the blogger Trella.11 This implies that those who are tweeting are connected to the internet via their phone, which presents a very different setting from writing blog posts on one’s work PC during a break or one’s home PC. Trella explained, “especially when I’m outside Lebanon, I don’t blog as much as I use Twitter; I blog using Twitter,” and continued: When I’m in Lebanon I’m either at home or at the office or having a drink somewhere, so I have access to the blog via my phone, or the office internet or internet at my house, so I blog. But once I’m away or I don’t have my computer with me, I blog on Twitter. So you can see,

10 Nevertheless, the activist blogger Farfahinne is critical about Facebook as a mobilising tool – “often 2000 say they come and only 20 show up” (Interview with Farfahinne on February 25, 2010). A lot of activists shared this sometimes frustrating experience with mobilising on Facebook. In the open session of the ArabNet in March 2012 (see 2.2), a number of young activists talked about this experience. (Field notes, March 25, 2012.) 11 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010.

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if you go on Twitter, you can see that sometimes I’m sending lots and lots of updates and all of a sudden it stops for like a week or two.12

This indicates that the level of use depends both on locality and materiality in terms of internet access and the devices at hand. The huge number of tweets during the Lebloggers’ coverage of the municipal election in May 2011 (see 2.2) also reflects this.13 While bloggers were out ‘in the field’ or ‘on the spot’ covering the voting process in various Lebanese provinces, short tweets were the suitable short and fast way to present their findings. Mobile blogging, which is also called ‘moblogging’, as Trella’s citation exemplifies, is thus another kind of blogging, practiced predominantly on Twitter. His quotation “I blog on Twitter,” (see above) indicates also that the two practices are not to be separated, but converge. “It’s a package” Overall, the relation between blogging and Facebook and Twitter practices is quite blurry and not stable. Therefore, they cannot be strictly separated; “it’s a package”, as Hanibaael (i1) put it. Put differently, the relation reflects the high degree of media convergence among digital media practices (see 4.3). As my material indicates, these practices could, if at all, be ‘hierarchised’ from the point of individual actors and their use, since from case to case blogging, Facebook and Twitter are used for different amounts of time and purposes. Yet in terms of materialities, blogging is nevertheless to be distinguished from micro-blogging. As my data indicates, blogging is practiced to write, from home or work, i.e. in rather stable material localities, and the actual writing depends on being based in front of a PC. In contrast, Twitter is tends to be practiced when one is outside and “in the middle” of something (see the quote from Trella above). None of these three digital media practices can be said to anchor another practice in the strict sense. When it comes more broadly to relational definitions within social media as a domain of practice, my material indicates that, while blogging played a key role in the domain of social media practices – as Lovink (2008a: xxiii) described it as “proxy of our time”, it has been partly replaced by micro-blogging practices, i.e. bloggers micro-blog on both Facebook and Twitter. Blogging has thus been influenced by the emergence of other digital media practices (microblogging). Changes in these practices and the concentration on Facebook have led to a different use of blogging, which is more concentrated on long posts, counter-

12 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010. 13 The Twitter stream from the bloggers involved was simultaneously published on the Lebloggers’ website and thus incorporated in the more traditional website format.

200 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES representation and background information, when it comes to activism.14 As Hanibaael pointed out, blogging became more confined to journalists and less prevalent among activists in general, which the activist blogger Farfahinne’s shift to Facebook also illustrates. Facebook also provides a platform for other professional practices, such as illustrating, on which works can be published. Blogging can nevertheless to be said to organise micro-blogging practices to a certain degree by being a role model and reference point. Blogging and photography Plus961 made me always take my camera and take it with me wherever I go, since I might take a good photo or a good set of photos to be published on the blog. I find myself motivated to take more photos, for example, to put them on the blog. In addition to reading more in the newspapers about what really happened, watching some news maybe. RAMI I1

Besides digital media practices, blogging is related to a set of other media practices and, as Rami outlines here, influences how these other media practices are conducted. Photography is a media practice that most bloggers in my sample engage in and whose products they regularly or occasionally post on their blog. The blog platform is a convenient and easy way of publishing pictures and getting feedback – at least in the form of simple compliments such as “nice pic”. Hanibaael told me that after he got his new camera: I publish every week one picture, one photo that I took. Photo-blogging. And I’m surprised how many people write comments on photos: more than comments on articles! (i1)

Generally, most of the bloggers in my sample practiced photography in a rather amateur manner before they started to blog or started it independently, yet blogging functions as a catalyst and further motivation for taking photos.15 In sum, blogging thus does not have an anchoring function in the strict sense, but organises and di-

14 As the material about blogging the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement in chapter indicates. 15 See also Edgar Gomez Cruz’s (2011) thesis on photo-blogging: De la “cultura Kodak” a la “cultura Flickr”: Prácticas de fotografía digital en la vida cotidiana, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain.

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rects photographing, since there is a platform to publish the ‘products’ later. It functions as an organising practice: the rhythm of publishing and the demand for constant engagement and the readers’ expectations structure this blogging-related practice. Blogging and other domains of practice: activism and journalism In addition to the practices just described, blogging is related to a range of other integrative practices that also build domains of social life. The two pertinent in my material are activism and journalism. Blogging and activism First, it must be emphasised that not all bloggers are political/social activists. However, a significant part of the interviewees in my sample are engaged in various political activities, from being involved in leftist political groups to working voluntarily for NGOs and more. This makes activism is a good example of intermingling fields of practice. More broadly, the Arab Bloggers Meetings held in Beirut 2008, 2009 and Tunis 2011 clearly reflect the amalgam of blogging and activism. Here bloggers met, shared their experiences in activism and were trained in all kinds of technological tools relevant for blogging. Together with other online practices, blogging developed a specific domain of activism labelled “cyber-activism”,16 “internet activism”,17 “nerd politics”18 or, more specifically related to blogs, “netroots”.19 Bennett and Toft (2009) emphasise the interaction between the development of communication technologies and patterns of social activism, stating that neither activism nor the technology is necessarily prior.20 There is an ever-growing academic discussion on internet activism that cannot be summarised here21 and blogging has been widely portrayed as being

16 See for instance McCaughey and Ayers 2003. 17 See Postill 2014. 18 See also Postill’s forthcoming publication The Rise of Nerd Politics: Digital Activism and Political Change (forthcoming 2018 with Pluto Press). 19 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netroots, accessed February 23, 2012. 20 Bennett and Toft (2009: 250) also argue with Bruno Latour that social software should be understood as non-human “actants” in this process. 21 For overview references, see the Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics edited by Andrew Chatwick and Philip N. Howard (2009), in which different authors discuss these changes predominantly from a network perspective. For the Middle East, the Arab Media & Society journal provides a reflection of the current academic discussions on the topic. See http://www.arabmediasociety.com/.

202 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES an activist tool in the Middle East; my point is to emphasise that internet research tends to highlight the correlative influence between digital media tools and emerging forms of activism. Yet, internet activism has also been critically regarded as ‘slacktivism’. The term designates passive online engagement, such as signing online petitions etc. with no effect on the ground, an engagement that is criticised as not being ‘real’ activism. Actors in my field of study also reflect this critical perspective on internet activism. As Farfahinne puts it, “It is an illusion that if you become active on the internet everybody will follow you.”22 Several activist bloggers hence emphasised the importance of going beyond the online realm: “If blogging remains only blogging with no work on the ground, it doesn’t do anything, so blogging should be going side by side with active work, like you’re blogging about a cause” (Assaad i1). In a similar way, bloggers who only post about activist action, but do not take part in it, may find themselves regarded critically. Referring to another blogger, Khodor (i1) expressed, “[he], for example, is one of those people who only write”23. This indicates that an activist blogger who merely writes about or watches a demonstration but is not involved may be criticised as an activist in name only. Activism in its different varieties is an integrative practice, as it combines different practices. In a general sense, both blogging and activism display a set of similar practices, such as writing, discussing or disseminating ideas and arguments for specific causes. Consequently, the two domains of practices overlap and cannot to be separated; they may be considered to anchor each other. Blogging also develops a specific dynamic of activist practice, in which blogging about activism and blogging as part of activism cannot be separated – at least in the timeframe of this study; more on change below. For most activist bloggers, blogging is perceived and represented as a part of activism. Thus, with regard to Swindler’s first question of “definitional hierarchies” (see Couldry 2010: 42), activism can be said to define their blogging practice. Khodor’s common agenda for blogging and his political activist life (see 3.5) show how he employs the blog as a tool to express his political thoughts and reflections. Bloggers use their blogs for their political activity, to spread and discuss their political ideas, whether about secularism, which is a unifying issue for a lot of bloggers, refugee rights (Assaad), non-violent political action (Hanibaael) or environmentalism (Adon), just to name a few.24 Blogging is less a mobilising tool (see Farah’s criticism above) than a platform for discussing and sharing information about political activities. It is a platform for reflecting on activism, as Adon’s and Hanibaael’s

22 Interview with Farfahinne on February 25, 2010, Beirut. 23 Original French citation: “un des gens par exemple qui ne fait que écrire.” (Khodor i1) 24 For specific causes, see chapter 8.2 on counter-publicness.

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posts on the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement indicate. It is also a form of presentation of one’s political engagement, i.e. it functions as a domain of self-representation as an activist. Moreover, blogging is deployed as tool of counter-representation of what has been reported in the mainstream media, as Assaad’s posts on the demonstrations during the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement illustrate (chapter 4). Concerning Swidler’s second anchoring question about “dynamics of change” (see Couldry 2010: 42), blogging and other digital media practices have changed how activism is organised, how information is spread and discussed and how new forms of activism are closely linked to digital media practices. As Hanibaael puts it, he did not need to go to the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām meetings, because “it was all online” (i2). The main discussion did not necessarily take place in on blogs, but in various groups and on platforms on Facebook. Blogs, however, provide an archive of political discussion and action, since they store the bloggers’ accounts chronologically and make them retrievable. In contrast, micro-blogging functions more intermittently and temporarily and only stores data briefly (Twitter) or makes it hard to retrieve posts that are not recent (Facebook). The actors in the field did not mention this last aspect, which is a hint that it is not relevant for them. For other knowledge practices, such as writing this book, however, the stored information of blogs proved to be extremely convenient, as it allowed me to easily gain a more historical perspective on this practice. Blogging and journalism It [blogging] taught me how to become more professional in journalism actually, because I started looking at the two sides of each story. ASSAAD I2 Maybe it is because I used to love journalism when I was very young... Plus961 is one way of practicing journalism. RAMI I1

A second domain of practice, linked to the bloggers’ professional life, is journalistic writing. About half of the bloggers in my sample are professionally involved in journalism (Adon, Assaad, Hanibaael, Khodor). In their accounts of how they got into blogging, most of them mentioned being frustrated with editorial limits in their journalistic work. For people like Rami, who are not professionally involved in journalism, the self-perception as “practicing journalism” is nevertheless important

204 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES to their understanding of their own practice. Blogging has often been described as the contemporary form of “citizen journalism” (see Allan and Thorson 2009). Yet, this label has also been criticised, since the “content is often closer to community activism” (Kiss and Christie 2010: n. p.). Overall, the links to journalistic practice in terms of writing, reporting, transmitting information etc. are however quite obvious. As Assad’s citation above indicates, his blogging experience had an impact on his journalistic writing and he had learnt to reflect more on “two sides” of a story by blogging. Blogging “taught him how to become more professional” – which clearly indicates the influence of blogging on his journalistic practice (Assaad i2). Liliane, too, described how she had learnt “what idea you can say that would keep you safe and not have anyone attack you […] what can be said and what not by blogging” (i2). Moreover, she adds, “it gives you sort of a business mind in one way or another, or a marketing mind, to see what people like and what they don’t like” (i1). Although Liliane is not a journalist, these capabilities can be said to have a major learning effect in blogging and be applied to other writings, in particular for those who are professional (journalistic) writers. In general, blogging and journalistic writing can be easily combined. Articles can be posted on the blog and thus be used for promoting the blogger’s journalistic writings. As I showed in chapter 4, not only Assaad brings his journalistic skills into play for his blogging practice. In addition, blogging is also a catalyst for writing – as Adon expressed above (as cited in chapter 3 and 4): “The mere existence of the blog motivates me to write more, to express more.” (i1) Constantly writing for and publishing on the blog provides exercise in writing as the basic journalistic skill. Returning to the questions of anchoring and definitional relations, the practitioners’ perspective considers blogging to be as much a part of journalism as journalism is of blogging. More specifically, for those involved in journalism, it is a key reference point in blogging, rather than the other way around. In terms of dynamics of change in both domains, blogging has led to a change in journalism on the broad scale (internationally and in specific Arabic countries such as Egypt25).

25 For the Egyptian case, see Radsch 2008 and Hirschkind 2011. On the relation between blogging and journalism in Egypt, Hirschkind (2011: n. p.) states, “Not only do many of the opposition newspapers rely on bloggers for their stories; news stories that journalists can’t print themselves without facing state persecution—for example, on issues relating to the question of Mubarak’s successor—such stories are first fed to bloggers by investigative reporters; once they are reported online, then journalists then proceed to publish the stories in newsprint, citing the blogs as source, in this way avoiding the accusation that they themselves invented the story.”

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However, blogging does not have a major impact on journalism in Lebanon as such.26 Instead, blogging as a domain of practice constructs its own domain of (re)presenting news and providing analysis and discussion outside the traditional media institutions. All bloggers emphasised that their agendas differed from those of the Lebanese mainstream media and that their aim to shed light on issues that are not discussed there (see also chapter 8.2). Furthermore, bloggers envisage challenging certain representations in the mainstream media, as I showed for particular events, such as the demonstration in front of the Egyptian embassy (see 2.2) or the anti-sectarian demonstrations (see Assaad’s case in 4.1). In sum, the analysis of the relation of blogging to other practices and domains of practice shows how blogging is at the same time integrated in the bloggers’ other practices and domains of social life, while it also forms a domain of social life itself. Blogging must be understood in the context of the blogger’s other practices, on- and offline, media-related and beyond. I have outlined the changing relations and shifting frontiers between different sets of practices. Since the field is in constant change and practices often do not have fixed boundaries, it is problematic to order them hierarchically. Blogging is influenced by dynamic digital media practices (especially Facebook and Twitter) and also partly functions as a role model for these. In addition, blogging is closely linked to other domains of practice – my data particularly showed the links to activism and journalism. This must certainly be put in relation to the criteria for the choice of case studies, which aimed to look at politically and socially engaged bloggers. Analysing different samples of blogs would certainly bring other domains, such as design, art, technology etc., to the fore. In my sample and the specific time frame of this study, especially for young writers and journalists, blogging is a key digital practice and easily combined with other professional writing engagements. Yet, at the same time these practitioners clearly distinguish blogging from journalism in terms of editorial freedom and setting their own agenda. Overall, the question of anchoring as such does not help much in understanding the various shifting relations. Yet, the particular questions attached to it (definitional relations, dynamics of change) are helpful in analysing the relation among practices. The findings suggest that media practices are not ‘just’ relevant for the study of media, but also for studying activism, popular culture and daily life in the Middle East more generally.

26 Mainstream journalism has not been challenged by bloggers as in Egypt, as I will discuss in more detail later (8.2).

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REWARDS OF BLOGGING It doesn’t pay directly, but indirectly. I guess that’s enough. (ADON I1)

In regard to blogging, the question of ‘motivation’ or “Why do they do it?” (see Hine 2000: 147) is mostly ‘answered’ with surveys (see for instance Schmidt 2006: 43). These surveys provide, however, little information on the actual motivations of bloggers. During my fieldwork, I had also asked the bloggers what made them start to blog and what they gain from blogging. Their retrospective accounts can be read as stories of initiation. Asking them about their motivation was a fruitful approach during the interviews and revealed, first of all, much about their self-representation, which sometimes coincides with their ‘real’ motivations and sometimes doesn’t. However, trying to get the reason(s) why people engage in a particular media practice is methodologically and theoretically problematic. It has often been questioned how useful this approach is, since bloggers’ answers cannot be taken at face value (see for instance Taki 2010: 50f). On a more general level, Swidler (1986) adds that it is necessary to take into consideration that asking people directly to explain their action may be misleading, since their practices may differ quite a lot despite similar aspirations (see also Taki 2010: 151). For that reason, I chose to pursue a slightly different focus to gain information on the rewards of blogging.27 Alan Warde’s (2005) conceptualisation of rewards from a practice theory approach provided the main inspiration for this shift in perspective.28 In his article “Consumption and Theories of Practice” (2005), Warde develops a helpful distinction between internal/intrinsic and external/extrinsic rewards of practices. [R]ewards internal to practices are partly a function of the complexity of the particular practice and […] the external rewards to be gained by any individual are a function of the prestige of the practice. (Warde 2005: 143)

27 In chapter 2.2, when discussing the local field of blogging, the dynamics of competition and cooperation for different rewards were already mentioned, but the rewards not yet fully outlined. 28 The EASA Media Anthropology network workshop 2010 discussed the “The Rewards of Media”, based on Warde (2005) (EASA Conference in Maynooth 2010).

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According to Warde (2005: 148), internal rewards are generated through proficiency and commitment to a certain practice, which deliver “satisfaction and selfesteem”. Relying on Alasdair MacIntyre (1984), he argues, “Practices have their own integrity which is the source of internal goods, that is to say internally generated rewards” (Warde 2005: 147). Extrinsic rewards, on the other hand, also gained by being proficient in a specific practice, are those Bourdieu is mainly preoccupied with: the increase in social, cultural and economic capital. Applying this perspective to the domain of practice that I focus on here, different levels of external and internal rewards of blogging can be shown. External rewards First of all, as all bloggers in my sample exemplify, blogging generates social rewards: new kinds of contacts are established and already existing contacts extended. Whether among friends, political circles or the wider ‘civil society’, those bloggers who manage to make themselves read and heard are consequently rewarded socially with attention and recognition. For instance, because of his blogging and other writings on a leftist Lebanese forum and elsewhere, Khodor receives more attention in his political circles. As an example, he told me proudly that his post after the demonstration in front of the Egyptian embassy in January 2010 (see 1.4) “was taken from my blog and sent to all the leftist groups on Facebook” (Khodor i1). This indicates that he is becoming renowned for his writings in the leftist circles and that he is acquiring recognition through blogging. In a similar vein, ‘publicity’ in the local media is one of the social rewards of blogging. Maya, who published a book comprising entries from her comic blog, is surely the outstanding example for this. She was requested for interviews by several Lebanese media facilities, TV stations as well as printed publications,29 which made her famous and recognised by people on the street, “even my hairdresser [told me] you were on TV yesterday, and it’s fun, it’s a funny experience,” as she told me (Maya i1). These examples indicate that blogging may increase the social capital of the practitioners. In Bourdieu and Wacquant’s words, “social capital is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relations of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (1992: 119). Bloggers establish and strengthen their networks in different domains, as I have also shown in the portraits in chapter 3, whether in the field of social media, journalism, design or elsewhere.

29 MTV, Future TV, New TV, Daily Star, L’Orient le Jour, An-Nahar and Al-Akhbar, hence most major Lebanese media outlets (TV stations and newspapers).

208 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES In addition to social capital, blogging can also increase the cultural capital of the practitioners. Cultural capital, broadly understood as skills and knowledge, is acquired and improved by maintaining a blog: according to Bourdieu, cultural capital “exists in three forms, embodied, objectified, or institutionalized” (1986: 47). The first, is “long-lasting dispositions in mind and body” and is inherited and learnt through socialisation, the second consist of cultural goods (objects such as paintings, books etc.) and the third entails institutionally recognised qualifications or credentials (ibid.). First, by practicing blogging, skills like writing, drawing and technological competences are improved over time. “I wrote and I developed my skills in writing” (Hanibaael i1), or “I became more professional in journalism” (Assaad i2), are just two examples of how bloggers perceived their improvement of skills. Second, the blog can be considered an objectified form of cultural capital, a platform for presenting the bloggers’ skills that is easily accessible by others by just ‘opening a link’. Third, blogging awards, such as the BOBs award30 for which Trella was nominated in 201231 and Assaad in 2009,32 present institutionalised credentials. In a similar vein, being an “official blogger” for a conference, as Assaad was for the ArabNet, can be understood as contributing to a blogger’s cultural capital. It was something “to put on the CV” as Assaad told me,33 and he also presents himself as official ArabNet blogger on the sidebar of his blog.34 In addition to cultural capital, Sarah Thornton (1995) developed the category of “subcultural capital” to describe another extrinsic reward that can be gained through blogging. Blogging is a practice that is connoted as young and fancy. In particular Hanibaael’s example illustrates this, but it also applies to other bloggers. As he told me, nowadays when people in Hamra say yatasakkaʿ (hanging around), they associate it with his blog.35 Hence, by building an identity for his blog, he managed to link himself to the young artists and activists hanging around in Hamra and is renowned among them. By posting photos of stencil art in Beirut and “archiving”36 subcultures, his choice of topic already associates him with youth or

30 Yearly award by Deutsche Welle, http://thebobs.com/english/, accessed February 23, 2012. 31 See http://www.egytindependent.com/arabic-blogs-vie-german-competition/, accessed April 15, 2012. 32 See https://interculturalleaders.org/author/assaad-thebian/, accessed February 23, 2012. 33 Fieldwork notes, March 23 2011. 34 https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/, accessed February 23, 2012. 35 See his portrait in 3.1. 36 Ibid.

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subcultures. But to achieve this, one must do it ‘right’, show a degree of creativity, provide unique content and in so doing distinguish oneself from other bloggers.37 In addition to the extrinsic rewards of increasing the blogger’s social and cultural capital, economic rewards also come into play. In point of fact, there is (still?) little monetary reward for blogging in Lebanon.38 Yet as I showed in the portraits, blogging can function as a self-marketing and self-professionalisation strategy in various domains, such as web design, design, journalism and art. The successful promotion of Maya’s book is an outstanding example of this. In her case, blog and book promote one another. Consequently, the social rewards can also lead to economic rewards. Some of the bloggers in my sample told me that they found jobs because of their blogging activity; an employer had either seen the blog online (Maya’s old employer in design) or the blogger had gained credibility in the field of producing online content, for instance Hanibaael in his work for the social media enterprise SMEX. Furthermore, online advertising was mentioned as an upcoming source for economic rewards. What I was trying to do was to build something for passive income […] you work on the blog for a while, you hook the content, you do the marketing, and then people start looking at the ads, and you start making money even if you’re not updating the blog. (Moustafa39)

Extending from my sample to the Lebanese field of blogging, many academics, journalists, web designers, designers etc. among the a-list bloggers increase their already high cultural and social capital through their blogging activity. Therefore, it can be argued, following Bourdieu, that “those in the most advantageous positions within a field are those who have greatest opportunities to increase their economic, cultural and social capital” (Warde 2005: 148). Internal rewards The mere existence of the blog motivates me to write more, to express more. ADON I1

37 Not just any blogger can obtain this kind of capital. Bloggers on the Maktoob platform who are not part of the blogosphere in Lebanon (see chapter 1.4) seem not to be aiming or managing to achieve this. 38 For how bloggers negotiate the dilemma between economic profit and their ‘editorial’, see independence chapter 7.2. 39 Moustafa maintains several blogs and gives blogging training for Women in Technology, interview on March 22, 2010.

210 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES It’s more like giving me a reason to wake up in the morning and find a story to write about, which is really nice. ASSAAD I1

On the other hand, the bloggers I talked to mentioned a range of internal rewards of blogging. First, the ‘good’ fulfilment of the blogging practice itself – creating a good-looking and functioning website, posting regularly, updating the blog etc. – lead to personal satisfaction and motivates the blogger to do even more, as Adon expresses in the introductory citation to 5.2. Also, receiving comments (like “you’re right”, “I like this post”) on the blog enhances the blogger’s self-esteem. “I’ve seen comments from people agreeing with me or saying, yeah, it bothers us too. I don’t know, you feel more relieved.” (Maya i1) In addition, the affirmation one receives by becoming known in the scene is a personal reward. I’m getting famous, I am kidding, it gives you some kind of exposure. […] Sometimes during the events like the Twestival I attended […], several people were approaching me and asking if I was Rami, the one behind Plus961 […] and whenever they compliment me for the post I publish, it feels flattering.” (Rami i2)

This exposure and affirmation is not a strictly intrinsic reward, but also partly linked to the extrinsic rewards of increasing one’s social and cultural capital. Yet here I want to emphasise how such comments also evoke personal satisfaction for a blogger. Blogging also functions as a structuring force in daily life, another internal reward of the blogging practice. It is part of daily life, but also gives it focus and provides an attention channel towards things happening around one that might be integrated in a future post. As Assaad put it above, by maintaining and writing on a blog, he found a meaningful activity. Furthermore, bloggers dedicate time and space to a specific practice such as writing, photographing or drawing and further develop it in daily life. Engaging in this practice with its ‘demands’ is a source of internal rewards, even before it might lead to the extrinsic reward of social attention. Another internal reward of blogging is certainly expressing oneself in a public platform and thereby “letting things out”, as Maya put it in an interview with me (i1). Feelings and thoughts, critiques and daily observations are shared with a group of actual and imagined readers. All bloggers mentioned in different ways that blogging is a form of self-expression, something personally rewarding:

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I express myself when I want, I express myself totally in a full of freedom and I can share my vision, my ideas. (Hanibaael i1) [It’s] fun, fun and it’s a tool to express what I feel, it’s a tool to express my anger, it’s a tool to say thank you to some people, it’s a tool to simply make a statement. (Trella40 ) It is to have a place where you can pour your heart into if you want, it depends on what you want, you can just say “I saw this article today” or you can talk about “I had a fight with someone today.” You can just choose what you want, but you let something of you outside […] This is why I tell my boyfriend, just write, you don’t have to tell anyone about the URL, just invent, it’s good! (Liliane i1)

All bloggers highlight the freedom of letting out what bothers them or makes them happy as a highly rewarding feature of their blogging practice. In addition, another internal reward is the strengthening of the bloggers self-reflectivity. Externalising and trying to formulate thoughts for the blog offers the possibility to become more self-critical. As Liliane (i1) put it: “When you’re writing you start thinking more […] it makes you realise sometimes whether an idea is silly or not.” At the same time, blogging can be rewarding, like with a traditional diary, as one gains an awareness of one’s own development and experiences, as she outlines further (ibid.): “Sometimes if I go back I can see a sort of historical time line you know, I only went through this and this.” I will come back this point with regard to selfexposure on the blog in chapter 8.1. Generally, both external and internal rewards can strengthen but also change over time, the more one engages in a practice.41 However, this implies a constant engagement, which means investing time and sometimes money (for hosting). Following Warde, I argue that motives for participating in a certain practice are not necessarily prior to it and that the practice itself creates desires and new motivations – as Warde (2005: 137) put it: “practices rather than individual desires, we might say, create wants”.42 By continuously practicing blogging, learning about other bloggers’ practices, attending bloggers’ meetings and initiating changes in one’s professional career, individual blogging practices and motives strengthen and change through time. The focus on rewards sheds light on motives and motivations, which are certainly relevant in studying blogging from the actor’s perspective. Yet

40 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010. 41 In a similar vein, as Taki (2010: 153ff) shows, the motivations of the bloggers can change due to changes in “personal circumstances”, “dominant practices in the blogosphere (such as language used […])” and “external events” (ibid.: 156). 42 A paraphrase of Alfred Marshall’s claim that “activity creates wants, rather than vice versa” (see ibid.).

212 | II A CTORS AND PRACTICES it does so from a practice-theory-oriented approach focusing on what bloggers do and how they experience blogging. In particular, the analysis of internal rewards demonstrates that focusing on rewards does not imply falling into a utilitarian logic – in the sense of bloggers trying consciously to increase different forms of capital and gain ‘profits’. The practice-theory approach deployed in this chapter allowed me to consider the complexities implied in the rewards of this practice and, in contrast to looking at prior motivations, to grasp the changing and unfolding rewards embedded in it. Synopsis Following up on chapters 3 and 4, this chapter showed that blogging is an integrative practice that recombines a set of other practices: digital media practices and other media practices, as well as other domains of practice such as activism and journalism. Blogging is on a continuous trajectory on which it shows continuities with a range of other online practices that also recombine different tools. As a recombinant mode of knowledge work, it is furthermore engaged in the producing, transmitting and storing of knowledge – political analysis, daily observations, photographic documents and much more. This aspect is hitherto underexposed and would be worth elaborating in accordance with a media theoretical analysis à la Friedrich Kittler (1986), but I have restricted my focus to production not transmission and storage practices at this point. Overall, one could ask critically how much sense it makes to single out blogging from other digital media practices, since they are so closely bound together? Another research strategy could be to focus on the actors, rather than looking at one specific digital media practice only. This strategy would be less concerned with distinguishing blogging from other practices. However, the bloggers’ selfunderstanding as bloggers and the specific rewards they attach to this practice justify singling out one digital media practice for the aim of this particular project. Blogging, as a particular digital media practice offers both external and internal rewards, as I have shown. First, blogging can provide a range of different external rewards in terms of social and cultural capital. Bloggers strengthen their networks, gain recognition (social capital), improve various skills and present themselves as technologically skilled, politically and culturally informed, creative etc. In so doing, they can build up their cultural capital. Beyond that, these social and cultural rewards gained may also transform into economic rewards in terms of jobs or assignments. Yet it must be stated that those who can receive high external rewards already display a large amount of social and cultural capital. Second, practicing blogging offers internal rewards for the bloggers in this sample, such as the gratification of staying committed to the practice, of expressing themselves on their own

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platforms and of being aware of their thoughts and development. Moreover, by pursuing blogging continuously, the practice creates new motives on the level of an individual trajectory of a practice.

III. Publicness

Publicness – Introduction Turning the attention from abstract ‘spheres’ to actual ways of being and going public HAUGBOLLE AND SALVATORE 2010

In the beginning of my work on blogging, I was preoccupied with the questions whether blogging is as an emerging public sphere1 and the degree to which the blogosphere might be understood as counter-public (see Jurkiewicz 2011a). As outlined in the introduction, my approach in this monograph takes a different turn and departs from publicness as a category to understand the developments in my field. Publicness involves the “concrete ways of going and being public” (Haugbolle and Salvatore 2010).2 Overall, the term highlights the processual character inherent in publics, in contrast to a counter-public vs. public sphere approach. To my knowledge, except for Haugbolle and Salvatore’s short programmatic text in the form of a panel description for a conference, no further conceptualisations of publicness as a specific concept have developed. In general, the term is rather used broadly as another word for public or public sphere (Öffentlichkeit). Whereas those interested in the public sphere often focus on the macro-level, studying political communication and searching for the realisation of a Habermasian, communicative ideal-type of critical debate, I approach publicness within the frame of practice theory, based on the assumption that it is made and realised by specific practices. I understand publicness as a dynamic and socially organised

1

I wrote my first (unpublished) paper on Lebanese blogging for a Summer School course in 2009 on the topic “Blogospheres as emerging public spheres? Reflections based on the Lebanese and the Egyptian case”.

2

Haugbolle and Salvatore suggest the term as a better translation for Öffentlichkeit (2010), as mentioned in the introduction.

218 | III P UBLICNESS field3 that requires continuous reaffirmation by participating in and shaping it. At the same time, it describes a process and mode of being public – in the sense envisaged by Haugbolle and Salvatore. Hence, publicness is not a static phenomenon, nor an abstract category or sphere, but involves concrete ways of practicing it – producing blogs, networking, going public etc. – in the sense of ‘doing publics’. This highlights the agency of the practitioners (be they bloggers, journalists, or media practitioners). Moreover, it allows grasping different modes of publicness, i.e. ways of going and being public and negotiating the private and public. This change of perspective is required in order to avoid falling back to an ethnocentric searching for the realisation of a Western-normative public (see introduction) and is more suitable for studying contemporary fragmented publics in the Middle East. Also, the fluid and temporary form of publics on the internet in which “issue networks” (Marres 2006) are at the fore demands new approaches to publicness online. Moreover, where the personal is in particular ways mobilised and legitimised (see Lovink 2008a: 3), the bloggers’ being public as persons needs to be analysed. Doing publics in the framework of this study involved examining concrete practices. While in part II of this monograph I analysed the practices of blog production, in the following three chapters of part III I will now turn to the modes of publicness with regard to specific dimensions prevalent in my material: the ways audiences are addressed, which ethical guidelines bloggers follow, how bloggers negotiate their being public and which issues they make public. In chapter 6, I will analyse ways of addressing in terms of language and intended audience, as well as the production of virtual locality. As I will show, addressing and imagining the audience are important parts of practicing blogging that precede and accompany the blog production process. Chapter 7 sheds light on the ethical aspect of publicness and analyse the bloggers’ blogging ethos (in terms of an ethical attitude): according to the practitioners, what is good blogging, how should one blog and what topics should be addressed? Chapter 8 analyses the bloggers’ going and being public with regard to how the private and the public as well as the personal and political are negotiated. Finally, the dynamics of counter-publicness will be addressed. I will outline the topics and causes that the bloggers make public and discuss blogging’s relation to the ‘traditional media’ from the bloggers’ perception.

3

In a Bourdieuian understanding, a “contemporary public sphere” should be understood “as a series of overlapping fields”, namely the political, economic, academic etc. (see Benson 2009: 183).

6. Audiences and locality Audience, conceived of as actual or potential visitors to the site, was the foremost category in making the production of web sites meaningful to authors. HINE 2000: 85

In this chapter I will elaborate on the role of the two intertwined categories audience and locality in blog production and doing publicness. The introductory citation from Christine Hine’s study of website producers outlines in an exemplary manner that the audience as a category is to be understood as part of the production process of blogs. It also hints at the different aspects of the audience: first as actual visitors, as they appear in visitor statistics or in the comments on the website/blog, and second as potential visitors. The second dimension of the audience, as it is imagined and addressed by the bloggers, is the main focus of this chapter. As I will show, the imaginations of the audience and the ways of addressing it are a structuring force in blog production. However, I will provide a short overview of the actual visitors as well. Talking about audience places the focus on whom bloggers actually address and the publicness they intend to create. Overall, my take on the topic was inspired by Warner’s (2002) discussion on “Publics and Counterpublics”, and in particular his discussion of addressees, concrete and imagined readers and the ways of addressing. All public addressees have some social basis. Their imaginary character is never merely a matter of private fantasy. (By the same token, all addressees are to some extent imaginary— even that of a journal, especially if one writes to one’s ideal self, one’s posthumous biographers, etc.) They fail if they have no reception in the world, but the exact composition of their addressed publics cannot entirely be known in advance. (Warner 2002: 55)

220 | III P UBLICNESS The “imaginary character” (Warner, see above) of all addressees and their locations are two aspects of addressing the audience1 that are pertinent to the production and transmission of blogs, as I will show. Moreover, imagining and addressing potential readers – concrete practices of language choices and usages, writing with an addressee in mind etc. – are crucial features of doing publicness. Beyond that, the production of locality on the level of the blog’s content will be discussed, since it gives an exemplary insight into the challenges of performing local authenticity in front of the bloggers’ audience. Overall, I follow Arjun Appadurai’s understanding of locality as “primarily relational and contextual” (1996: 178). He describes locality as “a phenomenological property of social life, a structure of feeling that is produced by particular forms of intentional activity and that yields particular sorts of material effect” (ibid.: 182). In my understanding, locality is thus not given, but produced by concrete practices that result in feelings and “material effects” (ibid.), such as museums, borders and, in my research field, national blog aggregators, associations etc. In his discussion, Appadurai also undertakes a comparison of spatial and virtual neighbourhoods.2 Due to the force of electronic media, he argues, there is a steady erosion of both (ibid.: 189), yet he is eager not to oppose them (ibid.: 195). Also, as he shows, virtual neighbourhoods are able to mobilise and at the same time are mobilised for localised projects (ibid.: 195f). In the introduction of this book, I presented a tripartite understanding of locality in my field. As I outlined, locality comes into play on three different levels: first it involves the material/spatial locality of concrete locales in Beirut; second, the virtual locality on the level of the blogs’ content; and third, the ‘non-local’ participants, i.e. Lebanese bloggers posting from abroad. The first level has been discussed in the previous chapters at various points; the focus in this part lies on the production of virtual locality, whereby the ‘non-local’ participants will also be touched upon. For the analysis of various facets of audience and locality, I will proceed as follows: in the first section of the chapter, I will explore how locality is produced at the level of the blogs’ self-representation and content and how local authenticity is negotiated (6.1). After a general discussion of how to approach the audience, I will present an overview of the actual audience of English- and Arabic-language blogs (6.2). Following up on this, I will analyse the bloggers’ language choices and the (trans)local imaginaries attached to it (6.3). Finally, I will turn to how bloggers im-

1

Warner distinguishes “the idea of a public” from the idea of a concrete or even indefinite audience (2002: 50f). However, as this chapter focuses on the concrete and imagined readers, I will stick to the notion of the audience in this chapter.

2

Neighbourhoods are understood as “actually existing forms in which locality is realized” (Appadurai 1996: 179).

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agine their audiences (6.4). While the first section also includes some examples from non-local bloggers, the other sections focus on my sample of local bloggers.

6.1 P RODUCING

LOCALITY

How is “being there” (see Borneman and Hammoudi 2009), i.e. being in Lebanon, produced and performed at the level of the blogs’ content? How are locality and authenticity constructed, i.e. what makes a blog ‘Lebanese’, and to what degree does the blogger’s location and use of language matter in blog production? In this investigation, the non-local bloggers will also be relevant; they are constructing locality without being based in Lebanon and ‘experiencing’ the material locality. Since my sample consists of bloggers based in Lebanon, I will refer to those ‘nonlocal participants’ mainly in the way they are apparent in my material, namely, as the bloggers discussed or mentioned them in interviews or on their blogs. Throughout my material I detected various strategies of producing locality. First of all, some of the blog names and headers already mark them as being from Lebanon or Beirut: The blog Plus961 clearly refers to Lebanon. “+961 is the country calling code for Lebanon, and it seemed like a cool alternative to ‘Lebanon’,” Rami states on the “about” page of his blog.3 In the sub-header “Destination Lebanon”4, the local point of reference is made even more explicit. This also reflects the blog’s intended audience as Lebanese and people interested in Lebanon. Also the name of Liliane’s From Beirut with Funk already states where it is produced. The former titles of her blog, My Lebanon is burned to ashes and Independence05, all refer to Lebanon. Assaad’s blog title Kharbashāt Bayrūtīya5 (Beirutian scribbles) also names the place it deals with. “Since Beirut is the city I love and I always go back to it, I decided to call my blog Beirutiyat,” as he explained to me (i1). Numerous other blogs have also put Beirut in their titles, such as Beirutspring, Beirut Drive-by Shooting and a dozen more.6 The blogs are framed as being bound to a particular locality and thus also evoke the image of a virtual neighbourhood in Appadurai’s terms, for which the Lebanon Aggregator can be said to be the main portal. The aggregator that the blogger Liliane maintains uses text and images to produce local

3

http://www.plus961.com/about/, accessed December 11, 2011.

4

Ibid.

5

Short title: Beirutiyat.

6

See Lebanon Aggregator’s blog directory, where you will also find blog titles such as Beirut Beauty, Beirut Daily Photo, Beirut gay boy, Beirut Grafff, Beirut in Between, Beirut Public Space, Beirut Tweets, Beirut heard from the TV, Beirut/NTSC and Beirutologie (http://www.lebanonaggregator.com/p/all-blogs-urls.html, accessed December 11, 2011).

222 | III P UBLICNESS imaginaries. In the header of the site, the following places and symbols are depicted: the Martyr’s statue in central Beirut, a service (Lebanon’s famous collective traffic taxis), a cedar, the national symbol and the clock tower built during the French mandate on Nejmeh Square in central Beirut, all placed on a hill of green grass. The street sign is a mixture of English and the Arabic term for welcome, reflecting the mixture of the two main languages it uses. Illustration 5: Header Lebanon Aggregator

http://www.lebanonaggregator.org/, background image designed by Gaby El Ashkar, screenshot taken on December 8, 20117

The header of the aggregator reads like a touristic representation of Lebanon advertising the country’s main sights to visit and things to experience (the service). This might also be linked to a translocal audience the aggregator addresses: ‘local’ Lebanese, those abroad and people interested in the country, such as previous or potential tourists. The English-language blogs and the aggregator that assembles predominantly English-language blogs are not the only ones that frame their sites as being from Lebanon/Beirut. Also for the Arabic-language blogger Trella, the locale takes a significant position in the representation of his blog. During the period of this study, he placed varying images of a Beirut skyline on his header. On the one depicted here, he welcomes his readers with “Good morning Beirut…”8

7

See note on illustrations and copyrights.

8

http://trella.org/, accessed March 30, 2010.

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Illustration 6: Header blog Mudawwina Trīllā (Trella’s blog)

http://trella.org/, screenshot taken on March 30, 2010

The blogger seems to be speaking to the entire city at daybreak. Under his blog’s name at the upper right, he presents his blog with “Lebanese stories conciliating with its past”9. At the time of writing, in November 2011, the image in the header included a more political slogan: “Changing Lebanon 1KB at a time”.10 Yet in both cases the blogger locates himself in Lebanon and addresses this national context. Also the prominent blog Jumhūrīyat al-Ḥummuṣ (Hummus Nation), written by a ‘non-local’ Lebanese, consistently represents itself as Lebanese in title and header. I take this blogger as an example here, since most of the local bloggers referred to his blog as a successful Lebanese blog produced abroad.11 Illustration 7: Header blog Jumhūrīyat al-Ḥummuṣ (Hummus Nation)

http://www.hummusnation.net/, screenshot taken on December 8, 2011

Jumhūrīyat al-Ḥummuṣ is presented as a synonym for Lebanon, already hinting at his ironic/sarcastic style of writing. Where the national flag normally shows the ce-

9

http://trella.org/, accessed November 11, 2011.

10 Ibid. 11 It also is part of the sample of ten most-linked Lebanese blogs by Riegert and Ramsay (2011).

224 | III P UBLICNESS dar, here we see a green plate of hummus. The subtitle of the blog, Wakālat alanbāʾ ar-rasmīya (The official news agency)12, refers to the blog’s content: the writer’s insights into the nation of hummus.13 This presentation and the blog’s content provide few signs that he is not writing from within Lebanon. Nearly all the posts deal with Lebanese internal political issues. In one instance, he posted about the experience of being an expatriate, but this was as a guest blogger on Liliane’s blog, not on his own blog domain.14 At first glance, it is hard to guess that the blogger is not present in Lebanon, since he manages well to present his local authenticity, a term I will come back to shortly. In another way, Farfahinne presents her blog as being from Lebanon, adding images from Lebanon that refer to the state’s turbulent political past, as well as to current political issues. Illustration 8: Header blog Farfahinne

http://farfahinne.blogspot.com/, screenshot taken on December 8, 2011

Her representation of the local stands in sharp contrast to the one of the Lebanon Aggregator. It focuses on political conflicts, for example by presenting pictures from the Civil War and demonstrations, instead of national symbols and touristic sites. This also indicates two different blogging ethos, which I will examine in the following chapter (7): one seeing the presentation and analysis of Lebanese political struggles and problems as essential to blogging, the other arguing for putting forward ‘the nice sides of life’ in Lebanon. These examples show that blogs evoke and construct virtual locality by applying different textual and visual strategies in their presentation, and the spatial locality the blog primarily deals with is clearly visible; but this does not indicate where the blogger is actually located. Furthermore, these blogs clearly address an audience interested in Lebanon. In contrast, a lot of the Arabic-writing local bloggers in my sample, such as Khodor, Hanibaael and Adon, do not share this focus on the

12 http://www.hummusnation.net/ 13 For Jou3an’s Ṭizzastān as his imaginary republic and equated with Lebanon functions in a similar but less obvious way, see chapter 4.2. 14 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/05/blog-post.html, accessed November 11, 2011.

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local in the presentation of their blogs: neither header nor title indicate a primarily Lebanese identity. This does not seem like a coincidence; while it may be taken for granted that Arab-speaking audiences have some background knowledge about Lebanon, those catering to an English-speaking or international audience may well be doing this as part of their ‘informing’ task. Secondly, along with the representations of the blog, language use, too, can produce virtual locality. This goes especially for the Arabic-writing bloggers. By not using a pure MSA (Modern Standard Arabic, i.e. the literary and standardised form of Arabic used in written official language and formal speech) but a mixture between MSA and the Lebanese vernacular, they clearly refer to Lebanon as locality. This may make it difficult for readers who are not accustomed to the Lebanese dialect to understand the whole meaning.15 Khodor’s virtual nation Ṭizzastān, which he invents as a synonym for Lebanon, is just one example of the use of Lebanese vernacular Arabic on his blog. Ṭizz, as he explained, is “like an insult in Lebanon, it’s like ‘shit, je t’emmerde, ṭizz fīk’ for example” (Khodor i2). The local blogger Trella and the ‘non-local’ blog Hummus Nation are also both heavy users of dialect Arabic on their blogs. Exemplary posts by Hummus Nation are “Mīn bīʿrif?” (Who knows?), which depicts a dialogue about the state of affairs (politics, social welfare etc.) between Eddie and Amr in colloquial Lebanese,16 and the post “Shū nāṭrīn?” (What are we waiting for?).17 But English-language bloggers also presuppose ‘local knowledge’, for instance by referring to local personalities who are not well known beyond the Lebanese context. For example, in a post about why she is not married, Liliane wrote: “not even zuzu ibba wants to marry me”.18 Zuzu Ibba (also spelled Zouzou Ebba) is a program on the Lebanese television channel OTV, and the reference simply cannot be understood without familiarity with the show. The English-writing bloggers also partly translate the local for an international audience. Maya, for example, always provides translations of Arabic quotes (already rendered in Latin letters) in her comics, such as in a post about a talk with her grandmother. After the comic, she translates what her grandmother tells her: “Nefrah mennik = you get married (translation for non arabic-speaking readers)” [sic].19

15 Even my Syrian language teacher, who helped me with some translations when I was back in Berlin, had difficulties at times understanding some Lebanese slang expressions. 16 http://www.hummusnation.com/2011/01/11/, accessed December 11, 2011. 17 http://www.hummusnation.com/2011/02/24/, accessed December 11, 2011. 18 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/04/how-to-organize-wedding-with-funk.html,

accessed

November 13, 2012. 19 http://mayazankoul.com/2009/12/30/quid-pro-quo/, accessed November 13, 2012.

226 | III P UBLICNESS In doing so, i.e. using the vernacular and local references, virtual locality is produced, as well, and reflects the different audiences addressed. I will present the topical spectrum in more detail in chapter 8. Just to anticipate briefly, local experiences are clearly put in the forefront in particular on Maya’s and Rami’s blogs, and a focus on the local in terms of the national state is also found on Liliane’s blog. While Khodor also often writes about locally relevant topics, his perspective goes beyond this and he tries to integrate a more Arabic and regional perspective. Not all the blogs in my sample focus on the local, in terms of the Lebanese nation state or Beirut as a city, or contribute to producing virtual locality in such clear terms. As I will describe below, the blogger Adon in particular envisages an Arab, not specifically Lebanese, audience and his visitor stats (see 6.2) indicate that he succeeds in doing so. Lebanon has enough writers and “the Lebanese cause a micro[cosmos] of a larger Arab atmosphere, it’s a reflection”, as he explained to me (i1). In this sense, Adon is an example of a blogger who participates in the production of what could be called a virtual regional locality. Thus his blog is not ‘non-local’ in content, but the frame of reference in terms of locality is wider. Local authenticity To what degree does the spatial locality of a blogger matter in blog production and the production of virtual locality? This question can be answered only preliminarily, since my sample includes only bloggers really located in Beirut. Nevertheless, actors outside of Lebanon although not involved in local activities, also take part in the field, for example in the Lebloggers association; they are part of the “virtual neighbourhood”, in Appadurai’s terms (1996: 189). My argument is that both the non-local and the local bloggers manage to build up local authenticity, though at times with divergent strategies, such as the use of symbols clearly identified as Lebanese in their blog’s representation or on the level of language in the use of the vernacular. My take on authenticity is not about the bloggers’ real vs. hidden identity or understood in contrast to identity play. Rather, I am interested in what constructs local authenticity for the audience, which also consists of other bloggers. To what degree does authenticity stem from being on the spot, if at all? I will elaborate on this issue based on an ethnographic example from my fieldwork. Various leftist activists and bloggers from Beirut were active in covering the January 2010 demonstration against the Egyptian wall on the Egypt/Gaza Strip border, during which the army attacked the protestors.20 In my talks with bloggers after the demonstration, it became obvious that most people who were linked online also knew each other from offline activities. Yet I also stumbled across two posts

20 See chapter 1.2.

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from the blogger Hanzala that the other bloggers linked to and which was also published as an article on Al-Akhbar. He wrote on the blog’s sidebar: “I am a socialist from Lebanon studying in Paris and living in Bangalore.”21 I wondered whether he could have been in Lebanon at this time. In his writing on the blog it seemed like he was: in one post he used a first-person reporting style and the YouTube videos of the incident.22 Another post on the event, which was also published in Al-Akhbar journal, is rather a political commentary about the role of the military.23 When I asked some of the other bloggers covering the event, they did not know whether he was at the demonstration or not. Maybe he saw the videos, and you know on Facebook every activist wrote about it, wrote a small brief about the demonstration or someone who said fuck the policemen, you know. So they know about, they know details and you can write like you can. (Hanibaael i1)

Two months later, when I joined Hanibaael and Adon for a blogging workshop they gave in Zahleh, the capital of the Bekaa governorate, they told me that Hanzala must have been in France when he wrote on the topic. During the workshop they used the article/post in Al-Akhbar as an example showing that one cannot be sure about the blogger’s physical location. Whether Hanzala was on the spot or not is not the question at stake here. However, the example shows that, even for those physically present, it is not always obvious whether someone is also there in ‘real life’ as well. Furthermore, it hints at the fact that particular forms of writing and posting are successful at creating the impression of physical presence, and of how virtual locality is linked with the imagined as well as real audience. The posts discussed above performed local authenticity by using a first-person reporting style and photos and videos that create the impression that the blogger was part of the event himself. This is not to say that local authenticity is easy to perform. In an interview with the blogger Trella, he told me that it would be so difficult for him to write about Lebanon when he’s abroad. “I went to Jordan for like two weeks and it was impossible for me to write something, […] and I just blogged that, oh I miss Lebanon.”24 Those who write from abroad, he continued, “spend lots of time, lots of energy, and they do lots of reading”25. In Trella’s experience, producing a local blog while not

21 http://hanzala86.blogspot.com/, accessed November 13, 2012. 22 http://hanzala86.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-happened-at-egyptian-embassy-in.html, accessed January 25, 2010. 23 http://hanzala86.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post.html, accessed January 25, 2010. 24 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010. 25 Ibid.

228 | III P UBLICNESS being there is a challenge. Most bloggers I talked to share this assessment. Most of them were aware, for instance, that the Hummus Nation blogger was not in Lebanon and expressed respect for his writings. Some of them found it hard to believe that he was actually outside the country. Maya told me, “I was so shocked because he follows the news and he talks about it like if he is here, but he’s in Canada, he keeps a secret identity, but I know who he is.” (i1) Writing about it “like if he is here” is thus one of the achievement of the Hummus Nation blogger. Maya’s surprise when she found out also shows the common assumption that a blogger who is very well informed about local news and situation must be present in Lebanon. Hummus Nation thus managed to achieve local authenticity although its operator is not on site. However, only few bloggers manage to do this. Overall, it could be said that important is not only where you are, but also how well informed you are as a blogger and how you present the content on the blog. What Hine states about web developers applies to bloggers as well: They “orient their performances of authenticity” (2000: 136) towards their imagined audience. In blogging, this includes not only “indefinite strangers” (Warner 2002: 56, 75, 86), but also local and non-local fellow bloggers. Presenting and framing their blogs as Lebanese or Beirutian is not enough to achieve local authenticity. Rather, it must be continuously performed on the blog. It is the audience, in the sense of the concrete readers, who eventually ‘judge’ the bloggers’ performance of authenticity and his credibility.

6.2 A PPROACHING

THE AUDIENCE

At first glance, the study of the blogs’ audience is not the main focus of my work on blogging, since I primarily focus on blog production, its context and its practices. The consumption of media texts in terms of the audience relation to them (see Couldry 2010: 38)26 is not part of my endeavour. However, as research on new media production has shown, production and consumption are no longer to be regarded as stable entities that are opposed to each other. Bruns’ term produsage emphasises exactly this blurring relation between production and consumption, and thus between producers of media texts and their consumers (Bruns 2008).27 Consumers, or more broadly members of the audience, are consequently to be understood as producers as well; they are

26 Audience research was for decades preoccupied with this relation. 27 I presented the main features of Bruns’ concept in chapter 4.3.

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cultural producers inasmuch as individuals and collectives can participate in shaping media products and can be themselves media producers, especially when uploading and sharing content and the internet. (Ardèvol et al. 2010a: 266)

If this is correct, then cultural producers on the internet also form part of the audience of these media products. In Couldry and Langer’s terms, “people are simultaneously performers and audience members” (2005, cited after ibid.). As I have shown in the preceding chapters, in particular in analysing production practices, reading other blogs as well as other online content is an intrinsic part of the blog’s production process. This element is not part of Warner’s study, in which producers and the audience are regarded as two entities. My perspective thus differs from that of Warner, insofar as bloggers themselves form an important part of the audience of blogs; they are both producers and consumers of blogs. Anderson (2009: n. p.) sheds light on this interplay and argues, “local blogospheres are often composed of groups of friends, who write for each other, not for a general public”. While I also highlight this internal dynamic in the local field of blogging under study here, I argue however that the ‘public’ cannot be merely confined to fellow bloggers. This would not only contradict the bloggers’ understanding of their activity and their understanding of going public,28 but is also not confirmed by the existing data on the blogs’ readers. Blogs visitor statistics show that most blogs are accessed far beyond the local peer group(s) and indicate a truly translocal dispersed audience, as I will show in the following. Tracking the audience The audience of a blog can be studied from different angles. First, the audience’s involvement can be analysed based on the comments on posts and the discussion that takes place online. However, only a small segment of the set of blog readers actually takes this active role and posts comments. Second, the audience can be approached by analysing quantitative data in terms of access numbers.29 But the numbers cannot be equated with active readers, since they not indicate how much time the readers spend on the site; in addition, requests from search engines manipulate these numbers. The blogger and IT expert Samer Karam (Finkployd from Blogging Beirut) explained to me that the overall visitor numbers are usually five to eight times the numbers of actual readers.30 Bloggers also mentioned general technical

28 See chapter 8.1. 29 Most blogging platforms provide the blogger with data about access in terms of numbers, locations and search engine. Some bloggers show statistics of blog access on their blog. 30 Interview with Finkployd on November 19, 2009.

230 | III P UBLICNESS problems in the Arab world when it comes to visitor statistics: “The problem in the Arab world is that there isn’t an organisation of the web in order to do a more or less correct approximation.” (Khodor i1) Despite these considerations, I will provide some data about the various blogs’ audience in the following. Since I am particularly interested in the audience location, I will rely on statistics about the blog readers’ access points. To track and make the visitors’ location visible, bloggers use several applications, for instance the Flag Counter. The Flag Counter is an application for websites that displays visitor statistics according to countries (by flags). The bloggers often put the application on the sidebar of their blog to give an indication of how many people access the blog. The Flag Counter provides an insight into the audience location. Sometimes, in particular when it comes to Israel/Palestine, the nation-based counting system must be treated with caution, since access from the West Bank and Gaza appears under the Israeli flag. In the sample studied here, all Arabic-writing bloggers who publish on the WordPress platform do have a flag counter on the blogs’ sideboard. Furthermore, they all (except Adon) have a Live Traffic Feed on their blog, which is an application that shows the visitors to a website in real time by location. The English-writing bloggers did not add these applications to their blogs, although it would be technically possible to do so since they are free online applications. Audience of Arabic-language blogs The visitor statistics that I will provide in the following are meant as a snapshot of the dispersed readership of the Arabic-language blogs in my main sample.

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Illustration 9-12: Visitor statistics of Arabic-language blogs31 Beirutiyat (Assaad)

Jou3an

https://jou3an.wordpress.com/

http://beirutiyat.wordpress.com

Hanibaael Ninar (Adon)

https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/

https://saghbini.wordpress.com/

These examples show that, for most Arabic-language blogs in my sample, the main audience is located in Lebanon (Beirutiyat: 16,481, Jou3an: 6,539, Hanibaael 6,657). Only Ninar has more readers abroad (US: 7,244; Egypt: 6,070; Saudi Arabia: 5,586; Lebanon: 5,042). In direct comparison, Beirutiyat is the blog with the highest percentage of readers from Lebanon, followed by the US and Egypt. It is also the blog that shows the highest number of readers overall. Jou3an and Hanibaael have their largest readership in Lebanon, in both cases followed by readers from Saudi Arabia and the US. The largest numbers of readers from the Arab re-

31 All screenshots were taken on November 9, 2011.

232 | III P UBLICNESS gion besides Lebanon come from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Overall, readers from the Arab world form the greatest part of the audience. Outside the region, readers from the US have the highest percentage in this data, which is even higher than from any country within the region except Lebanon itself. The huge LebaneseAmerican diaspora is certainly a reason for this. According to the US census, people of Lebanese descent are the biggest group of Arab-Americans (more than 440,000 in 2000).32 But the high score for people accessing these blogs from the US might also be partly because the most common search engines are located in the US. Again, the numbers only indicate some tendencies and do not translate into actual readers. In general, however, this data indicates a translocally dispersed audience for these Arabic-language blogs that is concentrated in specific countries, namely Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the US. The Live Traffic Feed on these blogs gives a similar impression of the visitors’ location. With the Flag Counter, the Arabic-language bloggers present their blogs as regionally but also internationally accessed. When I talked with them about their audience location, bloggers were mostly proud of the dispersed readership and mentioned that their readers are by no means merely in Lebanon, but in a wide range of countries in the Arab world and beyond. They highlighted positive reactions they got from readers in Tunisia (for instance Khodor i2) or Saudi Arabia (Adon i1), which indicates that international recognition of their postings was important to them. Audience of English written blogs Unfortunately, no such statistics were available to me about the English-writing bloggers. However, in the interviews, these bloggers shared with me what they knew about their audience. I also found some data on their visitors’ location through SmartViper Website Analytics33. When I asked Maya (Maya’s Amalgam) about her audience statistics in January 2010,34 she replied: I don’t have the real statistics but I can get an idea from people’s comments; I get to know them over time. So mostly there are a lot of Lebanese abroad who go to the blog, because outside Lebanon they know what blogging is and they follow Lebanese blogs […] I have some viewers who are not Lebanese who are interested in knowing about Lebanon, who fol-

32 Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-23.pdf, accessed November 13, 2011. 33 http://www.markosweb.com/ 34 This was before she moved her blog from WordPress to her own website. Although WordPress provides such statistics, she does not seem to care too much about them.

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low the blog. I get a lot of foreigners who came here for vacation and who tell me, “Your blog reminds us of when we were in Lebanon on vacation, we noticed those things,” and a lot of Lebanese youth, between 14 and 30, let’s say. That is the main audience for the blog. (Maya i1)

The latter stands in contrast to the feedback she gets from people about the book that she published using material from her blog, who are mostly 40 to 50 years old, as she told me further. This reflects the different audiences for the two publishing formats. The quote reveals a mixture of actual audience seen in comments and the imagined audiences based on the comments. Her impression is that the audience for her blog comprises Lebanese youth, Lebanese abroad and foreigners who have visited Lebanon. When the blog was still hosted at WordPress,35 76.5% of the visitors were from Lebanon.36 The overall count for her blog (May 2010 to May 2011) shows an average of 800 page views per day.37 Compared with the visitor statistics from the Arabic-language blogs, this is quite a high number. Rami from Plus961 shared a similar assessment of his readers: Who is my audience? Actually I use several tools on my blog to monitor who they are: around 50% are Lebanese [referring to Lebanese in Lebanon], and the rest are mainly from North America, most of these from the US, and then comes Europe and Australia. (i1)

Thus, according to these statistics, half of the audience of his blog is composed of local Lebanese readers and the other half of readers from America, Europe and Australia, which might be connected to the huge Lebanese diaspora in these places. But in contrast to the Arabic-language bloggers, his visitors are from either Lebanon or places completely outside the region; no other country in the Arab world is mentioned. By comparison, a current visitor location statistic shows that 53.6% of the visitors to Rami’s blog are from Lebanon and 21.6% from the US.38 I have no current data on Liliane’s blog From Beirut with Funk, but only on the former domain name of the same blog, Indepence05 (active until October 29, 2010). Here, 49.6% of the visitors were located in Lebanon. This shows a picture similar to those of the two other English-language blogs.

35 Until January 2010, Maya’s blog was hosted at: http://mayazankoul.wordpress.com/; then she changed to her own domain name. 36 http://www.markosweb.com/www/mayazankoul.wordpress.com/, accessed December 1, 2011. 37 E-mail communication, November 24, 2011. 38 http://www.markosweb.com/www/plus961.com/, accessed December 1, 2011.

234 | III P UBLICNESS Overall, both the English- and Arabic-language blogs are mostly accessed from Lebanon. The major difference between the blogs appears when it comes to access from outside the region. Given the data at hand, the Arabic-language blogs seem to have a much greater audience in the Arab region. This is surely related to their language use. Along with the numbers of blogs’ visitors, the specific language choices provide another approach to the audience. Focusing on language choice sheds light on how bloggers envision their audience, as well as on their publishing strategies and their self-perception.

6.3 W AYS

OF ADDRESSING : LANGUAGE AND INTENDED AUDIENCES

Language is surely the key to finding and addressing an audience for one’s writing. Language use and choices are particularly striking in the case at hand, since in multilingual Lebanon bloggers have a lot of options to consider. By the same token, language choices are inextricably linked to issues of locality and translocality. When I talked with bloggers about their language choices, they constantly mentioned the local, regional and international readers they have in mind. The actual and imagined audiences were furthermore constantly intermingled in the bloggers’ explanations. As I outlined in chapter 1.4, English and Arabic are the main languages used in blogging in Lebanon, followed by French, which is rather marginal in the overall Lebanese blogosphere, although many bloggers are fluent in French. The main language differentiation is thus between English and Arabic blogs (see 1.4). My sample contains both Arabic- and English-writing bloggers, since these are the two main groups. However, during my fieldwork I also conducted interviews with bloggers writing in French, which I will discuss in this sub-chapter. Before I discuss the bloggers’ language choices and their reflections upon them, a few lines on Lebanon’s ‘language landscape’ need to be given. Lebanon’s multilingualism Lebanon’s language landscape is quite diverse and its linguistic multilingualism is also reflected in the Lebanese blogosphere. Arabic itself is already an exemplary case of diglossia:39 “the systematic use of distinct ‘High’ and ‘Low’ forms of the same language for different purposes” (Palfreyman and al-Khalil 2003: n. p.).

39 The term diglossia describes a situation in which two languages or two dialects are spoken (Fergusson 1959).

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Along with the formal MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), which is used in written official language and spoken only in formal settings, the vernacular is prevalent in daily communication. The Lebanese dialect is one of a group of Levantine Arabic dialects. Both French and English are also widely spoken in everyday life in Lebanon. This is due to the history of French and British colonisation in the region and associated with a long tradition of foreign-language education in both languages in Lebanon.40 Universities instructing in French and English were established in the second half of the 19th century.41 Overall, foreign-language education followed sectarian lines, with Maronites and Catholics learning French, whereas Muslim and Greek Orthodox Elites learning English (Shaaban and Ghaith 1996). During the French Mandate (1920-1943), the influence of French in education grew even stronger and “French became the language of the educated and the elite” (Diab 2000: 4). After independence in 1943, Arabic became the official language. However, foreign-language education in English and French stayed “deeply rooted in the Lebanese educational system” (Shaaban and Ghaith 1996: 101). From the middle of the 20th century and particularly from the start of the civil war in the mid1970s, the position of French declined (Joseph 2004: 203). English has become more influential than French and essential for professional careers in, for instance, academia and business (see Diab 2000: 7). Most of the prestigious private universities, such as the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University, instruct in English (ibid.). Nowadays trilingualism in Arabic-English-French is advocated in educational policies. However, “Arabic–French bilingualism [is] an important identity marker for certain (not all) Christian sects, notably the Maronites,” as John E. Joseph (2004: 197) highlights and Rula Diab (2006: 83) confirms: Thus, the general consensus today is that English is essential for all Lebanese, while French may be important for certain groups, mainly those who have been historically affiliated with the French language and culture.

Despite blurred boundaries, foreign language education and use is thus still tied to religious backgrounds (Joseph 2004: 194-223). Furthermore, socio-economic status is reflected in and affirmed by language proficiency. “Indeed, being either ‘Frencheducated’ or ‘English-educated’ is a salient identity marker in Lebanon.” (Diab 2006: 83) As a matter of fact, language education and use is socially contested and politicised. Ideological struggles between Arab nationalism and Western orientation

40 For an overview, see Diab 2000: 3-6. 41 French Jesuits established the Université de Saint Joseph in 1875; American Protestant missionaries founded the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1866 (Diab 2000: 3).

236 | III P UBLICNESS are argued over on the basis of language instruction (see Kraidy 1998 and Shaaban and Ghaith 1996). Beyond that, the Lebanese often humorously commented upon their way of mixing up all three languages in daily life. This is reflected, for instance, in the greeting sentence “Hi, kīfak, ça va?”, which includes English, Arabic and French greetings, and also “yallah bye” as goodbye and “merci ktīr” for many thanks.42 However there is also criticism in Lebanon of the low state of formal Arabic (MSA), which even led to a campaign for the preservation of Arabic in Lebanon, Fiʿl al-amr (imperative).43 At the same time, Lebanese also take some pride in their multilingualism. It becomes a marker of a “pluralistic or globalized identity” that counters the nationalistic view of language, which is “the most prevalent” in the Middle East (see Wardini 2010). English for addressing “the whole world” 44 When I asked the English-writing bloggers about their language choice, English was often presented as the ‘natural’ language to write in, since it was perceived as the language of the internet. The following conversation of December 2009 with Rami and his then fiancée and now wife, Farah, who also maintains a blog, illustrates the various reasons for writing in English – and was itself also in English. Rami: Why I choose English? Yeah really, because most of the Lebanese blogs are written in English, so you cannot just start typing in Arabic. Otherwise you cannot really communicate with other Lebanese bloggers like maybe Finkployd45 [Blogging Beirut] or Maya Zankoul. You will be so different you will be like, let’s not call it an intruder but… Sarah: Hummus Nation [a famous Lebanese blog] is written in Arabic. Farah: But if you write in Arabic, you will only talk to people who know Arabic; if you write in English, you know Lebanese people, they are multilingual, they know English, French and Arabic, so the Lebanese will know English, the American, the European, you know everyone...it’s the language of the world somehow. R: Sometimes you get people from Europe […] of Lebanese descent, and most people don’t really know about Arabic, so you have to address them in English...

42 http://beirutspring.com/blog/2010/03/01/hi-kifak-ca-va-pride/. See also: https://hikifakc ava.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/lost-in-translation/, both accessed December 21, 2010. 43 http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/02/28/101730.html; http://www.aawsat.com/deta ils.asp?issueno=11700&article=554207, both accessed December 21, 2010. 44 Rami i1. 45 Rami mentioned his full name.

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S: This is true. R: …in addition to the fact that you should go global. So you should always have in mind that the New York Times will maybe some day write about you, it will of course not write about an blog written in Arabic. S: So is it also to write something about Lebanon for people outside? R: Yes, just like the people in Tehran, when they were rebelling against Ahmadinejad, if they were tweeting in Persian maybe no one would have understood them. That’s why they would tweet in English and write the blog posts in English, for the whole world to read what is really happening there. (Rami i1)

What came as rather a surprise to me was that Rami explained why he wrote in English first with reference to other Lebanese bloggers and not to international readers. In Rami’s perception, the Lebanese field of blogging consists mainly of English-written blogs, which is reflected in his blog roll and linking practices. In order to belong to this local blogging cluster, he opted to write in English as well. Writing a blog in Arabic would feel inadequate for Rami and would have excluded him from communication within this peer group. However, he also highlights the international audience that he seeks to attract and he therefore considers that English, as “the language of the world” (see above) is best suited. The conversation shows that writing in English is understood as a strategic choice in order to attract the most readers possible. This can be generalised for my overall material. Liliane, too, expressed that she would not attract a lot of readers if she would write in Arabic (i1) and that people who use the internet know English anyway. Finally, Rami even formulates a norm that “you should go global” (i1) – in line with his argument for opening up towards the US and Europe46 – in order to attract greater attention, such as from an international newspaper. He uses the example of Iranian bloggers and Twitter users to illustrate his point: only because they wrote in English did “the whole world” (see above) notice what they posted. The potentially bigger audience is thus one main argument for writing in English. As Haugbolle in his study on Lebanese blogs during the July War 2006 points out, the use of English “allows bloggers to communicate with international human rights groups, media, researchers, and, most importantly, a community of other bloggers worldwide” (2007: 4). The Lebanese blogosphere, at least in its beginnings, was very much an endeavour of academics, researchers and political analysts that provided political analysis for an informed public in both Lebanon and abroad. It is especially these early bloggers who fit the category of “bridge bloggers”, i.e. bloggers who “primarily address Western audiences, usually writing in English with the intention of explaining their societies” (Lynch 2007a: 11). But some of the

46 As I will discuss in chapter 7.2.

238 | III P UBLICNESS bloggers from the second generation fit into this category, too. This outreach and bridging factor is partly related to the huge Lebanese diaspora, which is estimated to be up to 15 million people and thus much larger than the population in Lebanon, which amounts to approximately four million people. The use of English also seeks to involve Arab-Americans of Lebanese descent, who blog predominantly in English (see Salama 2007: 8). Rami explicitly refers to the Lebanese abroad as readers “of Lebanese descent” who don’t know Arabic (i1). As Liliane puts it: We want to open up to the world, we want to be part of the world, and if you think about it, […] we’re three million in Lebanon, even more, and we have in Brazil alone ten million, if you think about the US, Europe, Australia, Africa… so everyone is outside and I think because we’re everywhere, we just want to use the most international language possible I don’t know I’m thinking with you. (i1)

According to this quote, the presentation of the Lebanese as “being everywhere” not only justifies the use of English as the language to blog in, but even demands it. Liliane’s assessment thus shows a particular kind of self-understanding as “open[ing] up to the world” (see above). In addition to reaching an international audience, other reasons that are not directly related to the audience come into play, as Liliane’s further explanation for the choice of English exemplifies: Personally why English, not French and not Arabic? I can tell you why not French, because I don’t like French; I don’t express myself easily in French; it takes me time. Why not Arabic? When I write, […] I got used to it to expressing myself in English, and maybe I feel freer to speak in English or to write in English: I can just say whatever I want. (i1)

The choice for English was thus also based on Liliane’s personal preferences. She was French-educated in school, but still has been always felt more interested in and more comfortable expressing herself in English. In addition to that, writing in English provides Liliane with more freedom to express herself and to say whatever she wants. This might be due to the fact that it was not the language she was formally educated in, like French, or Arabic, which marks her Lebanese environment. And the other reason is basically the typing, sometimes it’s many months in between posting, I write a post in Arabic, but it takes me one hour to type this page. I think it’s because we’re just used to English, and e-mails, you know e-mailing all your friends in English. It is easier to communicate with others, […] so writing the Arabic language is hard for us, we don’t use it […] unless you’re studying history or Arabic literature, you won’t write in Arabic, you write in English. In school when we study our main courses, […] either in French or English, it depends on the school, we’re used to expressing ourselves in English, I guess. […] I don’t

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know whether you noticed […] sometimes when we are sitting together, even among friends, we don’t speak Arabic. (Liliane i1)

As Liliane describes here, English is part of much of her daily life, which certainly is the case for a lot of young people with higher education in her age group. In online but also offline communication, English is frequently used among her friends. Furthermore, typing as such poses another obstacle to writing in Arabic. The English-writing bloggers often have French and/or English as their education and work languages. All three English-writing bloggers in my sample were instructed in English, at least in parts of their university education. Their English and French may at times be better than their Arabic. Yet, even those who speak Arabic fluently may have little training in typing Arabic letters.47 Maya reflects on her difficulties writing in Arabic in the following: I can’t write in Arabic. I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m very weak in Arabic, so I don’t see myself at all writing. It would be full of mistakes and it just comes to me in English. I work in English, university in English… so it was either English or French because school was French, but I found that English would reach more people. (i1)

Maya was educated in a French school in Saudi Arabia and then did studied at university in English. Nevertheless, she first tried out writing in Arabic, but in an intermediate form of Arabic in Latin letters that is common in online communication48: The early posts were in Arabic, like I wrote today the ads [in Latin letters], but the normal Lebanese that we talk [the dialect]. But after a while people came on the blog who were not Lebanese or did not understand Arabic… well, they told me, make it English, so I made it all English. (Maya i1)

Due to the international audience the blog attracted, she then turned to English. The example indicates that the audience can have a direct impact in structuring a blogger’s language use. Unsurprisingly, the comments to the English-language blogs discussed so far are mostly also in English, although occasionally some of the comments are written in Latinised Arabic or in French.

47 The same goes for the French-writing bloggers, like Wadih from Rêver le Liban (see below). 48 What Palfreyman and al-Khalil (2003) call “ASCII-ized Arabic”. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. They show the creative way of AA in a case study of university students in the Emirates.

240 | III P UBLICNESS Some of the Lebanese bloggers not only have to choose between English or Arabic but also French. The blogger Wadih al-Asmar from Rêver le Liban, who has lived in France for more than 15 years, clearly considers French his language of expression49 and opted to write his blog in French.50 Whereas writing in Arabic was out of question, since he could not type fast enough, he lamented that his English skills simply were not that good. He also said, “If I wrote in English, I would leave out the francophones, this is an important elite in this country, a big part of the elite is francophone.”51 The choice for French is thus related to the aim of reaching a particular segment of Lebanese society. This is partly explained by Wadih’s engagement for Human Rights in Lebanon. Because of that, he considers it a priority to address the francophone “elite”52, which in his assessment is an influential segment of the local elite. Overall, for bloggers who are trying to attract an international audience beyond a francophone orientation, English often remains the first choice. Some bloggers feel that there is little choice left besides English. Mazen Kerbaj, a French-educated artist, who started KERBLOG53, an English-language comic blog during the July War in 2006, explained: For starting the blog it was clear that it should be in English, what you imagine as public… […] I wrote a little text, the introduction before posting any drawings, a text in English, because I virtually talked to everybody [tout le monde] and everybody speaks English. […] It’s horrible [affreux], it’s the international language.54

Although uneasy with writing in English and even critical about the hegemony of English, bloggers like Mazen opt for English to make their posts accessible to an international audience. Addressing an Arab audience In contrast to the bloggers presented so far, not all opt for an international Englishspeaking audience, but some want to address explicitly an Arab-speaking audience. Writing in Arabic was often explained to me as a conscious choice to strengthen

49 He used the term “langue d’expression”. 50 Interview with Wadih al-Asmar on March 10, 2010, Beirut. His blog can be found at http ://reverleliban.blogspot.com/. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/ 54 Interview conducted on March 16, 2010. The sequence is translated from French.

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Arabic content online and/or to address this Arabic-speaking audience. As Hanibaael explained, “I write in Arabic, so my readers are from the Arab world and Arabs around the world” (i1). Adon, too, outlines: I decided [to blog] in Arabic because the main audience is in Arabic, it gets more… I can interact more with the readers, to get feedback yaʿnī to deliver the message to the highest number of readers as possible. It’s just a technical reason. […] I considered writing in English yaʿnī sometimes I feel more comfortable writing in English because all that I read and interact with, it’s in English, but I still write in Arabic because I found it gets to a wider audience. Audience, it sounds French [laughing]. (i1)

Adon chose Arabic although he felt more comfortable writing in English, because he found that it is the best choice to interact with the blog’s readers and also for having a “wider audience”. For other bloggers, too, writing in Arabic is a strategic choice, as in Trella’s case: It’s not because I like to write in Arabic, it’s because most of the common friends and most of the people I know happen to speak French, my French is not going anywhere, so I decided I can’t write in English, so I started writing in Arabic.55

Since English was not an option because most of his friends are francophone, Trella opted for Arabic. Whereas both Adon and Trella explain their language choice with a rather pragmatic reason, for others writing in Arabic is more ideologically charged. Khodor describes the location of his main audience for his Arabic blogs: For me, I consider the three most important nationalities are the Lebanese, and afterwards directly the Palestinians, because I stress a lot on the topic of Palestine, and after the Palestinians I consider the Syrians, Syrians or Egyptians, but rather the Syrians, since they have the same political ideological interests as we have. (i1)

In Khodor’s perception, “it is only the real activists, the very radical activists” who write in Arabic (ibid.). This assessment applies very much to his blogger peers, but still indicates that it is a specific group who opt for blogging in Arabic in Lebanon. Assaad reflects on his use of Arabic in the following: Most of my blog is in Arabic, so it is kind of a language barrier for some people. It would have been much better if I were publishing in English, in terms of the audience, but this is something I believe in. I believe that blogging in Arabic, although it’s harder because of the

55 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010.

242 | III P UBLICNESS tools on WordPress or the typing on the keyboard and stuff, but I think it’s a cause I wanna struggle for because it’s a language that is my own language, my native language, and I wanna preserve it and if I was giving it away or other people were doing so, we will end up not having our own language and only using English. (Assaad i1)

For Assaad, blogging in Arabic is a cause in itself: to strengthen Arabic content online and in doing so helping to preserve his native language. Despite the difficulties he has with typing and using specific online tools in Arabic, he consciously chooses to post in Arabic. In his perception, writing in Arabic diminishes the audience for his blog, as it functions as a “language barrier” (see above) for non-Arab readers.56 At the same time, the Arabic blog attracts a specific audience, as he continues later, those “who are more interested in Arabic writings and other stuff and let’s say more politically affiliated for a nationalistic cause or something” (Assaad i1). Writing in Arabic is thus correlated with a specific political, namely Arab nationalist, tendency. In the same vein, Khodor’s statement, “It’s only the activists who write in Arabic” (i1), hints at the fact that writing in Arabic is perceived as a political statement. However, both Khodor and Assaad reflect on not being able to reach non-Arabic-speakers. I thought several times about writing in French on my blog, but then I changed my mind. At the moment I have no interest in communicating with the French or the Belgians, now my goal is to reach the Lebanese and the Arabs. (Khodor i1)

Despite the wish to tell his leftist activist ‘comrades’ in Europe about the situation in Lebanon, he is quite clear that his main audience consists of Lebanese and Arabs. Assaad, however, tries to accommodate an English-speaking audience by summarising the events in Lebanon in English from time to time: I write at least once or twice a month in English, trying to summarise most of the blogs I’ve done, trying to summarise what is happening around Lebanon and hence publish it in English. I was thinking of creating another blog in English so that I could make the two work simultaneously, one in Arabic and then in English, but then I figured it’s too much work and I don’t have the privilege of time for now, but maybe in the future… (i1)

Accordingly, maintaining two blogs in both languages is considered too much work. Yet, the summarising is a considerable contribution to the English-speaking

56 None of my interviewees said that they did not want to be read by a ‘Western’ audience. The argument was rather that they were more interested in addressing a local/regional audience.

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audience, meaning that Assad potentially includes all English-speaking visitors. Some may check his blog at regular intervals, or at least this seems to be what he hopes. This is why the activist blogger Farfahinne opted to post both in Arabic and English: “Really, I love to write in Arabic, you see, but I would also like that people, because I am connected to comrades in London and Paris, I would like them to know what is happening here.”57 The majority of these bloggers chose Arabic although they do not lack proficiency in English. Most would be perfectly able to maintain an English-written blog as well. Yet, their busy working schedule (see chapter 3) does not leave much extra time to work on more than one blog. Against this backdrop, they pragmatically opt for one language. This prioritising is linked to a strategic or ideological choice. Instead of always writing in a pure MSA style, however, they flavour their blogs with the Lebanese vernacular, as I outlined above in the section on locality. In my sample, Trella, in particular, in his own words uses a “slang language”, although he has “very good Arabic but [does] intend not to use it”, since his nagging and writings are better expressed in the vernacular.58 While Khodor’s writing style sometimes includes vernacular expressions, Adon has a rather pure MSA style, which is partly also to be related to the more academic-oriented style he is writing in.59 Hanibaael can be placed in the middle of this spectrum. The comments on the Arabic written posts reflect the language use within the blogs. They are mostly in Arabic, often in Arabic script and occasionally in Latin script, and a few English comments are also to be found. The presented examples illustrate that language choice is often related to the intended audience, although other factors are to be considered, such as the blogger’s foreign-language education, the social environment and personal preferences. The relationship between language and audience is not as simple as choosing English for an international audience and Arabic for a local and regional audience. English can also be understood as an entry into the local field of blogging, as in Rami’s case, and Arabic may be opted for in order to reach both French- and Englisheducated Lebanese, as in Trella’s case. The overall tendency is that the Arabicwriting bloggers often take a clear stance for writing in Arabic, and not because their English or French language skills are insufficient. Beyond that, most of the Arabic bloggers in my sample advocate for producing Arabic content online, which Hanibaael also does in his job for SMEX. Overall, the material discussed so far indicates that how the audience is imagined is a quite important structural factor in the way of writing and addressing it, as I will show in the following part.

57 Interview with Farfahinne conducted in English on February 25, 2010. 58 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010. 59 See chapter 4.2.

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6.4 I MAGINING

THE AUDIENCE

One of my questions in my initial questionnaire touched upon the issue of the blogger’s imagined audience. The aim was to get an idea for whom the blogger was writing in his or her self-understanding and to go beyond the mere numbers of visitor statistics etc. In the following I will present different tendencies in how the bloggers imagine their audience(s), each based on an example of a blogger’s imagined audience. Imagining the oppressed and affected Sarah: Whom do you imagine as an audience for your blog? Adon: It depends on the subject. When I write about freedom issues, actually I imagine the prisoner, the prisoner’s family, the one who sits in his house after being harassed by the security forces without being able to express anything he thinks, the one who has no confidence in anyone he sees in the streets. I don’t know if you know that the Arab governments tend to try to make all the citizens keep each other under surveillance, inform on each other, and I know this atmosphere very well, so I try to imagine those, every single person, and when I write I try to imagine he’s reading it. […] When I write about this issue I try to imagine, but they definitively don’t read the blog [laughing] the woman who has to stay in her house all the time just because her husband says so, the girls who never got the chance to got to college or to work or to accomplish their dreams, the ones that have to be accompanied by a five-year-old boy, just because he’s a boy, to be able to go out in the street, they definitively don’t read my blog but they are the most oppressed category of women and they’re the majority in our countries, not just in Lebanon, in all the Arab countries. […] And then the environmental [subjects], it’s an old addiction, I try to imagine myself actually, I grew up actually in a small farm in the Bekaa, and as I grew up the town changed, we didn’t have a farm anymore, we had just more rooms on the house, so the whole atmosphere changed and we had this, when they blow up the dynamite, when they blow up the mountain to retrieve the rocks, what is it called? I try to imagine people who are damaged by environmental degradation or climate change or whatever, like in Darfur or whatever, but mainly I imagine myself to get in the mood [for writing]. (Adon i1)

This quote from Adon illustrates quite vividly the role of an imagined audience in the writing process. Not all bloggers were that explicit in their answers. However, most of my material shows that imagining the audience is a structuring force in the bloggers’ writing process. In Adon’s elaborate answer, different imagined address-

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ees become visible: those harassed by state security, women deprived of their rights and people suffering from environmental destruction. It also becomes evident that he clearly addresses an Arab public in general and not one confined to Lebanon: “our countries” (see above) refers to the whole Arab region. What is quite striking is that the blogger is conscious that most of the imagined readers will not read his blog.60 Nevertheless, imagining them seems to help the blogger “to get in the mood”, as Adon calls it (see above). He does not expect them to be his potential audience. Rather he tries to create a ‘felt’ connection in order to tell their stories and create awareness about certain types of societal problems. Thus, he tries to get in a deeply political “mood”, as he put it, to be able write about these issues. This exemplifies the argument that the imagined audience is important to consider in studying blog production: the imaginations of the audience and the ways of addressing it are part of the production practice and indicate a specific ethical attitude that I will come back to in chapter 7. Reaching the periphery Another example of imagining the audience that also is related to dissemination practices is Khodor’s case. He describes his imagined and intended audience as follows: I don’t consider myself to be someone who wants to communicate with the elites, I don’t care about the elites! I want to communicate with the people, people who haven’t read anything in politics yet. We start with zero. I’m not interested in those who already have an ideology or the public of T-Marbouta [a popular café/bar in Hamra], for example; they don’t want to change anything. Those who really will change something are those from the suburban world [le monde de banlieu], the world of Bekaa, of Akkar [province in the North], the world in the South [of Lebanon]. (Khodor i1)

The audience that he wishes to reach clearly consists of people outside of central Beirut. He imagines his readers outside the blogging circles and outside of his own peer group of young leftists in Beirut. As I described in the first chapter, blogging in Lebanon is mainly concentrated in and around Beirut, and bloggers situated in Northern and Southern Lebanon are not very present in the local field of blogging. Yet according to Khodor, they are part of the population that could achieve change in the country. This relates to his

60 In a similar vein, Farfahinne told me that she blogged about workers in Lebanon, “but I don’t imagine, I don’t have the illusion that it’s the workers who read it.” Interview on February 25, 2010.

246 | III P UBLICNESS political project of reviving the Lebanese Left (see chapter 3.5) and the struggle of the working class and people of the lower classes in general for change in Lebanon – in accordance with a Marxist political view. Following up on his quote, I asked him whether these people read his blog. He replied: Well, not on my blog. But I try with all the means, I send them [the posts] per mail to all the friends in the South. I try, and when I go to my village, I give my articles to my family to read. […] I print them and give them to my uncles, for example, by telling them “Can you give me your opinion?” I don’t care about their opinion, but I want them to read, that they take up an idea, that what the people [“les gens”] think. If there were a hundred people who do this, I think we could revive the golden époque of the Lebanese Left, the one of the ’60s. (Khodor i1)

Khodor thus tries to spread his thoughts beyond the set of average blog readers and to disseminate his texts with other means. By making printouts and distributing them to family members in South Lebanon, he makes an attempt trial to transgress the structural boundaries of internet access in terms of economic and cultural constraints. He explains this, again, with his political project of intending to revive the Left in Lebanon. Blogging about and for Lebanese people – yet in different ways It’s about Lebanon, so of course I want people to get there to read about Lebanon or to just read a Lebanese person’s point of view of things. LILIANE I1

Accordingly, the readers Liliane primarily imagines are Lebanese in general or people interested in Lebanon, not a specific group. When I asked her why she hardly posted anything on the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution in early 2011, she answered: I would be a hypocrite to take a cause for another country and write about it; who’s my audience? My audience is Lebanese people. I mentioned it in a way, [I showed] support once, and I felt like this was enough from where I stand […] I could have gotten Egyptian readers, but I don’t do that because this is not my aim, you know, I want to be credible. (Liliane i2)

Liliane links her intended audience, which are Lebanese, to the topics she chooses to write about and her own credibility as a blogger. In contrast to the two examples

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before, her imagined audience – and the same could be said for Rami and Maya – is less politically motivated, but rather broadly defined. The interest in Lebanon is the main point of reference. While the blogger Trella is also very much concentrated on Lebanon, just like Liliane, he has a more political audience in mind. He answered the question what he imagines as his audience with: Anyone who is fed up with the sectarian rules in Lebanon and everyone who is fed up with corruption, anyone who wants change, wants political reform, who wants democracy and most importantly who is, who is defending human rights in Lebanon.61

The audience he envisions is one that shares the aims of his own political project to change the sectarian system in Lebanon. Warner’s discussion of counter-publics makes it clear that not just anybody is addressed. “Addressees are socially marked by their participation in this kind of discourse; ordinary people are presumed to not want to be mistaken for the kind of person who would participate in this kind of talk or be present in this kind of scene.” (Warner 2002: 86) Those who are addressed are accordingly imagined as struggling for the same causes that Trella does, and following up on Warner, being part of the ‘counter-public’ scene. Overall, the imagined audience can be understood as an important part of the bloggers’ production practice. The imagined audience makes the production “meaningful” (see the Hine quote that introduces this chapter) and can also lead to specific dissemination practices, as Khodor’s case exemplifies. Moreover, to have an audience in mind helps in the concrete writing process, as Adon’s case here showed, in reaching a particular frame of mind, and also in strengthening the motivation for the overall blogging project. Imagined and addressed audiences do not necessarily overlap and the bloggers are aware that their blogging does not reach the ‘oppressed’ or the people in suburbia they imagine in their writings. While for Trella, those who share a similar political mindset are the main addressees, Khodor highlights that he wants to go beyond the circle of those already involved in politics in Beirut. Furthermore, the imagined audience and the language choice are interrelated. Those who are writing for a Lebanese and Arab audience in Arabic in order to incite change on the local level and create awareness for regional problems predominantly opt to write in Arabic. Those who are writing in English rather intend to reach a more mixed audience, Lebanese and internationals, based in Lebanon and abroad. The line is not clear-cut, as Liliane’s and Trella’s cases show; they both address ‘Lebanese’. However, their two cases also indicate that addressing Lebanese

61 Interview with Trella on February 10, 2010.

248 | III P UBLICNESS can imply complete different sets of underlying assumptions and political strategies. Synopsis In this chapter I mapped and analysed various aspects of bloggers’ audiences and (trans)local imaginaries: the production of virtual locality, language choices and usages and the role of the imagined audiences. As I demonstrated on the basis of my material, the imagined and actual audience is a significant part of the blog production practice and doing publicness. In the first section on locality I showed how virtual locality is produced in the blog’s content: by the use of specific visual representations, covering local issues and at times by writing in the vernacular, and furthermore by using other social media to keep track of local events. Some non-local bloggers successfully perform local authenticity for a broader audience, including their fellow-bloggers’ readers. But this is perceived as a greater challenge than writing a ‘local’ blog while being present in Lebanon, and in order to gain local credibility the blogger must perform ‘writing like being here’. In the following sections, I then analysed the main tendencies of Arabic- and English-written blogs in terms of their language choices and imaginaries of different audiences. I showed that language choice is related to intended audience, yet not in a clear-cut division of Arabic for local and English for international readers. The picture is more complex, which is mainly explained by Lebanon’s multilingual language landscape and the huge Lebanese diaspora. While English also functions as a language to address local youth and to be part of the English-writing Lebanese blogger scene, Arabic blogs address readers beyond the Arabic region. However, the English-writing bloggers considered English a more natural choice, since it was the language of the internet. Those blogging in Arabic mostly made a conscious choice for an Arabic blog. In their reflections upon the topic, most bloggers showed high awareness of their use of language, which might be related to the fact that they are used to language being a constant issue in their (multilingual) life. I also showed that imagining an audience can be used as a writing tool, to get “in the mood” (Adon i1). Moreover, the imaginations of their respective audience are closely bound to the bloggers’ political agenda, and differences in their blogging ethos, such as divergent political goals and understandings of their practice are visible. I will deal with these in more detail in the next chapter on blogging ethos in Lebanon.

7. The ethos of blogging

After having analysed the interplay between audience, language and the production of locality, I will now discuss the bloggers’ ethos and their self-perception. My argument is that bloggers’ ethical beliefs, their ideals and images of how one ought to blog, structure their blogging practice. Consequently, ethos is another important element to analyse when looking at the production conditions and practices of blogs. Beyond that, these ideals, images and guidelines are a structural component of the ways of going and being public, and thus part of the basis of the publicness of blogging in Lebanon. Much like in my previous work on journalistic practices at Al-Jazeera (Jurkiewicz 2009), my approach here to ethics is not focused on formal ethics codes. Rather I understand ethics as a reflexive practice. This practice entails what the actors are actually doing and saying. As Stephen J. A. Ward (2004: 22f) outlines for journalists, “By ‘ethics’ I mean something more than the accepted, perhaps unreflective, mores of a social group […] rather I mean norms and principles that journalists pick up to explain and defend their actions and profession.” The rhetorical dimension is thus to be considered in the analysis of ethics. Yet, in line with a practice-theory approach, I understand ethical practice not merely as rhetoric, but also as encompassing the ‘doings’: how bloggers position themselves, how and what they blog in practice. Against this background I define ethos with regard to blogging as an ethical attitude towards one’s own blogging practice. The blogger’s ethos expresses his or her self-positioning and self-understanding as a blogger. However, studying the journalistic ethics of bloggers differs from examining the ethics of journalists who are tied to a corporate identity at a specific channel or newspaper. Bloggers do not belong to a common media enterprise and do not necessarily display the same professional background and schooling. Instead, they are loosely bound within a field of practice that includes the online as well as the offline realm and displays links to particular social fields and domains of practice, such as activism and journalism. To date, no overarching bloggers’ codes are to be found; in journalism, however, a range of national and multinational as well as in-

250 | III P UBLICNESS stitutional codes of ethics exists.1 There is no consensus amongst bloggers about a particular set of ethical codes. However, blogging codes are developed and discussed, such as the one by the blogger Rebecca Blood (2002). Blood sets forth six principal rules of blogging, with a particular focus on transparency.2 By following these rules, as she emphasises, professional and personal integrity, but also the integrity of the “network” (Blood 2002: n. p.), i.e. the blogosphere, can be established and maintained. In a similar way, Jonathan Dube, the founder of CyberJournalist news site, proposed a blogger code of ethics that is based on a journalistic ethics code (2003: n. p.). Some bloggers recently have been debating what, if any, ethics the Weblog community should follow. Since not all bloggers are journalists and the Weblog form is more casual, they argue they shouldn’t be expected to follow the same ethics codes journalists are. But responsible bloggers should recognize that they are publishing words publicly, and therefore have certain ethical obligations to their readers, the people they write about, and society in general.3

As both authors mention and their own contributions show, bloggers’ ethics are debated within the “community” (see quote above). Although bloggers are not all journalists, Dube emphasises the bloggers’ responsibility in “publishing words publicly” (ibid.). The journalism scholar Martin Kuhn in an article from 2007 criticises that both just proposed ethic codes are oriented toward “credibility in a journalistic sense” and do not take into account the specific circumstances of computermediated communication, such as interactivity and its ability to facilitate “small group formation” (2007: 20). He adds for consideration that the previous codes were not built upon a dialogical process between bloggers (ibid.: 21). Kuhn presents another attempt to establish an ethics code based on a survey among bloggers. This code also entails points that recognise the specific features of interactivity in blogging, such as “promoting community” and “building relationships” (ibid.: 34), which are to be considered essential values within blogging. Most of these discussions about blogging ethics codes are located within the North American and European context. To my knowledge, no wider discussion

1

For international codes, see the “Code of Ethics” (1996) by The Society of Professional Ethics (https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp) as well as the code by the UNESCO from 1983 (http://ethicnet.uta.fi/international/international_principles_of_professional_ethics _in_journalism), both accessed February 12, 2012. For a comparison of different journalistic ethical codes, see Nordenstreng and Alanen (1981) and Cooper (1990).

2

On her blog rebecca’s pocket, available at: http://www.rebeccablood.net/.

3

http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php, accessed December 10, 2011.

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about a formal blogging code has taken place among bloggers in the Middle East or Lebanon more specifically. Nonetheless, debates about ethical issues were common amongst the bloggers I researched: during meetings, in the blogs’ comments sections, in face-to-face talks between individual bloggers, and in the interviews I conducted. I will base this chapter on these internal debates in the Lebanese field of blogging and concentrate on the seven bloggers in my main sample, thereby showing the bloggers’ ethos, in the sense of an ethical attitude (Haltung) that guides their blogging practice. I did not ask bloggers explicitly in the interviews about their ethical standards, but realised while processing the material that this issue was addressed and discussed on several occasions. In the first part of this section, I will show what it means to be a ‘good blogger’, i.e. the standards for good and successful blogging, as addressed by the bloggers. In the second part, I will then focus on various aspects of the ethics-focussed discussions about impartiality and credibility. Following up on this, the two main ethical positions regarding the role and ‘assignment’ of blogging will be analysed. They hint at particular ‘cosmologies’ – in the sense of greater concepts and imaginations reflecting normative values and orientations – of blogging in Lebanon. In conclusion, I will present some final thoughts on what can be described as the blogging ethos in Lebanon in relation to those in North America and Europe.

7.1 S TANDARDS

FOR SUCCESSFUL BLOGGING

Based on these introductory notes, I now want to address some general and practice-related blogging standards that are prevalent in my material. What is a ‘good blogger’ and how can blogging be successful, according to the practitioners in the field?4 As I will show in outlining the main stances in my material, the bloggers formulations of ‘recipes for success’ often entail normative standards. First, as several bloggers have put forward, someone who is blogging is not automatically considered a blogger. When I accompanied Hanibaael and Adon for the blogging training they gave in Zahleh,5 we talked about this topic while driving from Beirut into the mountains in the direction of the Bekaa Valley. To be a “real blogger”, Hanibaael stated, one needed to post once per week at least. “To have a

4

This was not one of my interview questions; however, it was constantly addressed in my material.

5

The training took place at two weekends in March 2011 in the framework of a project called “12 Bridge Builders: Bloggers for peace and justice” that I referred to in chapter 2.2.

252 | III P UBLICNESS blog and to be a blogger” was not the same thing.6 In his definition of a real blogger, the quantity of posts and continuity of posting was essential, an assessment that is shared by other bloggers in the field. However, as will become clear, there were many more criteria for good blogging. I will present some of the main standards for content, style and linking that were put forward. Since I already discussed issues related to the temporality of posting in chapter 4.1, I will not elaborate on this aspect here further.7 The following examples stem from the interviews and talks I had with bloggers, as well as the training sessions that I attended, in particular the Zahleh blogging training. I will formulate each point in the form of a standardised norm for blogging as it was expressed by the bloggers. Add new content and post about “contemporary stuff” 8 “Post less and better!” This is what Hanibaael implicitly suggested as his blogging standard in an interview I conducted with him (i2). He criticised that there is often no real content on blogs. I think that applies to a lot of bloggers in Lebanon, but not only there, also outside, there is no real content […], most bloggers, honestly and unfortunately, you read the blog post but after half an hour you forget what you read, very “light”, light to the degree that you feel that you didn’t read anything! But working in it, perhaps from the experience in journalism also, I know the value of words and the responsibility of writing, every word on the blog I write should be very accurate and I should be very sure of what I am saying and thinking: the “responsibility” of the writer... responsibility for what I say and write, you know? (ibid.)9

While criticising other bloggers’ “light” content, Hanibaael outlines his own expertise that he acquired through his journalistic work and formulates the standards for his own writings, in which he emphasises his responsibility as someone who publishes online. To make your posts read and remembered, he argued further, you need to present a new idea in a different style. If he could not manage to do so, he would not post the article on his blog. In a similar way, Adon also stated: “If I don’t have anything new to add, or an info or an analysis or an opening the horizon to-

6

Field notes, March 13, 2010.

7

Furthermore, I’ll leave out technical guidelines on how to choose labelling posts and the blog/URL address to make them easily found via Google. As Adon expressed it during the bloggers’ training in Zahleh, “Make Google your friend” was an important strategy for a successful blog.

8

Rami i1.

9

Translated from Arabic. Quotation marks denote words he used in English.

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wards other things […], then I don’t blog, I don’t post!” (Adon i2) Thus, the implicit ethical standard in these statements is that as a blogger you need to provide new content, either a new topic or a new analysis of a discussed topic. Adon furthermore mentioned as his ethical guideline that he writes about ideas not persons, for instance in his writings on the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement in Lebanon, in which he did not criticise persons, but rather structural problems. As for Assaad, he told me that he had learnt from other bloggers at the Arab Bloggers Meeting in 2009 to “Blog about stories that the audience will care about” and that “You as a blogger should not care too much about sending messages or pinching people for that a story publishes [sic]” (i1). If the content is good, “feedback will come eventually” (ibid.) According to this remark, a blogger should primarily think about the audience in terms of what they might care about, but without trying too hard to “pinch” (ibid.) them, used as a synonym for flaming/heating up, and pushing possible readers by sending messages (via other social networking tools). Instead, by concentrating on the content, the audience’s feedback will come after a time. In terms of topics a blogger should address, Rami suggests: Actually what can increase your number of readers is when you write about contemporary stuff, for example, when I was writing about the last elections, the billboards, I was receiving a lot of [hits] on the blog. So the more you write about contemporary stuff, the people always search for more about it. (i2)

As he had experienced himself, the more contemporary or up-to-date the blog topic is, the more readers it may attract. The citation is formulated as a piece of advice and a strategy of success for one’s blog. However, he added on: “Whenever you use these temporary events to make your blog, you just can’t make it on the long run, you have to think about the future, what could you be writing about.” (ibid.) This implicitly refers to bloggers who start blogging on a specific “contemporary” occasion, such as elections or an armed conflict, but then fail to continue. If blogs are not continuously updated, they lose validity. This is why it is important to think about a long-term strategy for themes to address on the blog. As I will come back to in the next section (7.2), Rami is against blogging on political controversial issues, but rather suggests blogging about “random stuff” (Rami i1) and everyday life. In contrast to this stance, other bloggers, especially from the ‘leftist cluster’, highlighted the importance of blogging about taboo subjects, such as Khodor: For example, me, I had written an article criticising the Lebanese army, everybody [tout le monde] was interested in it, everybody sent a message, everybody posted it on his or her blog and on his Facebook page, because it is a taboo subject. Thus, the Lebanese blogger should choose taboo subjects! (i1)

254 | III P UBLICNESS To write about taboo subjects is a success strategy in terms of the popularity of an article, as Khodor outlines in this example. Thus, just because it is a “taboo”, it attracted much attention within Khodor’s blogging circle and wider social networks. Yet, the post he talks about here was also discussed controversially, as I will outline in more detail in section 7.2. Despite the difference in stance toward publishing controversial posts, the general attitude is that one needs to write about contemporary, timely, up-to-date topics the audience cares about and provide “real content” (Hanibaael i2), i.e. have something to say. This is presented as a strategy to maintain a successful, which means frequently visited, blog and at the same time an important normative ethical standard within blogging. “Find your style” and keep it “Find your style” was the advice Adon and Hanibaael gave during the workshop for young bloggers in Zahleh. That was what blogging was about, to express yourself in your personal style, as they followed up. Thus, the personal touch of a blog would make a blog successful. They added as a concrete suggestion, “Have a face. Speak like a person, not a marketer or lieutenant.”10 This suggests a writing style that is personal, not commanding or marketing, whether one writes about personal or political topics. Liliane also expressed the importance of style in blogging and being recognisable: Think if you’re committing to your blog, if you have the same style, because if a person comes to you for the style, and he liked it and he wants to come back for the style […] They’re expecting the same thing or if your style is actually too, I don’t know, surprising, so every time they come they wanna be surprised! (i1)

As an example she mentions Maya Zankoul’s blog, “People wait for her next post to see what is she going to make fun of next – and the illustrations.” (Ibid.) She emphasises the importance of being committed to one’s own style and of not changing it too much, since readers expect continuity. To be a recognised blogger, one needs to show a certain amount of stability, not only in regard to posting times, but also in terms of writing style. The personal note, a specific and recognisable perspective on the state of things, is thus to be understood as a formula for success as well as a normative guideline in blogging.

10 Field notes, March 13, 2011.

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Network, connect, comment… and give credit …in addition to socialising or networking with other bloggers, I think you noticed in my blog about, references to other bloggers [can increase your number of readers], other people do the same, so we start networking with other people and maybe exchanging visitors? RAMI I1

All bloggers emphasised the role and importance of networking in their blogging activity. The underlying ‘network ideology’, as I would put it, in which networking is considered an unquestioned value in it itself, is omnipresent in the field of blogging I studied. It is both part of the blogging ethos as well as a strategic move to reach new readers and, as Rami put it, possibly “exchang[e] visitors” (see quote above). However, not all bloggers in my sample have extensive blog rolls or practice linking the blog’s content heavily; some do so only occasionally.11 Rami, however, with his weekly roundup of Lebanese blogs, practices the linking ethos par excellence. Replying to readers’ comments, as part of networking, was also put forward as an important feature of blogging. At the bloggers’ training in Zahleh, Hanibaael told the participants that it was very important to answer the comments and added, on a humorous note, that he himself had not done it in the beginning and that it was Adon who convinced him that it is important. Related to linking and commenting, the bloggers presented ‘giving credit’ as one of the main ethical standards. As Assaad puts it: “Connect to other bloggers and put links and hints attributing to them” (i1). In a similar manner, Mariam, a blogger from Southern Lebanon, told me that she had learnt in her blogging training to “take everything, but just say that you have taken them from this blog” – by take she means copy and repost.12 Giving attribution to other bloggers or sources cited is highlighted as a critical tool and part of blogging as an ethical practice. These generalisable examples show that linking, cooperating and giving credit lie at the heart of the blogging practice. This reflects wider tendencies within social media production and free software (see Keltey 2008). Blogging is thus not understood as a solely individual practice, but is seen in the framework of a wider, decentralised “produsage project”, as Bruns (2008/09) had described it.

11 Riegert and Ramsay (2011: 9), too, state, “Most of the Lebanese bloggers link more seldom within their blog posts than is often assumed.” 12 Interview on March 23, 2010, in a village close to the city Sur.

256 | III P UBLICNESS The limits of blogging The above outlines some of the main practical standards of blogging. Yet what topics do bloggers consider no-go areas? In other words, what is not allowed and bursts the limits of blogging in terms of ethical standards? In a talk with Liliane about the Lebanon Aggregator and her strategies for including or excluding blogs, she told me: There is only one rule: if it is too offensive, porn, I wouldn’t add it. […] People do offend on their blog, but as long as it is not internationally acknowledged that it’s offensive, I post it, I don’t mind, I like it, I don’t like it, I don’t care, I just scan through rapidly, okay it’s not really… I don’t know, posting porn or saying really, really bad stuff, okay it’s decent, I post it. (i1)

Asked what can exclude a blog from being part of the aggregator, the main portal of the Lebanese blogosphere, Liliane mentions porn as the first disqualifier. As a further criterion, she brings up “internationally acknowledged” disqualifiers. In her assessment, being offensive is part of blogging, but certain limits must be set for the portal she maintains. But she does not specify what instance or authoritative guideline she refers to. Judging by the blogs assembled in the aggregator and Liliane’s views expressed elsewhere, I would think she would draw the line between, on the one hand, critical and even offensive comments on certain political parties, state policies or whatever and, on the other hand, hate speech that could be clearly labelled racist or sexist. Since these boundaries, however, are contingent on the observer’s perception, it is hard to tell where exactly she draws the line. Scanning through the content, she judges in accordance with a general impression, rather than a detailed examination of a blog. The latter would be nearly impossible to fulfil, due to her busy time schedule. In general, this is a contextual ethical guideline rather than a strictly defined set of rules; and the same can be said for many of the ethics codes discussed above as well. One point in Kuhn’s (2007: 34) suggested ethics code is “Minimizing harm to others when posting information”, which must also be judged contextually. In short, as the rather consensual principles and practices of blogging also hint at, being a contemporary, personal and cooperative blogger can be summarised as sharing set of ethical normative standards. According to my informants, these criteria need to be fulfilled in order to be a good blogger and they also create a basis for a successful blog.

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AND CREDIBILITY NEGOTIATED :

BLOGGING ETHOS IN PRACTICE After having laid out these basic principles for good and successful blogging, I will now turn to ethical problems and discussions of impartiality and credibility. Based on my material, I will touch upon three different ethical problems: first, between being engaged as an activist and reporting as a blogger; second, commercial demands and services in blogging; and third, funding of a blogging organisation. Impartiality versus engagement During the community day ArabNet Conference, held in Beirut in the prestigious Habtoor Hotel in Sin el-Fil, I met Hanibaael, Liliane, Assaad and other bloggers. Some of them were attending due to their work with SMEX, hibr and other associations, others took the day off from work to attend the event. Today various social media actors from Beirut were involved in the programme. Munir Natbi from the hibr youth magazine held a presentation titled “you(th) powered media”. […] At the end of his talk, he addressed the topic of the ethics of social media and asked whether there is anything like this. “You are a publisher…and you are a person,” was one of his points, in the sense that one should be always aware of the consequences of publishing something. He emphasised that it is hard to establish credibility, but easy to lose it. Eventually, he asked: “Can you be an activist and do balanced journalism?” – which was a tricky and relevant question, in my opinion. As an example, he mentioned the current Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement in Lebanon, which the hibr magazine also covers. Then he addressed the public and asked, “What are YOUR ethics?” The sentence was shown on his Power Point presentation. (Field notes, March 25, 2011.)

The talk Munir Natbi held at the conference13 addressed not only bloggers, but also a wide variety of people publishing online, whether on Facebook, Twitter, news sites etc. His main question whether one can be an activist and practice balanced journalism is particularly relevant for blogging. Although in talks and interviews with bloggers of my sample the topic was not always addressed explicitly in the terms of Munir’s opposition of activism and journalism, the issue of impartiality versus engagement was touched on explicitly on various occasions. In the following I will present the main takes on this issue, starting with an account by the blogger Assaad. The incident he refers to in this quote was the demonstration in front of the Egyptian embassy in Beirut in January 2010 (see chapter 1.2).

13 See https://arabnet.me/conference/summit/2011/, accessed December 7, 2011

258 | III P UBLICNESS I went as a participant, but then I found myself [there] as a blogger recording the story, but I did report the story saying that I was in [a participant]. I always wanna tell my readers what to expect. If I was doing a journalistic piece, I would have definitely told them it’s journalistic, but if I wanna be inside [a participant in] an event, I would also definitely tell the people I’m inside this event and I’m not saying [that’s] a journalistic writing but I’m saying my own point of view. And this is something I really learnt from blogging, even if I was inside the demonstration and I was “closely beaten” by the police and I got threatened by them, but at the same time I wrote between parentheses the other point of view that blablabla, that I respect this and I think some of the people with us made a mistake, but they [the army] shouldn’t have replied by that. I’m trying to be as just as I can. Because there is always, in any case, two points of view and two stories in it, which I’m aware of. (Assad i1)

Initially Assaad went on the spot to participate in the demonstration, but then found himself “as a blogger reporting the story” (see quote above). From being a participant, he thus switched into being what could be labelled a ‘participant observer’. Being an activist and doing balanced journalism in Munir’s terms, as I read Assaad’s statement, is contradictory from his point of view, since “being inside an event” (ibid.) involves expressing one’s own political opinion and is consequently not compatible with journalistic writing. Although the roles of a blogger and journalist are not clearly described and journalism is naturally not always impartial, Assaad perceives them as hard to combine in this specific situation. However, although he got “inside” (ibid.) the event, and was beaten and threatened, it was important for him to take into account the “other point of view” (ibid.), i.e. also mention that some of the demonstrators had acted improperly. Representing “both sides of the story” (ibid.) is an implicit ethical standard for his blogging and is also needed to maintain his credibility. It reminds me of Al-Jazeera’s main journalistic ethical stances (see Jurkiewicz 2009) and also other journalistic ethics codes. Beyond that, another ethical norm he expresses here is the need for selfpositioning, i.e. state clearly in which role one took part in or observed a particular event. Assaad, who also works as a freelance journalist, had learnt this from blogging and then also applied it to his journalistic writing. Overall, this shows once again how the lines between the two practices blur.14 This example reveals that bloggers follow ethical standards even if they might not name them as such. Through the experience of particular events, these standards are established as the basis for their practice, which hints at practice-based and pragmatic ethics. Implicit reference to journalistic ethics – representing both sides of the story – is made, yet applied to the own complex role as blogger, activist and

14 I also highlighted this point in chapter 5 with regard to the relation between journalism and activism.

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journalist. However, Assaad does not claim to be impartial, as he continues later in the same interview: “Even if you’re writing anything, which is trying to be […] as objective as you can, you will end up [writing] what you think about something.” (i1) Although he tries to be “as just as he can” (ibid.), he is aware of the limits of objectivity. By making his own position clear, Assaad tries to make up for his biases. Like Assaad, other bloggers also expressed the dilemma of impartiality versus engagement. Adon told me that after blogging on the aforementioned incident at the Egyptian embassy, he and his fellow bloggers, including Hanibaael and Khodor, engaged in a discussion about what had happened and how to write about it. Jou3an posted a very, yaʿnī, a post that is very aggressive towards the Lebanese army and towards the security. It is called “Rabbits in Beirut and the Army in the South”.15 He’s right, but we discussed the issue that we cannot write our reaction or mere reaction. We discussed if it’s appropriate to call the Lebanese army… to treat it as yaʿnī, as an enemy. I guess it wasn’t very appropriate, that’s why maybe we should wait a little bit to post stuff. […] There was a general atmosphere that ‘oh we hate the Lebanese army’, and another opinion was that the Lebanese army is just following orders, so “hate the political authority that gave the order not the guys that are making a living”, yaʿnī, that’s it. That’s why I don’t post when I’m angry. (Adon i1)

First of all, this example reflects the internal discussion about how to write within a particular group of bloggers that I have labelled the leftist activist bloggers. The discussion was not ‘simply’ a matter of how to write in general, but embedded in a specific and politically charged situation. Moreover, the general political stance of a loose group of leftists vis-à-vis the army was at stake. Although Adon agreed with Khodor’s (aka Jou3an) assessment of the situation as such, he thought that it might be inappropriate to describe the army in aggressive terms. This indicates that the ethics of blogging is discussed controversially in specific situations and groups. While for Khodor the relief function of his blog is a priority and it is also part of his political blogging agenda and ethos to let his anger out,16 other bloggers were critical of this way of writing in this particular instance. The incident can be taken as an example of a general tendency. While all are engaged for the cause, they hold different opinions on how to express one’s political criticism in blogging. Outside this leftist blogging group, however, there are quite contrary stances expressed about impartiality versus engagement. Rami in particular took a clear

15 The blog post is not available on his blog anymore. 16 As I will come back to in chapter 8.1.

260 | III P UBLICNESS stance that you should not be subjective at all in writing about politics, but should stay independent. I’m not saying you should not be subjective about everything you write, it’s just about politics. You should write about the issue from different perspectives, just politics. For example if I write now about Starbucks that they have a horrible service and they are unfriendly, it is subjective; however, it will not ruin my credibility. But if I show I’m biased for either of the [political] groups and the next day I attack my opponents, I ruin my credibility in front of my readers. […] Write but do not abuse your blog, if you know that you have around 1,000 or 2,000 readers a day. Don’t abuse your blog and start posting personal views attacking your opponents. Just keep it independent, write about random stuff and eventually every blogger will make it. (Rami i1)

For Rami, impartiality is the absolute ethical norm in relation to politics. His demand to not take a political side is first and foremost to be understood against the backdrop of the political divide between the political blocs, March 8 and March 14, that marks Lebanon’s political landscape and media sphere. The official media, as he expressed in the same interview, abused their readers by attacking “the other side” (ibid.). In contrast to them, he argues that the independence of his blog renders it credible because public support is not displayed for wither of the two political sides. Politics is still an exceptional topic; in reporting on other daily life issues, subjectivity is part of his personal blogging ethos. In political issues, however, Rami’s ethical stance is clearly “keep it independent” and “don’t abuse your blog [to attack political] opponents” (see above). Interpreted in light of other views Rami expressed in the interviews, he thought that only by staying outside the political divide in Lebanon could he retain independence. As a strategy to keep this independence, he consciously avoids political topics as much as possible. His blogging is rarely on political topics, and when his blog does touch upon political issues, Rami has a criteria for choosing the topics. Whenever I write about something political, I try to choose something that everyone agrees on, for example, if a party X attacks someone working as a journalist, everyone will be saying innu, it’s a bad thing, like the case with the Future Movement attacking the journalist in Tripoli. I try to take the ones that everyone agrees on, I don’t want to mention controversial stuff and to attract more comments and maybe receive hate comments on my blog, I just don’t want it, that’s why. […] For example, during May 2008 when Hizbollah invaded Beirut and entered several offices of the Future Movement, I don’t know if you were aware of it, I wrote on the first day of the event, I wrote a post titled “Fuck you”17 to everyone who has

17 http://www.plus961.com/2008/05/fuck-you/, accessed February 11, 2010.

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messed this day and everybody who launched a RPG18 or something. Everyone agreed that is was a wrong thing, that’s why I wrote about it. (Rami i1)

Avoiding “controversial” (see above) topics, in his understanding, means avoiding being biased towards any side. Rami’s blogging ethos is thus very much oriented towards emphasising the common and unifying, which can be achieved by writing about “random stuff”, as he mentioned above. This stance is not simply apolitical; instead, in this context, avoiding certain topics and not wanting to create a divide by posting aggressive comments can be understood as a political statement. In a highly politicised public, writing against the politicisation of daily life by avoiding politics is a conscious attitude. This stands in contrast to the blogging ethos of those bloggers engaged in political struggles that are not oriented towards consensus. Creating debate about certain issues lies at the heart of their blogging agenda and ethos. Yet, Rami does not envision political engagement and positioning. The second example he gives of a political topic “everyone agrees” upon (ibid.), however, illustrates that the consensus he refers to might at times be only a partial consensus among his own social and political circles.19 This reflects the subjectivity in assessing a particular political situation and that, although he envisages and formulates impartiality as an ethical standard for blogging on political issues, it is not always easy to remain impartial and to be aware of one’ own biases in practice. The examples introduced so far represent a certain spectrum of ethical stances toward impartiality and political engagement within the local, Lebanese field of blogging. Khodor could be positioned on one side of the spectrum. He represents the full ‘engagement ethos’ of blogging, in which blogging is considered a form of political activist engagement and, accordingly, taking a political position and side is a characteristic part of the blogging practice and formulated as ethical attitude (ethos).20 Despite their activism, Adon, Assaad and Hanibaael are situated in the middle of the spectrum. They perceive it as their responsibility primarily to provide balanced accounts, although at times they clearly take sides in specific political struggles. Whereas the first two positions understand political involvement as part

18 RPG stands for rocket-propelled grenade. 19 The event he refers to was when, in May 2008, Hizbollah-led fighters staged a military invasion of parts of Beirut in response to a government’s decision to outlaw Hizbollah’s telecommunications network. See for instance the blogger Asad Abu Khalil’s assessment of the events expressed in an interview: https://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/12/81_de ad_in_lebanon_as_hezbollah; and for a report on how fighters seized control over western Beirut: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10lebanon.html?pagew anted=all, both accessed December 2, 2011. 20 The blogger Farfahinne is another example of this blogging ethos.

262 | III P UBLICNESS of their blogging, the position put forward by Rami is a blogging ethos that refuses to get involved in politics and instead sheds light on daily life issues. Maya and, in the second part of her blogging ‘career’ (after moving away from politics), Liliane could also be classified as embodying the third stance. All of them, however, are and position themselves against the political March 8 – March14 divide in Lebanon. I will come back to these different stances towards politics again in the next section (7.3) and in chapter 8. At this point, I will to turn to other issues that were controversial within the field of blogging, namely whether it is justifiable to accept money or be funded for one’s blogging activity. This relates, on the one hand, to commercialising one’s blogging by being sponsored in return for advertisements/publicity and, on the other hand, to ‘foreign funding’, support for associations and campaigns. Both aspects illustrate how impartiality and credibility are negotiated. The commercialisation of blogging and its ethical dilemmas In the interview I conducted with Liliane in April 2011, she told me that advertisers and a magazine had recently contacted her in her role as blogger and maintainer of the blog aggregator. In the first instance, a magazine asked her to “select three bloggers every month and write a short paragraph about them that they would publish in their magazine” (Liliane i2). She perceives this invitation as an opportunity to bring blogging to another audience that does not spend very much time online. When I asked her more about the journal, she replied: I think it’s a social, between fashion and stuff like that, I really don’t know. […] I’m also doing this for free, I’m not getting paid for it. I prefer not to be paid for something like that, because I feel if they pay me to choose a blogger, that would tell me choose this blogger you know […] If you don’t pay me, I feel like I have more power to choose whatever I want to choose. (Ibid.)

To maintain what can be described as her ‘editorial independence’, Liliane argues that she does not want to be paid for this service. Her implicit ethical standard is to keep economically independent. In the second incident, a company contacted her and wanted to get in contact with bloggers in order to market certain products. This situation was definitely more problematic than the first example, since it relates more directly to the commercialisation of blogging and also implies passing information on to a company with commercial interests.

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I don’t want to lose credibility, since everything I’ve been doing till now is a hobby and I don’t want the fact that I’m working, yaʿnī, I’m being very careful. If I want to tell this company you should contact these bloggers, I want to make sure that these bloggers would be interested, I don’t want them to be “spammed”, you know, about anything. So I’m taking this very carefully, if I feel that it’s going to jeopardise my credibility with the bloggers, I would stop. I don’t wanna make money that way, I don’t care. I already have a job, but if they are already going to do something like that, I don’t mind helping them […] they choose the right bloggers, if they want to market I don’t know, technology, a new product. I’d tell them talk to this blogger, this blogger, this blogger, because they already blog about those things, and approach them that way, you know, be careful, how to approach them, because bloggers don’t like to be bought, they like to remain honest and credible about their work – at least most bloggers. (Liliane i2)

This means that Liliane considers this request a potential danger to her integrity as a blogger and also to her credibility among other bloggers. Furthermore, she states clearly that she is not be interested in making money in this particular way, she already has a job and blogging is her hobby – and thus is not meant to be influenced by commercial interests. However, as becomes clear in the following, she is not in principle against marketing products on blogs. If bloggers are interested in this, she would be willing to forward contacts and link the two sides. For her personally, as I read her statement, credibility is most of all linked to being and staying economically independent. Without judging other bloggers who pursue commercial interests in their blogging, in her personal blogging ethos independence takes priority over commercial interests. Overall, being approached by institutions outside the blogging field that reflect a growing interest in social media in general, which can be flattering for certain bloggers, also presents a new kind of ethical dilemma. The bloggers’ self-understanding, in terms of being different, i.e. more independent, from the traditional media, stands in conflict with the commercialisation of blogging.21 Liliane, however, took a clear stance in both incidents. She practices blogging outside any economic logic of making money, and credibility in terms of being economically independent lies at the core of her blogging ethos. The sceptical take she expresses on commercialisation is certainly related to her way of blogging, which alternates between writing about social media, Lebanese society and personal experiences. Another take on the topic is represented by Rami. He sees making money through blogging as a legitimate way to gain some additional income.

21 I will come back in more detail to this self-positioning towards the ‘traditional media’ in Lebanon in chapter 8.2.

264 | III P UBLICNESS In my opinion, you have to think of a blog like any other media, or any newspaper. You can make it a part-time job, where you post good content and eventually just like other media through money, through the content they publish, you can arrive at a time where you will be attracting companies to advertise on your blog. Because eventually you will have a good reader base and you might be attracting some companies to your blog to pay for what you’re doing to let you enjoy more what you’re doing, to add to the motivation. It doesn’t have to be just your motivation that lets you blog, money can be a good motivation also to make you post some good content later. (Rami i1)

In this general statement, Rami expresses that for him financial interest does not have to contradict good blogging. As an additional motivation, it can also enhance good content on one’s blog and thus be another reward of blogging.22 He sees continuities with other media that similarly produce reliable content and pursue their commercial interests. On his own blog, Rami publishes reviews of restaurants, for instance, but also evaluates the online campaigns of certain companies.23 Once he also reviewed upon request:24 Rami: For example […], they contacted me about two weeks ago and they offered to pay me money for just writing a review about them. And they told me, you really don’t have to do anything, we will write the review, we send you all the photos, you just publish them on your blog. So I responded that I will mention that the review is paid and […] I’ll be publishing whatever they wrote. However, at the end of the review I will write my personal view on their website. So prior to publishing their posts, I went to their website, I had an online chat with their sales representative, I tried to act like a costumer who wants to have a bouquet of flowers delivered to Tripoli, they were very friendly. […] So I mentioned this on my blog post and I did get the money for it. So it is not bad, in the end other media do get paid for what they do, so if you can do it, it is not harmful at all. Sarah: If you put it in this way that you write your personal view also, you make [your position] clear. Otherwise people could say, ah you’re biased, not in a political way but…. R: The optimal review is the review that is written by the blogger himself and they get [he gets] paid for it. Ok, I did break the rules in my first review, however, it was my first customer so I had to make him satisfied. (Rami i1)

22 See also the discussion in chapter 5 on external rewards (p. 207ff.). 23 See for instance: http://www.plus961.com/2009/12/exoticas-different-christmas/, accessed December 7, 2011. 24 Ibid. This is the post he refers to in the following quote.

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At this point, Rami has just started to publish reviews in this way, so it is not a representative case of his way of doing reviews as such. It shows, however, the underlying ethical assumptions about how to blog and the standard he tries to follow. Overall, he thinks one should be open about the production process of each particular review post. In this case, he wrote right at the beginning of the post that he was sponsored by the company involved. After presenting their campaign, he then added his personal assessment that he reached by trying out the service they provide and by looking at their website, which he criticised for its content. The ethical standards he tries to follow are consequently: first, if you get paid, you need to mention it on your blog! Second, be clear about the production conditions of a post or section of a post (i.e. that the company wrote this as promotion), or, in sum, position your content! In contrast to Liliane, he does not see his credibility in danger when pursuing commercial interests; however, in his opinion, these must be revealed on the blog. He appears to be preserving his credibility by means of transparency and showing the ‘conditions of production’. Transparency about the blogger’s profits and interests is thus an elementary ethical guideline for his blogging. External funding versus local credibility In the meetings of the Lebloggers that I participated in, the question of external funding was heavily debated. Funding by a main US funding body, in particular, was discussed as one potential funding body, but since the group’s activities came to an end shortly after the debate (see 2.2), no founding actually took place. In the talks I had after the association’s activities came to an end, the topic was also mentioned as one of the main conflicts within the loose group of bloggers. All this indicates that it is a controversial issue within the Lebanese field of blogging. In the following, I will present the main stances in the discussion, without naming the bloggers. This is an ethical decision, since I see it as my responsibility not to heat up any internal discussion or blame particular persons for difficulties within the group in retrospect.25 Therefore, I will designate the two positions as A and B; each included several persons and these statements were made on different occasions. A 1: All organisations I know take money from barra [literally “outside”, referring to foreign countries]! A 2: One is always a little bit dependent! A 3: The Lebanese bloggers encapsulate themselves by claiming to “boycott the West”.

25 See also introduction: “Methods and ethics off- and online”, p. 21ff.

266 | III P UBLICNESS A 4: I don’t care from where the money comes, as long as we can use it for the purposes we want. A 5: One must make a difference between an organisation within the American people and the US government. *** B 1: Being funded by the US, a country that invaded Iraq and supports Israel and at the same time advocates values such as peace and democracy – this is contradictory! B 2: By being funded by a US organisation, even if it is not the US government, the image and credibility of the association is harmed. B 3: It is not about politics, but one loses credibility by being funded by the US, it is about the image. People associate certain things with the US. B 4: You never give just money as benevolent, for doing good for the “third world”, they [the groups that give money] are not charity groups.

As these condensed positions on the topic make clear, the discussion about external funding is highly politicised. I will, however, not provide a description of the assessment of US politics or similar issues here. My main aim in showing the positions in this discussion is to reveal the underlying ethical stances. Whereas the position in favour of foreign funding argues rather pragmatically and makes reference to other organisations, the position against highlights political interests related to funding policies. The ‘pro-position’ argues for internationalising the Lebanese blogosphere in terms of ‘opening up’; the ‘anti-position’ stresses the political problematic of being funded from abroad. One of the main reasons against funding in the field, however, is what I call here the ‘credibility argument’. This argument goes beyond the question of the donors’ political interests, concentrating on the image that may be created by being funded from abroad. If the ‘wider public’ has a negative attitude towards specific countries and their policies, so the underlying argument, a blog or association will be connected with these – whether they support it or not. And this credibility is considered more important than having more financial resources to implement certain projects and activities, such as trainings and campaigns. The topic of external funding is discussed not only in the local field of blogging. During the Arab Bloggers Meeting 2009 that I attended, one discussion session was held about this topic.26 Bloggers from various countries in the region participated in the overall meeting and in this discussion round. Positions similar to just outlined were put forward; in my observation, the two stances were incompatible. One group consistently refused foreign funding, since it believed that this would be political hypocrisy. Wael Abbas, a famous Egyptian blogger, highlighted

26 Based on my field notes from December 11, 2009.

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that the reputation of civil society has become very bad through the propaganda of government and religious groups, partly due to accusations of foreign support. Especially secular leftist bloggers have been accused of being sponsored by the West. This relates to the credibility argument, according to which foreign funding harms the local credibility of bloggers and makes them vulnerable to attacks that they are promoting foreign agendas. While only a few argued in favour of external funding, no matter from which funding body, some took a position in the middle ground, not completely agreeing with either of the two absolute positions. Some bloggers also argued for making a difference between US and European money. One Lebanese blogger added for consideration that one cannot expect everyone to work for free and therefore one needs to think about funding in a more pragmatic manner. Furthermore, she problematised that in a lot of countries, for example Lebanon, an organisation needs to be recognised by the government as an NGO in order to be able to receive funding. Overall, the issue of external funding leads to fierce discussions not only among the bloggers within Lebanon, but also in the overall ‘regional blogosphere’, insofar as the term can justifiably be used. The political but also ethical dilemmas bloggers are confronted with when they want to build projects, NGOs or associations show some similarities across the region, despite national specifics. The spectrum of positions outlined here shows the variety of approaches to the issue. The main divide is between a pragmatic approach in favour of funding and a standpoint that emphasises that funding endangers the bloggers’ credibility. The ethical standards put forward in the discussion are the bloggers’ and organisations’ economic independence, which support their credibility and make them less vulnerable to the criticism that they support foreign agendas. Self-positioning instead of impartiality Despite all the divergent examples discussed so far and the different stances within the field, a kind of overarching blogging ethos can be recognised. The ethical normative standards can be put as follows: disclose your own position; be open about your role in a particular situation (as observer or participant) as well as about your commercial benefit and funding policies. Position yourself clearly and practice transparency in order to establish and maintain your credibility. These ethical blogging standards in Lebanon display similarities to the code proposed by Blood (2002: n. p.), who highlights transparency as “one of the weblog’s distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths”. Among her core principles are, for instance, to “disclose any interest of conflicts,” such as professional and other interests, and to “note questions and biased sources” (ibid.).

268 | III P UBLICNESS By and large, blogging ethics is not discussed in abstract terms such as an ‘ethics code’ or general advice, but in relation to concrete situations. The reflections on various aspects of impartiality and transparency reveal the degree of selfreflectivity the bloggers have toward their own practice.

7.3 ‘C OSMOLOGIES ’

OF BLOGGING IN

L EBANON

I have touched upon various tendencies in blogging within the Lebanese field on several occasions in this monograph. In the final section of the chapter, the main two tendencies of the overall blogging ethos and the cosmology in Lebanon shall be addressed more explicitly. Hereby, particular understandings of politics also become apparent. Despite their differences, however, some common ground can also be detected. A special “responsibility” 27 I think it’s helping to create an atmosphere in the Arab world, an atmosphere of freedom, of transparency of the governments, of freedom yaʿnī that’s the main issue. […] There is a very popular saying for president Hariri, it says that the country is okay, al-balad māshī in Arabic. His opponents take it as a negative point on him, no, the country isn’t ok, president Hariri, so we’re not ok. We should discuss more and blogging is the sphere where we can discuss it. […] I guess that we have a responsibility […] When we have something to say we need to say it, because we have a responsibility to defend others yaʿnī, the strong, in Lebanon we have certain bliss in this relative freedom, we can write whatever we want, so this relative freedom gives us a responsibility actually, a responsibility towards other citizens, toward other Arab citizens, to say what they are thinking about without being able to say it, to defend their freedom, to defend their liberties, their rights, yaʿnī, the internet is freedom, but it’s also responsibility, so it’s like […] philanthropic. (Adon i1)

These citations from an interview I conducted with Adon in February 2010 first highlight the high degree of self-reflectivity about his own media practice. Moreover, they represent one trend within the Lebanese field of blogging that perceives blogging as a sphere for discussing the critical questions and touching upon the issues that are not discussed sufficiently in the wider public – from the sectarian system to gender injustices etc. Discussing the problems instead of pretending that

27 Adon i1.

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everything is fine, as former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri did,28 is how Adon presents the main task of blogging in Lebanon. Furthermore, he highlights the special responsibility that Lebanon has because of its relatively high degree of freedom of speech. Lebanese blogging is set into the regional context and presented as a “sphere” (see quote above) that might even represent voices from other Arabic countries that cannot represent themselves due to the severe repression they are confronted with. This is reflected, for instance, in Adon’s and Hanibaael’s efforts to put forward topics related to religious freedoms, atheism and paganism. Also in addressing pan-Arab causes, such as, for Khodor and Assaad, the Palestinian cause, this responsibility is taken seriously. Since at the time of this interview in February 2010, the Arab uprisings were still a year away, the statement might be formulated slightly differently at a later time. The main claim that “internet is freedom but […] also responsibility” (Adon i1, see above), however, can be seen as an elementary concept and ethical guideline for blogging in Lebanon. All the bloggers I talked to emphasised the great amount of freedom in publishing that blogging provides, in particular in contrast to the traditional media that all are described as biased. However, the adequate way of exercising responsibility in the context of the internet – which is experienced as relatively free – is understood differently. Along with the approach presented here, which perceives a necessity to launch discussion and also highlights regional responsibility, another strand in blogging follows different norms and orientations. “Lebanese bloggers have to take it easy” 29 I think right now is the time to start acting like Sietske30 or to write about topics similar to what Maya writes about, draws about, writing about what kind of stuff can we enjoy here in Lebanon, writing about random stuff that happens in Lebanon but that is not tied to the political theme. […] Lebanese bloggers have to take it easy on blogging and not just talk about politics like the newspapers do. Just do what the European and American bloggers do,

28 Adon refers here to former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (Prime Minister from 1992-1998 and from 2000-2004). See http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/481/tr1.htm, accessed March 3, 2012. 29 Rami i1. 30 See http://sietske-in-beiroet.blogspot.com/, a blog by a Dutch expat living in Beirut with her family.

270 | III P UBLICNESS just write about contemporary stuff, and that’s what makes a blog successful in the long run. RAMI I1

Rami continues in the same interview taking Liliane as an example of someone who blogged about politics but then turned to write about more personal topics 31 – and also mentions the blog Blogging Beirut, which deals with events and personal experiences and in which photos of sites, landscapes and events in Lebanon are posted.32 In doing so, he represents a certain spectrum of blogging in Lebanon that opts to concentrate on daily life topics instead of politics. “What kind of stuff can we enjoy” (see quote above) in terms of places to go out to eat, as Rami in particular likes to blog about, and places to visit in Lebanon – as both Maya and Liliane post about – are to be mentioned here. This is not to say that they do not address crucial issues and debates in Lebanon at the same time, as I will describe in more detail in chapter 8. Overall, Rami’s statement represents a wider tendency within blogging in Lebanon. The emphasis is put on not being ‘political’, a term that becomes pejorative in this context. In my interpretation of this quote, it is not to be read as rejecting responsibility, as already touched upon above in 7.2 in the discussion on impartiality versus engagement. Rejecting politicisation in this context is a form of political engagement in the sense that you are combating a particular form of dichotomous confrontational thinking about certain political issues (March 8 – March 14 divide). Instead, according to this approach, the responsibility of Lebanese bloggers is to be understood as not being political and instead writing about pleasant and light topics. This indicates the type of society Rami and others wish for, a society that is defined by other parameters than the ‘political’ allows for. Consequently, not being political is not only about writing about pleasant food and drink and where the best humus is to be found. It can still be analysed as political and is linked to a peaceful society with fewer conflicts. The wish to create a space where ‘normal’ life, the mundane, is discussed, as their restaurant guides and pleasant topics indicate, guides their blogging. In this sense, the non-political truly is non-political, but is nonetheless a response to the same phenomenon, the over-politicised public and daily life in Lebanon.

31 “Right now she is writing some personal thoughts, but it used to be all about politics in the past.” (Rami i2). 32 Previously, during the war in 2006, the blog was more dedicated to political issues, see chapter 1.2.

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Beyond that, Rami refers to “European and American bloggers” who, in his opinion, write mainly about “random stuff” (i1). His point of reference is thus less the regional blogosphere but the international, i.e. European and North American blogospheres. By orienting oneself towards these bloggers and adapting their way of writing, a (Lebanese) blog could be successful. Divergent stances and orientations The two approaches – of 1. arguing for responsibility in terms of naming and discussing social and political injustices and 2. making a case for writing about light topics – reveal two divergent kinds of blogging ethos in Lebanon. Moreover, they also hint at different cosmologies of blogging, reflecting different normative standards and orientations. While the first, exemplified by Adon, is oriented towards the Arab region, the latter, put forward by Rami, is oriented towards ‘the West’, which is also reflected in their language use,33 as I have outlined in the previous chapter. The first stance is characterised by engaging in and launching discussions about societal problems in Lebanon and the Arab region. Responsibility is understood as representing those who cannot easily express or represent themselves. Blogging evolves a space in which the ‘suppressed’ person is given a voice and his opinions represented. Freedom, transparency and rights are put forward as values that need to be defended in blogging. The second stance is characterised by a conscious choice for the un-political, the entertaining and the light. Lebanon’s pleasant side, things that can be enjoyed in the country are seen as what is necessary to put forward. Blogging evolves as a space in which ‘normal’ life and the mundane are discussed, celebrated and set against a predominance of dichotomous political discourse. Both stances express in an explicit and implicit manner the responsibility of blogging and both try to bridge the political divides, but in different ways: one by naming the injustices and problems, the other by creating a space outside the political divides. Synopsis In the first two parts of this chapter I looked at two different sides of ethical standards in blogging. First, being contemporary, personal and networking evolved as the consensual, practical ethical standards. On this practical level, a clearly shared

33 Adon writes in Arabic, Rami in English. However, also divergent examples could be cited from outside this sample, for instance the aforementioned blog The Angry Arab News Service by Asad Abu Khalil, which is written in English, but is explicitly political and specifically adresses issues of social and political injustices.

272 | III P UBLICNESS set of norms could be detected. Second, I showed the different stances advocated toward various facets of impartiality and credibility and their underlying ethical assumptions. But despite their different stances, all bloggers emphasised the importance of practicing transparency – be it as observer or participant in a demonstration or in displaying economic interests or profits, whether as an individual blogger or collective. I also highlighted the demand for integrity in blogging. Overall, the ideal form of blogging as ethical practice that bloggers strive for is based on political and economic independence and transparency and disclosure of sources, combined with restraints on pornography and hate speech. Following up on the question concerning commonalities between Lebanese and other bloggers in relation to ethical standards, ethos (as ethical attitude) and the distinctiveness of the Lebanese case, two tendencies can be noted. First, many notions, such as freedom, impartiality and transparency, resemble those in the ‘Western’ discourse about blogging, as is reflected in the ethics codes discussed at the outset. Lebanese bloggers place themselves in a wider community of bloggers worldwide and, as my material indicates, are aware of the international discussions about blogging. Blogging trainings and success strategies present notions and concepts familiar from blogging in the US context. Second, however, some local specifics crystallise in the data at hand. The local political context in Lebanon structures the concepts and imaginations of good blogging and the blogging ethos. Lebanese bloggers find themselves in a society and media sphere greatly stratified by sectarian ties that frames their blogging activity in a certain way. The bloggers have different ways of positioning themselves towards political impartiality and engagement in this political landscape. The question whether to make a conscious anti-political move or to challenge more offensively the political narratives that are dominant in the Lebanese media sphere is always negotiated and reflected in the face of the local political context.

8. The dynamics of publicness

After I have analysed different aspects of doing publicness with regard to the bloggers’ audience and ethos, now this chapter revolves around the dynamics of publicness, i.e. ways of going and being public and the bloggers’ positioning towards what they call ‘traditional’ media in Lebanon. In the first section (8.1)1 I analyse what it means for bloggers in my sample to be ‘public’, which parts of themselves they display online and how they negotiate the boundaries between privateness and publicness in their blogging – where again their understanding of politics is prominent. In the second section (8.2) I will explore their understandings and practices of ‘counter-publicness’ and outline the causes and topics bloggers address. Both parts are intrinsically linked; the ways of self-disclosure on one’s blog that I will discuss in this first section are a part of the counter-publicness I discuss in the second section, which I will elaborate in the synopsis.

8.1 P UBLICNESS

AND SELF - DISCLOSURE Blogs are always both public and private. LOVINK 2008A: 2

The boundaries between ‘public’ and ‘private’ are hard to define. This is particular pertinent in the study of blogging and other digital media practices. As the prominent internet researcher danah boyd (2007: 1) outlined with regard to “mediated publics”2 of social networking sites, “What it means to be public or private is quick-

1

This section is partly based on an article that I published in the journal Oriente Moderno, see Jurkiewicz 2011b.

2

boyd defines “mediated publics” as “environments where people can gather publicly through mediating technology” (boyd 2007: 2).

274 | III P UBLICNESS ly changing before our eyes and we lack the language, social norms, and structures to handle it.” In a similar vein, Malin Sveningsson Elm (2009: 77) speaks of “the fuzzy boundaries between public and private parts of online environments” that make it difficult for users to grasp the transition from a private to a public space. She argues for understanding public and private “as a continuum, not a dichotomy” (ibid.: 76) and “as a perception, not a fact” (ibid.: 77). In line with these contributions, it is not my aim to provide definitions of the terms; instead, I want to analyse how the boundaries between public and private are perceived and negotiated by the bloggers in practice. What does it mean for bloggers to make something ‘public’ online? Which ‘public self’ do they construct online and, in doing so, what do they reveal of their identity and their personal lives? Starting with three stories of bloggers being public, I will shed light on these questions. I chose Maya, Khodor and Liliane from my main sample, since they address these questions the most distinctively. They stand out in their way of self-display and reflection on the dynamics of private and public. Maya: a personal space goes public Illustration 13: Maya’s Amalgam

http://mayazankoul.com/, screenshot taken on July 7, 2010

Maya invites the readers of her blog into her personal “room”, as the screenshot of one of her posts nicely illustrates. In the blog’s header, her virtual figure, as one can see, represents the blog. It shows Maya at her working desk in a relaxed manner with tea and biscuit and presents a mixture between a personal and professional identity. She is the main protagonist in her comic stories, as well: whether in a talk with her grandmother, in her car on her way to work, while working, cooking or

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hanging out at home. Typical stories of her daily life, little adversities and problems she encounters, all kinds of funny, strange and annoying observations are presented with a light, humorous touch. Her blog posts cover a range of different experiences, such as the difficulties of getting a visa for Europe3 and the adventure of a night taxi ride. In the “taxi story”, Maya takes a taxi by night and it turns out that the driver knows her family and is more informed about her family tree than she is herself.4 She concludes the post with her reflections on the incident: “I have to say the Lebanese are gifted at the memory level. Maybe that’s why they can’t get over the civil war…” This example illustrates how she combines her personal experience with wider observations she made in Lebanon, reflecting on Lebanese daily life and culture. Some of her posts are also rather personal thoughts and fantasies, such as the comic “Summon the Rain”, in which Maya dances for the rain to come.5 Beyond that, at times Maya also criticises certain media coverage, for instance of the “Gaza freedom flotilla” in June 2010.6 Since she lived abroad for many years, as Maya told me, she feels more conscious about the particularities of life in Lebanon: Ever since I came to Lebanon, you know, this culture, because I grew up in Saudi Arabia, I see all this stuff in the society that really bothers me. And all this time I talk about it with my friends. And the reactions I get are so negative […]. I criticise plastic surgery with my friends, and all of them have their noses done, so you can’t really get a message through, you know [laughing]. (Maya i1)7

Publishing her experiences and social criticism on her blog is a way to make them public that is not as easily dismissed as in her personal, offline life. While she got negative feedback when talking about a topic like plastic surgery offline, she got positive feedback online for her blog posts, as she told me later. Accordingly, on her comic blog Maya expresses her observations and frustrations about and experiences living in Lebanon that she cannot easily discuss face-to-face. One example that displays her form of social criticism is her popular comic about the parliamentary elections campaigns in Lebanon in 2009: “Sexy elections”.8 The post starts with a picture of Maya as the news presenter telling about a

3

She frames this as a criticism of the Schengen agreement, see: http://mayazankoul.com/2 010/04/21/schengen-disagreement/, accessed November 18, 2011.

4

http://mayazankoul.com/2009/06/01/a-taxi-story/, accessed November 18, 2011.

5

http://mayazankoul.com/2010/11/29/summon-the-rain/, accessed November 18, 2011.

6

http://mayazankoul.com/2010/06/03/flotillusion/, accessed November 18, 2011.

7

All the following citations of her stem from this interview.

8

http://mayazankoul.com/sexy-elections/, accessed September 12, 2010.

276 | III P UBLICNESS new kind of fights within the elections campaigns. She then tells the story of the new election campaigns on billboards, which refers to the actual advertising campaign in this election. In the comic, women in sexy outfits on the billboards exhort people to vote for a specific party. Finally they leave of the billboards and get into a fight. At the end of the comic post, Maya, as the news presenter, addresses her ‘public’ stating, “That’s why, dear friends, I will go voting no more.” Illustration 14 & 15: Extracts from “Sexy Elections” by Maya Zankoul

http://mayazankoul.com/sexy-elections/, screenshot taken on September 12, 2010

In the post, Maya’s virtual figure presents Lebanese news from her own perspective. On the one hand, the post reflects her relation to politics and expresses her disgust with party politics and all the political fights in the country (as she expressed to me also in an interview, Maya i1). On the other hand, Maya reads the advertising campaign in the Lebanese elections as a conflict over the representation of the Lebanese woman, who in her interpretation “undergoes a serious identity crisis”, as she writes in the short note after the post. She criticises the image of Lebanese women and her obsession with beauty etc., and states: “Poor Lebanese Women […] They don’t know if they’re pretty, equal […] or simply sex objects using temptation as the only way to get attention…”9 She thereby engages in a deep gender

9

The full personal note is: “Poor Lebanese women, they are going through a terrible identity crisis… They are given a new perspective to the question ‘who am i’ everyday! They don’t know if they’re pretty, equal (to we don’t know what, maybe to the pretty one), or simply sex objects using temptation as the only way to get attention… I mean slowly

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criticism highlighting that emancipation does not come by dressing sexily and concentrating on beauty. She counters traditional gender roles in Lebanon in which, in her perception, women are often reduced to beauty queens. Overall, on her blog she tries to create a space for a female identity that is not focused on improving external appearance, but involves a ‘natural’ beauty and moreover a space where professional career is more important than being married.10 In the beginning, the blog was more like a personal diary, she told me, and she did not know any other Lebanese bloggers yet. I was just blogging on my own, on my own island, and then Rami from Plus961, I don’t know how he came across my blog, I think through Facebook or something. He wrote an article, a post about my blog on his blog. So I saw a link, then I saw Plus961 and I was really, I was so surprised, you know, I felt like there’s another form of life! […] and then I signed up on Facebook and Twitter and started connecting. (Maya i1)

The citation outlines the shift from blogging on her “own island” to getting involved in the Lebanese blogosphere and twitterverse. It also illustrates the importance of the networking and connecting to others that makes blogging a lively endeavour. The networks established through blogging transcend the online realm and form a new kind of sociability in Maya’s life and beyond also serve as a way of promoting her work. Especially after her blog posts on the Lebanese election, her blog received attention far beyond the circle of her friends and acquaintances and she as a person and artist gained publicity.11 The blog became more involved in promoting her book, which is based on her blog entries and also discusses her career shifts.12 Thus, the professional self can be said to have emerged more clearly during the two years of blogging. While she enjoys public attention for her blogging activity, she highlights that it mainly led to a change for her personally: I feel on a personal level it has changed my life. Stuff that bothers me, I don’t think that it bothers me that much anymore, because I feel that I am doing something about it. I am not just seeing it in front of me. So I feel better. I feel that I have contributed. Maybe in the end

with the billboards…And why do you feel that you have to answer every single billboard that is printed? Some questions are better left unanswered you know…Anyway the above was simply my ‘real-life’ interpretation of this endless stupid billboard war.” 10 As expressed in the post “Quid pro quo” that I discuss in 8.2. 11 See her portrait (3.6) for examples of media coverage. 12 http://mayazankoul.com/2011/01/31/5-things-i-dont-miss-about-full-time-jobs/, accessed September 18, 2011.

278 | III P UBLICNESS nothing will happen, but at least I am trying. I am shouting something out and if it gets a reaction or if it doesn’t, we’ll see about it. (Maya i1)

By “shouting something out” to a simultaneously anonymous and vaguely known public, the blog functions as a tool for relief. The relief is achieved by “doing something”, i.e. posting on her blog. Yet it is not only about letting things out; Maya also perceives her blogging as a form of social activism, contributing to a more peaceful Lebanon. Liliane: juggling the political and the personal Liliane has a relatively long history of blogging on different platforms. At the time of my second fieldwork, she maintained three different blogs, From Beirut with Funk, Incoglilo and Go Social Media! I will concentrate on the first two here, since they are the most relevant for the analysis of public and private dynamics. As I depicted in her portrait (3.2), she started to blog about political topics on the Indepence05 blog in July 2006 and changed the blog’s name to From Beirut with Funk in 2010. Yet, besides this blog Liliane felt the need to also have a more personal space and opened her blog Incoglilo in October 2006. Sometimes I just wanted to talk about silly things you know, I couldn’t put it in this blog, the audience for this blog was very different from what I want as a feedback if I said something silly. And in the previous post I was talking about nuclear weapons. It just doesn’t add up, you know. […] I thought other people have personal blogs, so why not, why not me? (Liliane i1)

Mixing the political and the personal would not be suitable on the same platform, in her opinion. However, several times in my interviews with her, she addressed the dilemma of separating her different blogs and maintaining their boundaries.13 “Now I feel they mix up in some things […], sometimes I post the same thing, because Independence05 also changed and it’s not too political anymore,” Liliane told me in early 2010 (i1). She reflects this shift also in the blog itself. In an October 2010 post in this blog now called From Beirut with Funk she writes: 14

13 Not only between the personal blog and the more political From Beirut with Funk, but also between the social media blog Go Social Media!, From Beirut with Funk and blogs on the Lebanon Aggregator. (i2) 14 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/10/this-blog-is-not-political.html, accessed November 18, 2011.

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Illustration 16: Blogpost “This blog is not political” (From Beirut With Funk)

http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/10/this-blog-is-not-political.html, screenshot taken on November 18, 2011

As the post shows, Liliane made a conscious choice not to address politics anymore. Her statement furthermore highlights a specific understanding of politics in relation to media use: only by avoiding watching the news would she be able to believe in a better Lebanon, since in her perception, the biased Lebanese media only incite more hatred. In this vein, her strategy is also not to address political issues on her blog anymore, which reflects the blogging ethos of avoiding politics in order to contribute to a more peaceful Lebanon that I analysed earlier in chapter 7.2. The political is kept private, while other more personal issues are made public, as the opening of her personal blog indicates. In an interview, Liliane outlines the difference between the From Beirut With Funk blog and her personal blog. It [From Beirut with Funk] is about Lebanon and what did I say, serious stuff, so I cannot just put like today I’m feeling weird, not that I do that on Incoglilo, but if I want to do that, I feel like I can do that and I don’t care what people think because this blog is really just my space. But From Beirut with Funk, I am trying to make a change through it you know, criticise things, encourage people to criticise things, to point things out to them etc. create a debate. (i2)

280 | III P UBLICNESS Although Liliane avoids politics, the blog still entails “serious stuff” and touches upon a different set of topics: from environment issues such as climate change to gender issues and also internet infrastructure in Lebanon.15 These topics are still political, but not in the sense of Lebanese party politics or highly conflictual international politics, such as Ahmadinejad’s visit that she mentions in her post above. The blog also deals with light and pleasant topics, for instance suggestions on which tourist sites to visit in Lebanon, which has its own category in her blog16 or suggestions for upcoming concerts. At times she also comments on the political situation in Lebanon, for example after the collapse of government in January 2011. In “Travelling back in time does exist”17 she also refers to older post that covered the collapse of government in 2007: Check this post of mine “Parliament out of reach, please try again later”,[18] almost 4 years ago, deja vu? Oh and for the record, it took almost 9 months for the cabinet to form. What else? are we afraid of a war again between Hezbollah and Israel? Oh well check the first 100 posts of this blog! No President? Let’s go back 3 years, even Maz Jobrani [an Iranian-American comic stand-up artist] pointed it out! More scare that we’ll have a civil war? hmmm should I continue? As BeirutSpring.com said, wish there was a plug-in so we can repost 3 year old posts. [sic]19

As Liliane explained to me, what she likes in particular about her blog is: “Sometimes if I go back I can see a sort of historical time line you know, only went through this and this.” (i1) This citation relates nicely to the post just mentioned in which Liliane uses her own blog as a historical document, in this case recalling a political event, yet it also applies to other more personal history. In a way, her blog is a public diary of things happening around her that she finds worth taking the time to mention. The blog provides her with some sense of historicity of what she went through, what is happening around her. “I thought it’s in my chest so why not put it out on my blog,” she told me when talking about a post she published (ibid.).

15 See 8.2 for examples of her postings on these issues. 16 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/p/what-to-visit-in-lebanon.html, accessed November 18, 2011. 17 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/01/traveling-back-in-time-does-exist.html, accessed November 18, 2011. 18 Link to a former post on: http://independence05/2007/02/parliament-out-of-reach-pleas e-try.html, accessed November 18, 2011. 19 All underlined segments in her blog posts are links to other posts on her blog or to other bloggers.

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At times it is hard to maintain the boundaries between the political, but not “too political” blog and the personal one (Liliane i1.). She initially opened Incoglilo, her personal blog, because she also wanted to “write about silly things” and not just as on the former “too political” Independence05 (which then became From Beirut With Funk). However, the personal blog is “not so personal” (ibid.) as well, as is noted in the blog’s header text and represented in the image: Illustration 17: Header Incoglilo

http://incoglilo.blogspot.com/, screenshot taken on October 13, 2011

“Posting things in a not so personal way about stuff I see every day,” describes her blog’s writings. In an interview, she explained to me how she juggles between the personal and “not so personal” (i1): It is about me. Once I wrote that I fainted at work, just weird, but I wanted to share it because I felt like something happened to me and I want to go back one day and read the stuff, so I keep it on this blog. At the same time, I cannot say, yesterday my boyfriend really bothered me, I felt like that doesn’t respect him so I don’t put these, so people don’t know. But for example the marriage thing, even if my mum stumbles on it, I don’t care, let her know what I think about this matter, so yeah just things I just don’t care if you read it, yeah, this is the way I think, welcome! (laughing) But I do have a lot of times, sometimes I block it, I block it, I give access only to a few people, I told you, sometimes I go through the paranoid phases I don’t want anyone to know anything about me or see a picture or anything, because I don’t put my picture on it. (ibid.)

In contrast to her ambivalence about what to integrate in the blog, Liliane takes a clear stance against making herself public in pictures. She is also avid to protect the privacy of people in her life. While she may openly write about why she is not married, she does not want to include details about her boyfriend, since she considers this as not respectful (i1). Sometimes Liliane gets the feeling she is disclosing too much, which she calls her “paranoid phases” (ibid.), and she then occasionally closes her blog or stops blogging for a time. It is thus rather a day-to-day evaluation, and how much she discloses depends on her mood. This shifting policy indi-

282 | III P UBLICNESS cates that for her the boundaries between what to keep private and what to make public are not fixed and depend on her personal situation. The marriage post she refers to in the citation is a blog post from 2009 in which she writes about not being married yet. The post consists of four short dialogues in which different people ask her why she is not married, among them a guy from school, the cleaning lady and her cousin’s husband. After describing these incidents, the post concludes: I am still single, I am 29 years old, the reason why I am not married (answering the people who look at me with pity in their eyes ‘cause am still single) is (pick your favorite): I am just butt ugly I burp and fart and that ain’t lady like! I am a lesbian I nag too much that nobody wants to marry me I can’t have children I am abnormal I am so f*ckin’ stupid and boring, even zuzu ibba20 doesn’t wanna marry me Nobody ever proposed Nobody loves me I am too smart and too pretty and too sexy that many men feel intimidated by me and can’t handle me. I was waiting for you all my life. In reality the guy I love died, a dragon came and bit his head off21

After telling her stories that reflect people’s expectations that a 29-year-old woman should be married and their very different ways of feeling sorry about it, Liliane makes fun of the reader by suggesting various reasons why she is not married. She does not display the ‘true’ reasons, but rather shows how annoying the question is and that there is no adequate way of answering it. Overall, the post critically addresses the pressure women are confronted with to fulfil the expected role being married by their late twenties. The posting is marked by an informal, colloquial and casual language use that reflects spoken language. The answers display Liliane’s criticism that the preferred status of a woman is to be married. Beyond that, they indicate that some women are not unmarried by choice and that the question why might put them in a quite unpleasant position.

20 Zuzu Ibba, (also spelled Zouzou Ebba), is a program on Lebanese Channel OTV. 21 http://incoglilo.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-i-am-not-married-yet.html, accessed December 11, 2011.

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The Incoglilo blog thus refers to personal experiences, but is “not so personal” either (Liliane i1). As she told me in the interview, if it got too personal to publish, then the drafts remain drafts. But sometimes, if she would like to see peoples’ opinion immediately on a certain rather personal topic and not wait until she sees her close friends or family, she posts on a personal matter nevertheless. In a way, she feels more at ease talking to people she does not know: “sometimes you don’t want your friends to know what you’re thinking” (ibid.). Consequently, her family and some of her friends did not know that she was blogging during the first years. The relative anonymity on the blog allows her to talk publicly about things she would not be able talk about face-to-face. Yet later on in 2010, her friends started checking her blog, which, as she told me, was “a flattering experience”.22 Although the From Beirut With Funk blog (formerly Independence05) had become quite famous within blogging circles, Liliane was and still is not very concerned with promoting the blog and putting herself in the forefront. There are no pictures of her and on the blogs she is not present with her full name, but only with her first name or her online name FunkyOzzi. The examples given above show her juggling to keep the political and personal separate (with two different blogs) but also constructing different spheres of privateness: on the one hand, an online space where she publishes personal thoughts she cannot easily discuss face-to-face and, on the other, her private life offline. However, as my material indicates, although she tries to keep these spheres separate, they blur at certain points. Liliane tries to find different ways of dealing with this, at times by opening up (letting her family and others read it) and at times by blocking the blog altogether. Khodor: the blog as notebook and open window Khodor, in contrast, has no intention to keep the private and public particularly separated. He has a single blog, which is also linked to his Facebook profile and indicates his real name. The blog Muwāṭin Jūʿān (hungry/famished citizen) deals mainly with political and social issues in Lebanon that Khodor addresses in his particular style of poetic-political writing that I described in chapter 4.2. In his writings, he mixes personal observations and expressions of frustration – yet not necessarily private information – with political analysis and commentary.

22 E-mail communication, September 17, 2010.

284 | III P UBLICNESS Illustration 18: Header and blogpost Jou3an

http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/, screenshot taken on March 11, 2011 In this post “Let’s shake the dust off the map”, Khodor engages in a dialogue with his country, Lebanon: I am, oh country, your disobedient son, pardon me, inside me is the childhood imprudence and my ongoing affinity with destruction, for me to learn the art of modern building. I, your disobedient son, I did not learn the lesson of keeping silent about injustice. […] Your disobedient son reads in the sea the rage of the waves on the shore that continue to dig in the sand without tiredness, he hears in the rain the rage of the drops on the asphalt that changes the shape of the map and the first geography lesson, he sees in the sun the rage of the light against the night and the promise of the next day’s sunrise. […] This statement is my apology for my disbelief in [or blasphemy toward] everything: your national flag, icon of a generation that died and left us with disappointment, a cedar that does not ask about the actions of real estate agents on every green area, two red bands, martyrs of a confession, and martyrs of another confession, and a swamp of white unleashing a bad odour and covered with ashes of past wars and the upcoming ones, in the lies of peace and civilisation, the mast being an un-functional electricity pillar, an empty water pipe, a man’s stick that crashes on a women’s cheek, your mast, a distance in feet between the departure bench at the airport and the plane.23

23 “Li-nanfuḍ al-ghubār ʿan al-kharīṭa”, http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/, accessed March 11, 2011.

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This excerpt from the post shows Khodor’s poetic and self-reflexive way of writing. He writes about his relation to his country, his own feelings and his inability to honour his country, and at the same time he criticises its bad state of affairs. The Lebanese national flag with a cedar in the middle upon a red and white ground is interpreted in connection with the history and conflicts of the country: the two red bands of the flag are supposed to represent the Lebanese martyrs, but here he introduces a split between two confessions. In his reading, the ashes form the white colour of the flag. The post is a personal dialogue with his country that is marked by the writer’s fury and disappointment. The personal and the political are consciously mixed; it is not a political post in the strict sense, but a poetic reflection on his feelings towards his ‘country’. This personal style of political criticism characterises Khodor’s posts, which are sometimes more abstract like the post just discussed and at times concretely related to political events, such as the WikiLeaks revelations on Lebanon.24 Laying out the roadmap for his blog, Khodor told me: First, ongoing criticism of the army and the Lebanese security forces, and criticising the Minister of the Interior, and [second] the corrupt Communist Party, which is starting to be like a right-wing party. (Khodor i1)

So while on the one hand criticising the security and interior policies in Lebanon is essential for his blogging activity, on the other hand criticism of the leadership of the Communist Party, to which he has close ideological ties, is as well. This is problematic, especially with other leftist friends, as he outlined further, because criticising the leaders is not accepted in Lebanon, where it is believed that “if there is a leader, all should follow him” (ibid.). Thus Khodor exposes himself to attack from the state, as became evident in his interview with the security services.25 Further, criticising the political party ‘ideologically close’ to him involves a danger other than the Lebanese system, because he risks facing problems with his own peer group. Besides, his blog also includes various kinds of personal reflections that are not primarily political motivated, but are still filled with political literary reflections. An example is the post “This great pain” from January 2010 that deals with a friend who leaves Lebanon in order to work in the Gulf: It’s one o’clock, Beirut will spit you out far away after less than a day. It will say, oh Hussein, your departure is like the bounce of a Phoenician pharaoh in the vast desert. I will I tell

24 http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/12/06, accessed December 18, 2010. This post was already discussed in chapter 4.2 and I will come back to it again in part 8.2. 25 See 1.1 and 3.5.

286 | III P UBLICNESS you, you are not Moses, you are not a prophet, you are more than all this, you are my friend, a star that was planted by the wind on the forefront of the planet. I see in you a face of the one who carries the trouble of being and who arranges the course in the fast ways of destiny. Come, we share this last piece of bread, we will say that it is from the remains of a sit-in the traitors of the Left have sold my comrade. Come, tell me the last joke so that we laugh the last laughter before we and your mother and your brothers will burst into tears, and some of your friends will cry too, and some will laugh so that those passing by cannot make fun of them. Okay, we steal despite the bitterness, your stubborn laughter, no way, but let’s rather invent new swear words for his Excellency the three presidents, the Excellency of deputies and the Excellency of ministers. Come, let’s blemish/disfigure the face of unemployment with an ironic knife. “We dance above the religions with a cup of tea on the pavement and hang around” in the cultivated streets.26

The post expresses his sorrow for a leaving friend and combines this with criticism of politicians, social injustice and hypocrite leftists. A photo of Khodor and Hussein with two other friends is placed in the middle of the post. Yet the photo seems to be edited and only the shadows and contours of the persons are to be seen, so they are recognisable only if you know them. While on the one hand the post is extremely personal and expresses his sorrow, the concrete places and persons remain vague, as does the photo. Along with personal posts like this one, his blog has some rare posts with love poems, such as “A loaf of bread and a kiss,”27 to which a romantic picture of a naked woman lying before a nebulous background is added, and a poem called “I am writing your face”,28 in which he describes the face of his beloved. Overall, in Khodor’s writings the political and personal are consistently mixed and he does not intend to separate these two spheres. In his blog, he digests all kinds of experiences he faces: from politics and friendship to, occasionally, love. Khodor: […] emotional, patriotic, pure politics, love things, romantic stuff, you find anything. Because I see the blog as a notebook, you can write, draw, you can do anything in this notebook. When you finish writing you give it to the readers to read. Sarah: But in general, if you have a notebook you would keep it for you and there… K: No, it’s a notebook of another kind. […] Let’s say it’s an open window in your house. Anybody who passes by can look into your window, see what’s going on in this house, what you’re thinking, what you’re doing what you would like to do… S: Isn’t it strange sometimes to have the feeling that other people are seeing this?

26 http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/, accessed January 12, 2011. 27 http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/, accessed January 11, 2010. 28 http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/, accessed December 10, 2009.

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K: […] some years ago it was strange, but after the change in the information technologies it’s totally normal. Whether you have done this or not, in the coming years there won’t be anything that is called private anymore, there is nothing private in the world of tomorrow. The world is a little village or… a house on another house. (Khodor i1)

Although Khodor tries to use the publicness of his blog mainly for his political activism, it also displays what else is going on in his life. The blog consistently blurs the categories of private and public. Overall, he is quite conscious of being public. For him personally, this public visibility, whether of his political thoughts, sometimes charged with emotions, or “romantic stuff”, does not pose a problem (see above). Rather, he understands it as a “normal development” in the new media (see ibid.). He thereby takes up the McLuhanian notion of the ‘global village’ that is electronically connected. Yet, what he puts in the window, i.e. makes public for others to see, remains his choice. Khodor is not interested in controlling his writings too much. He sometimes writes his blog posts when he feels “real anger”, as he told me: “I don’t read them afterwards, not another time. Because I refuse to take something back, my opinions, I am afraid if I reread it, I would change my ideas or something like this.” (i1) In contrast to the two female bloggers, he does not engage in self-censorship, or at least only to a quite low degree; he wants to be in the moment. The blog is thus understood as a reflection of his initial ideas about any issue and as a tool to let things out. In my opinion, his decision not to change the post later but let his anger out must be interpreted as part of his political project – and not merely as a timestrategic move.29 Providing criticism of everything that annoys and troubles him lies at the heart of his predominantly political blogging agenda. Nevertheless, his literary language also makes his posts appear fictional, and whether the protagonist in his posts represents him or a literary figure remains vague at times. The style of writing can be considered a kind of protection and also functions as a stylisation of a young politically engaged man for whom the borders between private and public seem not to matter. Negotiating private and public Blogs can be both public and intensely personal in possibly contradictory ways. MILLER AND SHEPHERD 2004: N. P.

29 However, compare the article on the army discussed in 7.2 that was taken from his blog, which indicates that in very specific situations he might also withdraw a contribution.

288 | III P UBLICNESS Although the three bloggers represent different ways of being public, in all cases practicing blogging entails the negotiation of the public and private. The personal and political are redefined and recombined in various ways: in personal political poetry, as in Khodor’s case; in personal experiences that are at times politicalladen, as in Maya’s posting; or, in Liliane’s case, in moving away from specifically political issues. The boundaries between the spheres are not fixed and preordained. Maya’s blog is a blog about herself and reflects merely her own experiences, which are personal but not private in the strict sense. A lot of posts are located in the realm between the private and the public: being in the car and observing or watching the news at home, but she also presents her professional self on her blog. Khodor, in contrast, by conceptualising the blog as an “open window” into his house (i1), seems not to care much about protecting his privacy. The private, in his opinion, is a concept that is about to vanish anyway. Indeed, the blog’s reader can follow Khodor’s emotional state, which is greatly influenced by politics in Lebanon. Politics are also discussed a lot in Khodor’s daily life and cannot be separated from his private life. Liliane takes yet another stance and tries to establish different spheres in blogging. The From Beirut with Funk blog, which has greater public exposure than her personal blog, is dedicated more to the outer world, reflecting what is going in Lebanon and at times globally. On her personal blog, she discloses at times private issues, such as reflections on why she is not married yet or the loss of a friend, but at the same time she is cautious not to reveal too much and to protect the privacy of her friends, as well. However, she does not promote her personal blog and only revealed it to her family and friends after having blogged for years. Maya and Khodor disclose their ‘real’ identity, i.e. their full name, on their blogs – Maya already in the blog’s URL, Khodor above every post. Khodor also links his Facebook profile to his blog. Liliane, in contrast, is present only with her first name. Online diaries All bloggers reveal parts of their personal identity and themselves and their blogs display some similar features as public diaries, or notebooks, as Khodor put it. How is the specific format of their blogs related to the diary format? Overall continuities and ruptures in the format of a diary can be outlined. First, with regard to the continuities, blogs are consecutive entries from a personal perspective, a form of selfrepresentation, and they exhibit autobiographic genres of writing. However, the material ruptures from diaries to blogs/online journals are also striking. In her article on diary writing on the web from 2003, Madeleine Sorapure highlights how the act of writing is influenced by technological features, such as the continuous possibility to revise and re-read texts (Sorapure 2003: 3f), the blog’s vertical organisation, with the newest entry on the top and the possible hybridity of texts, such as by internal

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and external hyperlinks (Sorapure 2003: 15).30 These particularities lead, according to Sorapure (ibid.: 7f), to a distinct sense of identity: Representing the self in a database form – creating and coding information about oneself, populating a database that readers subsequently query – develops and reflects a sense of identity as constituted by fragments and segments, each of which is separately meaningful and equally significant.

Although the blogs in my sample are not diaries in the strict sense, they incorporate some of the features of online diaries. They too reflect daily experiences and feelings, cover events and much more. Moreover, as Liliane mentioned above, reading entries in their own blogs provides bloggers with a sense of their own historicity. The “notebook”, in Khodor’s terms, is not only public for others, but also read by the blogger himself or herself (i1). Although diaries are thought to be private, the literary scholar Lynn Z. Bloom argues that “contrary to the popular perception, not all diaries are written – ultimately and exclusively – for private consumption…” (cited after Sorapure 2003: 9). Diaries might also be ‘public documents’ directed towards a reading audience not the diary writer. With blogs, this is certainly the case, even if they may be ‘public’ in quite different ways. They can address one’s ‘personal public’ of friends and acquaintances, i.e., a limited readership to which the author also maintains face-to-face contact. Or they also can address a broad readership in Lebanon and abroad and transcend the bloggers’ circle of friends and acquaintances (on- and offline) by far. The blogs discussed here are in the middle of this spectrum, because neither concentrates solely on a ‘personal’ public, but seek a larger audience. While Khodor’s and Maya’s blogs started from a rather known readership to a wider audience, Liliane’s, in contrast, started by explicitly not addressing her offline friends and networks, but rather people online whom she had not previously met face-to-face. In all three cases, the networks transcend the online world by far and include offline meetings with other bloggers/activists and, in Maya’s and Liliane’s cases, also the Twitter community.31 These blogs, like online diaries, in Sorapure’s words, “address simultaneously multiple audiences – known and unknown, welcome and unwelcome readers alike” (Sorapure 2003:11).

30 Sorapure refers therein to Philippe Lejeune’s study (2000) of writing on the internet. 31 I provided a more detailed analysis of the blogs’ audience in chapter 6.

290 | III P UBLICNESS Self-disclosure as self-validation and political strategy Self-disclosure refers to communication of personal information, thoughts, and feelings to other people […]—especially in interpersonal relationships […]. However, self-disclosure can also be risky because it may invite ridicule or even rejection, thereby placing the discloser in a socially awkward or vulnerable position […]. Consequently, people are more likely to disclose to a stranger […] because they feel secure in that whatever is shared under such circumstances is unlikely to be shared with actual friends and acquaintances who may have some material impact on the discloser’s life. (Qian and Scott 2007: 1431)

What can be said about all cases presented is that the blogger is prominently putting himself or herself in the forefront. In particular for Maya and Liliane, as I have analysed, posting about their experiences on their blogs allows them to discuss topics they cannot easily speak about face-to-face. Self-disclosure in the media and on blogs in particular has been analysed from different angles. In his study on “mediated voyeurism” (2004: 83ff), Clay Calvert analyses the culture of “self-disclosure” based on discussions of mediated “exhibitionism”. I would not term blogging as exemplified in the material at hand a form of exhibitionism, which always has negative connotations and does not do justice to the bloggers’ well-managed accounts of themselves on their blogs, but the concept of self-disclosure can nevertheless highlight some of the features of blogging. Calvert (2004: 84) distinguishes four aspects of self-disclosure: (1) self-clarification, (2) social validation, (3) relationship development and (4) social control, i.e., impression management with the aim of manipulating the opinions of others. Whereas the first two aspects function intrinsically, “providing heightened understanding of self through communication with others”, the latter functions extrinsically, “turning personal information into a commodity”, as Miller and Shepherd (2004: n. p.) in their application of the concept to weblogs point out. The case studies presented here exemplify at least three of these four aspects. In their blogging, they gain self-clarification (1) and selfvalidation (2) by formulating their thoughts in writing or expressing them in drawing, ‘letting things out’ and sharing and engaging with others, and (3) new contacts and relations are thereby established.32 The last aspect, social control (4), seems too clear-cut, as if self-disclosure were a simple means to an end. Although it can be argued that all the blogs discussed here try to make an impact on their readers’ opinions, their goal is to make readers reflect upon certain issues, rather than to manipulate them.33

32 This can be related to the internal and external rewards of blogging (see chapter 5). 33 For more on the relation to the actual and imagined audience, see chapter 6.

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Furthermore, the three bloggers presented here do not simply ‘disclose’ themselves and make their opinions and private lives public, but carefully negotiate their going public. Khodor, for instance, consciously puts his criticism online, thereby risking offending certain politicians, but did not change his style or tone after being interrogated by the army’s security forces. His being public in the blog is characterised by exposure to attack and letting his spontaneous and sometimes furious criticisms out. This is his chosen style of writing, and the blog is not an unreflected disclosure. As he underlined in the interview sequence quoted above, he refuses to take back a statement.34 In a similar vein, Maya makes personal experiences public, but not her most intimate and private experiences, and thus avoids exposing herself completely. For instance there are no posts about her love life. Her disclosure is a well-managed account of authenticity whose product she can also use as a tool to market her drawings. But whereas in Maya’s blog there are strong references to her offline life and to events she participates in, such as a book signing, an exhibition she gave, a journey she undertook etc., Khodor does not provide accounts of where he went and what he did, but rather what he thinks and of the issues he is dealing with. Whether this is also to be understood as a kind of protection of a last sphere of his privacy, or just part of his writing style, I cannot answer definitively here. On From Beirut with Funk, Liliane refers to her offline life, posts photos of places she went to, writes about concerts and events she went to etc. Nevertheless, she neither displays her professional identity, such as where she works, nor her private identity, for example pictures of herself. On her personal blog, she discloses quite personal feelings and reflections, but is very careful not to post about people close to her in an obvious manner. She wants neither to offend anybody nor to disclose herself as vulnerable. Thus, based on these examples, in going public on their blogs, individuals who disclose themselves with their experiences, criticisms and reflections balance carefully the pros and cons of making themselves (and others) public. Thus, not only self-disclosure but also the high degree of self-reflexivity characterises their mode of publicness. It is a process of negotiation, shifting the boundaries between private and public and readjusting them in accordance with their experiences and needs. Making personal experiences public is a conscious act to promote personal ways of speaking about anger, frustration about the current situation in Lebanon, or at times their writings and drawings. Moreover, the bloggers presented here create public identities of self-reflexive ironic young women and politically engaged poets, who also function as tools of promoting their personal and political agendas, be they the emancipation of women or reviving the left in Lebanon. These ‘online selves’ are not detached from, but closely bound to their offline identities.

34 Yet, compare footnote 29.

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8.2 C OUNTER - PUBLICNESS While the conventional media tends only to discuss politics and superficial politics, international relationships, Israel, Palestine, the same, always the same, so I think it [the blogosphere] is an alternative frame for debate, to debate the real issues. ADON I1

Most bloggers I talked to highlighted in a vein similar to Adon’s the importance of addressing the “real issues” (ibid.) in Lebanon and emphasised the difference from the other media in Lebanon, which are at times called ‘traditional’, ‘conventional’ or ‘mainstream media’.35 In their understanding, blogging provides an alternative space that in particular stands in opposition to the media system in Lebanon. Since this self-perception suggests understanding blogging as a counter-public, at the outset of this subchapter I will briefly introduce and discuss the notion in relation to my material. The main part of this section is dedicated to outlining the prevalent issues bloggers address and how they position themselves towards the ‘wider public’. Following up on that, I will make some observations about the relation between blogging and the traditional media in terms of counter-public theory and then conclude with some reflections on embedded and self-perceived counterpublicness. While in 8.1 I focussed on three bloggers from my main sample, 8.2 now opens up to the whole sample. Counter-voice and counter-public In all interviews I conducted, the bloggers strongly criticised the biased Lebanese media sphere.36 The Beirutiyat blogger Assaad’s description exemplifies this stance:

35 The term ‘traditional media’, at times also ‘old media’, designates widely accessed and transmitted media, such as the main TV and radio stations and newspapers. In particular, it is used in distinction from the so-called new media. Most of the bloggers used the term ‘traditional’ or ‘conventional’ when they refer to newspapers or TV programs. ‘Mainstream media’ and ‘dominant media’ are other terms used in a similar vein, but they also indicate that these media represent prevailing trends of coverage and content. 36 See also the blog post by Trella that translates as “Media militia”, in which he provides an overview and criticism of Lebanese media, http://trella.org/3183, accessed September 24, 2011.

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What is really happening in Lebanon from a political point of view is that you do have different political leaders and you do have different sects, and basically what happens is that there is someone who’s from this team and he goes to the media and criticises the other side and then there is someone from the other side who goes to the media and who criticises the first side and vice versa and it happens all the time, they shift positions like ‘moving the chairs of music’,37 and they criticise each other. They can have the freedom of expression and everything, but what you don’t have is someone who doesn’t belong to anyone and criticises them all. (Assaad i1)

Thus, while Assaad recognises the relatively high degree of freedom of expression in Lebanon, he perceives the overall system as corrupt from the inside. Or, as Rami of Plus961 puts it, “There is a freedom, but a freedom in accusations.” (i1) That is exactly the point where, in the self-image of the bloggers, blogging comes into play. As Assaad concludes: “Basically blogging is helping people who really are against the whole system from the beginning” (i1). Countering the other media’s coverage of specific events is also key to the blogger’s ethos. Assaad’s description of the incident at the demonstration in Saida during the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām campaign (see 4.2) exemplifies this: We had videos, we had photos and we had everything that says, no, it’s bullshit what they [the journalists] are saying, so when I made the press conference I build on what social media have done, three videos I published, the pictures we did, they really were good evidence of how much citizen journalism can give as an added value. (i2)

This account highlights the opposing attitudes of citizen journalists (ṣaḥafīyīn shaʿbīyīn) and the established journalists. In outlining his motivation for blogging, Adon also highlights the countering that aims beyond the media, towards the whole ‘system’: The main reason is to participate in the whole war situation with the regimes, to confront all the political issues, the social issues, even the environmental issues, to tackle development plans and all of this! (i1)

On first glance this self-image as a counter-voice and provider of alternative news fits the overall conceptualisation of counter-publics as elaborated by Nancy Fraser (1992), Michael Warner (2002) and Jeffrey Wimmer (2005).38 According to the self-perception of the actors, they are in a ‘counter’ position towards dominant

37 This was his term in English, by which he meant the game “musical chairs”. 38 See the introduction.

294 | III P UBLICNESS trends within society and the media. They perceive blogging as a means to “counterbalance the dominant media contents with other issues or alternative media content” (Wimmer 2005: 96), and they understand it as being complementary to the mainstream media. Yet the fit with counter-public theory is not an easy one and the concept needs to be adapted and redefined to match the observations in my field. To clarify my perspective, I will briefly discuss the term and its applicability to the case at hand. Fraser (1992: 123) defines a counter-public as a space where “subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourse”. Warner (2002: 86) puts it a bit differently, stating that the actors of a counter-public “maintain at some level, conscious or not, an awareness of its subordinated status”. However, the actors that I deal with in this monograph cannot be described as subordinated in Frasers’ sense. As I showed in the foregoing chapters, the bloggers do not have a subordinated status in their society, but are rather well-educated, upcoming young professionals. Nevertheless, their self-identification as a minority when it comes to their political beliefs and ideas expressed is evident. The ‘counter’ can consequently be understood as a “constructed relationship”, as Robert Asen argues (2000: 427), in terms of “participants’ recognition of exclusion from wider public spheres and its articulation through alternative discourse practices and norms”. But since some of the bloggers in my sample are also freelance journalists, they cannot to be said being completely excluded from the “wider public sphere” (ibid.), either. Accordingly, it is rather through identification and self-positioning that the actors may be positioned in a ‘subaltern status’, not necessarily through their position in society. Furthermore, the concept of a national public sphere versus counter-publics has proven problematic. Some “critical analyses, mainly oriented at cultural studies, call for an overcoming of the dominant static-dualistic concept of one existing public sphere and several counter-public spheres”, as Wimmer (2005: 95) outlined. Asen (2000), for instance, strongly argues against this binarity and advocates recognising the multiplicity of public spheres.39 Especially in the case of the Lebanese public sphere, which is highly fragmented, it is difficult to determine what the national public sphere, or “dominant public” in Warner’s (2002) terms, could actually be. However, as I outlined at the outset of this book, some general tendencies are prevalent beyond these divides. Lebanese media are often elite-centred, are strongly influenced by shareholders and sectarian groups and therefore reproduce the divisions in society.40 It is exactly these trends in media ownership and coverage that bloggers seek to counter.

39 Wimmer mentions John Fiske (1994) as another advocate for overcoming this dichotomy. 40 See chapter 1.1.

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Another problem with counter-public theory is that its early conceptualisations, for example Fraser’s (1992), did not include computer-mediated communication, which displays different features of production and dissemination than ‘traditional’ print or broadcast media. More recent contributions, such as Wimmer’s, consider the multimedia, hypertext and interactivity of the internet new possibilities of counter-public spheres (2005: 97f). According to his positive assessment, “external publics” are easier to produce, more people can be reached in a short time, “new forms of articulations” are provided for counter-public spheres and “non-hierarchical interactive structures” of discussion are generated (ibid.). On the other hand, he neglects to shed light on the fragmentation and temporality of counter-publics that I showed for the case of Lebanese blogging.41 As I highlighted, at most highly temporal counter-publics with fluid boundaries and causes can emerge that are neither stable nor consistent.42 With these considerations in mind, counter-public theory needs to be adapted to my field of study. My main take on the topic emanates from the publicness term in the sense that I offered in the introduction to part III. Counter-publicness can thus be understood as ways of going and being public with an emphasis on the ‘counter’, a practice of writing (speaking, posting, arguing, linking) from a position that is understood as marginal and oppositional to wider cultural and political trends and Lebanese media coverage. Beyond that, it is not to be understood as a static sphere, but needs to be continuously realised through practices of writing, publishing, networking etc. Counter-publicness as I deploy it here is not meant to encompass all activities in the local field of blogging, but describes significant features of self-positioning and blogging practices within the local field of blogging I analyse. In the next section, I will analyse the issues bloggers want to make ‘public’ and highlight the most prevalent causes in my field. Following up on this, I will return to the relation between blogging and the traditional media again. The “real issues” 43 What are the issues, topics and themes the bloggers consider worth putting forward and make public? Khodor regards it as a compulsory task of every blogger “to choose taboo subjects to write about”, which, as he summarised later, are: “religion, the leaders of different branches [“les leader des secteurs”], namely Nasrallah, Hariri, Jumblatt and Aoun, the religious leader, and the Lebanese army” (i1). As-

41 See chapter 1.2 and 1.4. 42 See also Jurkiewicz 2011a, where I argued in a similar line. 43 See the introductory quote to 8.2 (Adon i1).

296 | III P UBLICNESS saad mentions “human rights in general, and women’s rights and Palestinian refugee rights in particular, political rights for people who are not politically affiliated” and furthermore “pushing for a secular and civil country” as causes he thinks important to address (i1). These issues were mentioned especially among the bloggers from the leftist spectrum. Beyond that, specific bloggers of course have their particular agenda, such as Hanibaael in writing about underground and student movements or Adon on cosmology44. Within my overall sample, including both the mostly Arabic-blogging activists as well as those with a background in IT and design who blog in English, opinion diverges greatly about what the ‘real issues’ are. As I showed in part 7.2 on various blogging ethos, especially the second group is much less concentrated on discussing Lebanese political issues and instead puts forward daily life experiences and observations or simply shows the nice sides of life in Lebanon. To shed light on dynamics of counter-publicness, I will outline the main themes addressed by the bloggers in my sample that transcend the ArabicEnglish language divide and different blogging ethos. Despite my general focus on online-offline continuities, I will here concentrate on the content of the blogs, i.e. the topics addressed on the blogs, and refer to other events and meetings only briefly. One issue that the majority of the bloggers think about critically and consider worth addressing is sectarianism in Lebanon. It is striking that all of the bloggers in my sample clearly take an anti-sectarian stance in their writings (and drawings). This is not confined to those who are actively organised in anti-sectarian groups or movements (such as Assaad and Khodor) and is a primary feature in Lebanese blogging, which my analysis of data gathered from the Lebanon Aggregator shows. A range of other topics related to human rights and environment is also frequently addressed in my material, as found by following the blog entries of my wider sample in the period of this study.45 I organised the prevalent topics according to the following categories: (i) countering the Lebanese political ‘system’ as such, i.e. the sectarian society and the political system, (ii) tackling the state of gender and environment in Lebanon and (iii) addressing the constraints of internet infrastructure and freedom of speech, i.e. the basis of the bloggers’ own publicness. Whereas the topics in the second category are more translocal, the others deal with local Lebanese issues. Riegert and Ramsay (2011: 15) indicate similar issues in their study of the ten most popular blogs in

44 See the category “Jurūḥ kusmūlūjīya” (cosmological injuries) on his blog, accessed October 13, 2011. 45 That I followed along the time frame of this study.

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Lebanon.46 In the following I will now provide examples from my sample of seven bloggers as well as some other prominent blogs of how these issues are addressed and will reflect on the strategies used. i. Countering the system: sectarianism and authoritarianism Illustration 19: “Lebanese Laïque Pride” – Maya’s Amalgam

http://mayazankoul.com/2010/04/24/laique-lebanon/, screenshot taken on October 13, 2011

This drawing is the beginning of Maya’s post published one day before the Lebanese Laïque Pride demonstration in 2010. In the following, the post reflects on her personal experience of how religious background matters in daily life. Then the comic relates the dialogue between her and an older bourgeois-looking lady who tries unsuccessfully to find out her religion by asking for her family name, the region she comes from etc. The comic strip shows her criticism of typical daily life encounters in Lebanon, where, by asking someone’s family name and town or village of origin, people try to gain indications of his or her religion. Under the comic, Maya then posted a short comment:

46 According to the authors, English- and Arabic-language bloggers “have in common their engagement in local and international environmental issues, their support for human rights (free speech and gender equality) and, perhaps most importantly their support for a secular state in Lebanon” (Riegert and Ramsay 2011: 15).

298 | III P UBLICNESS I am NOT telling you my religion because it’s about time we learned in a country like Lebanon that you cannot judge and stereotype a person based on something that, in 99.9% of the cases, (s)he was born with. Tomorrow is the Lebanese Laique Pride. See you at 11:00am near Ain El Mreisseh.47

After making fun of the Lebanese obsession with finding out the a person’s religious affiliation, based on her personal experience, Maya then invites readers to come to the Lebanese Laïque Pride48 demonstration for a secular Lebanon, which took place on April 25, 2010 and was covered by a range of bloggers who participated in the demonstration.49 Another example that addresses sectarianism in daily life and the idea of not explicitly disclosing one’s own sectarian background is found in Liliane’s post “Marry someone from another sect!”: Being in a mixed sect family (thank god - will not say which god :P) has given me a tolerance much bigger than anyone else I know. I have heard hateful and sectarian comments towards my other side of the family from more than one party all my life. My name and last name do not reveal what my parents’ sects are. But, I won’t make this long about me. I just want to say that, from my own experience, I personally see that Lebanon has come a long way when it comes to judging others based on their sects. We are not 100% secular, but we definitely have become less judgmental, at least in the workplace and in universities. […] Marry from another sect, that is the only solution for this stubborn, repeating-same-mistakes, small, chaotic and crazy country. Do it for your country.50

The post starts by disclosing her own cross-sectarian background, but without mentioning her sect. Following up on this, Liliane continues criticising the general atmosphere of judging others, but also notes some positive development. In conclu-

47 http://mayazankoul.com/2010/04/24/laique-lebanon/, accessed October 13, 2011. The underlined segment marks a link. 48 For the movement’s website, see: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=1923970 77451720#!/laiquepride, accessed March 13, 2011. In 2011, the demonstration took place on May 15: in 2012, it was held in May as well. For further events, see https://www .facebook.com/laiquepride/. 49 See for instance: http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/04/secular-lebanon-oh-is-it-another-dre am.html, http://besidebeirut.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/laique-pride-a-historical-take/, h ttp://www.nadinemoawad.com/2010/04/thousands-march-for-secularism-lebanon/,

all

accessed April 27, 2010. 50 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/09/marry-someone-from-another-sect.html, accessed October 13, 2011.

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sion, she advocates marrying someone from another sect as the only strategy that will work against the sectarian system, a bottom-up approach to change the sectarian society. A lot of bloggers I encountered were quite reluctant – on- and offline – to mention what sect they belong to, or rather showed pride that nobody knows it, as reflected in Maya’s post above. Not mentioning their religious background can be understood as part of their blogging ethos and also reflects their stance towards politicised religion in Lebanon. In accordance with the motto ‘don’t put me in a box’, they reject the communitarian politics and the dichotomous policy. By not stating their religion or sect, they are combating a sectarian outlook, hate dialogues and the political lenses prevalent in Lebanon. At the same time, in my understanding, they want to avoid being taken as promoters of a specific sectarian party or group or being criticised for not supporting one. Along with these rather personal approaches based on the blogger’s religious background, another approach is to play with stereotypes and prejudices in order to reveal their absurdity. In “Wīkīlīksīyāt Ṭizzastānīya”, Khodor ironically comments on the WikiLeaks revelations concerning Lebanon and plays with the stereotypes that are assigned to particular sects. Ṭizzastān, as I outlined above, is Khodor’s virtual nation. The first revelation is presented as follows:51 The interior minister wrote a letter to the American president in which he revealed secrets that were held back in Ṭizzastān during the last years. He confirmed that the Shia are to blame, that the Druze have horns, that the Christians don’t wash after using the toilet, that the Sunni are know for their belly, and as for the Orthodox, they are renowned for their Michel.52

Thus while mocking the revelations on WikiLeaks that do not provide new insights, he repeats stereotypes prevalent in Lebanese society. But this sarcastic manner does not confirm stereotypes, but plays with them and takes them to absurd lengths. Linked with the anti-sectarian stances in the blogosphere is a strong trend against the major political blocks in Lebanon as well as the political leaders that are considered to represent the sectarian system. This is symbolised by the November 2011 header of Trella’s blog (he frequently changes the blog’s header):

51 http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/, accessed December 12, 2010. 52 Reference to Michel Murr, an Orthodox politician and businessman, Minister of Interior under Hariri from 1992-2005 (then his son Elias Murr occupied the post). For many Lebanese, he is a symbol of corruption.

300 | III P UBLICNESS Illustration 20: Header blog Trella in October 2011

http://trella.org/, screenshot taken on October 19, 2011

The bottom right of the header reads: “Against March 8 and 14, with freedom and human rights”. The sign also proclaims “nagging forbidden” – which ironically comments on his own style of blogging, which is characterised by continuously nagging about the political system and its players as well as the Lebanese media. The blog was quite active in promoting and covering the anti-sectarian movement in spring 2011.53 Opposing the system of the two ‘Marchs’ (March 8 and March 14) has been on his agenda ever since. In a post called “King of sex” published in January 2011, he writes, mocking both political sides, “Who from the two sides of March pays for improving the situation of the citizen?” and answers “Nobody”: instead, he says, they are both stuck in the power struggle.54 This criticism is made in a similar mocking style by Khodor. In a post published on Lebanese Independence Day on November 22, he expressed his criticism of the political divide in the following (translated from Arabic): Happy Independence [Kullu istiqlāl wa-antum bi-khayr], 8 + 14 = 22, right, 22 reasons for a civil war, 22 reasons for emigration, 22 reasons for sin, 22 reasons for unemployment and rising prices… the saying of this year: there is no difference between one leader and another except for the nationality of his master.55

In this blog post, Khodor criticises the political divide between the March 8 coalition of the opposition and the ruling March 14 coalition, as well as all Lebanese political leaders who rely on another country’s support. This citation from the post

53 See his archive for February and March 2011: http://trella.org/date/2011/02 and http://t rella.org/date/2011/03, both accessed February 28, 2011. 54 http://trella.org/2517, accessed November 28, 2011. 55 http://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/, accessed November 24, 2010.

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features his general criticism of the Lebanese political system and in particular of the two political blocs. Another vivid example of mocking political culture, but in another style, is found on Rami’s blog Plus961. Under the title of “Mugs I won’t buy” he posts pictures of mugs on which political leaders are pictured.56 Illustration 21: “Mugs I wouldn’t buy” - Plus961

http://www.plus961.com/2011/03/mugs-i-wouldnt-buy/, screenshot taken on March 25, 2011

Without adding any additional text, the post depicts Lebanese culture of political fandom and makes fun of it. Yet not only the ‘system’ in general but also particular players who symbolise the sectarian system are criticised. In February 2011 Assaad provided a criticism of Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the PSP, the Progessive Socialist Party, that is officially secular but supported by many Druze. After revealing the contradictions in Jumblatt’s political actions and stances, Assaad writes in the attachment of the post: This is not the first time that I criticise the deputy Jumblatt on this blog. And those who believe that this is a personal issue between me and him, I assure them that it is. My problem

56 Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt.

302 | III P UBLICNESS with Jumblatt is like the problem of each Egyptian with Hosni Mubarak, each Algerian with Bouteflika und each Tunesisan with Ben Ali (although Jumblatt is less brutal and dictatorial). I am from the Chouf region and Jumblatt remains in people’s minds a symbol of feudalism. The dependence of the political people hinders their ability to leave their tight frame of thinking. Just like the other politicians in the region, he uses public money and inheritance of power [as he inherited it] and unites a lot of contradictions in his person and politics. And another time I assure that my personal problem with Jumblatt is because fate has decided that I am a son of a village [ibn qarīya] that rejects the 600-year rule of dependence/subjection by Emirs, Sheikhs and Beiks. Thanks a lot in advance for all the allegations that I am an enemy and immoral, these are the same adjectives by which the winners of the Egyptian revolution were described.57

In his critical post Assad does not simply criticise Jumblat from an outsider perspective, but discloses his own background. He thereby reinforces the credibility of the blog post. At the same time, this makes him more vulnerable to attack and he anticipates the critical comments that he might reap. Furthermore, he draws a parallel between Jumblatt and other political leaders and also between his criticism and that of the revolutionary successors in Egypt and elsewhere. The post reflects the atmosphere during the Arab uprisings in spring 2011. Beyond that, it shows his critical stance towards the sectarian culture and politics in Lebanon. In a similar vein, Khodor considers it as important to criticise his own political community, namely the communist party, in his writings, as I discussed above. Even though it is not sectarian, he says it is characterised by the same communitarian thought: The problem of the communists is like the problem of the Shiites, like those of the Sunnites, like the problem of the Christians. It’s as if they have constructed their branch [secteur]. For example if you criticise Nasrallah, the Shiites will say, no, that’s the leader! (Khodor i1)

In contrast, his agenda is to criticise authoritarian thought, whether in other political or sectarian communities or his own. Overall, addressing the sectarian system in Lebanon in blogging was at its peak during the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement in Lebanon in spring 2011. There was intense blogging activity, coverage of what had happened58 and a lot of discussion about the movement online as well as offline, as I have described in various parts of this

57 http://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/, accessed February 14, 2011; translated from Arabic. 58 See Assaad’s post on the production process that I mentioned in chapter 4.2.

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book. However, while Trella59, Assaad60 and Khodor were involved and participating in the movement, Hanibaael and Adon were rather critical of this approach, although they understand themselves as secularists.61 The latter two were thus rather at the margin of the movement and provided criticism from a secular perspective. Liliane, Maya and Rami were not involved in the movement. In talks that I had with them during this time, they expressed that they did not expect very much from it.62 This shows that, despite sharing the general criticism about the sectarian system in Lebanon, the bloggers may take very different stances toward the movement or be critical of political action. As Liliane states in one of her posts discussing the activities in March 2011: Lebanese remain people who are sectarian at heart. I am for a secular country, but I would be too naive to expect people to hold hands and sing “Killoun 3indoun siyyarat w jiddi 3indou 7mar”* together. We can’t call people to unite, while they don’t trust each other, who only feel good when they know the leader from “their” sect is in charge, who still ask you “where from?” so they figure out your sect in case your last name doesn’t reveal it, and who still make a big fuss when their daughter/son wants to marry someone from another sect.” (*all have cars, and my grandfather has a donkey) [sic]63

Understanding oneself as a counter-voice in these instances thus also implies taking a critical stance towards the activities of political movements with which the bloggers share common values and goals.

59 See footnote 53. 60 See Assaad’s extensive coverage of the movement under the category “Isqāṭ an-niẓām aṭṭāʾifī” on http://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/ and a comprehensive article (transl. from Arabic) “Overthrow the sectarian system… mistakes and who pays the charge?”, http://beiru tiyat.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/, accessed April 15, 2011. 61 In a post from February 28 (that I referred to in chapter 4.2), Adon explains why he did not take part in the demonstration. Further critical posts were published on March 14 and 24 on http://saghbini.wordpress.com/. He also gave an interview for New TV that he posted on his blog: http://saghbini.wordpress.com/2011/03/28, accessed March 28, 2011. Hanibaael posted similar critical texts, for instance on March 10 (translated from Arabic): “So that the secularists don’t topple before the overthrow of the system”, http://hanibaael .wordpress.com/2011/03/10/, accessed March 10, 2011. 62 See: http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/03/lebanese-videos-go-viral.html, accessed March 10, 2011. 63 The title of a Lebanese children’s song.

304 | III P UBLICNESS ii. Promoting translocal issues: gender & environment Along with addressing the overall system within Lebanon, the bloggers in my sample also frequently post about gender and environment issues. These naturally often transgress the frame of the nation state and address the role of women in the Middle East regional circumstances, climate change etc. As I indicated in the last subchapter (8.1) when referring to a post by Liliane that focuses on the pressure to get married, female bloggers frequently cover gender issues. Maya, too, addresses the role of women in Lebanese society, as I showed in the post on women in Lebanese election advertisements discussed above. In another way, she expresses the dilemma of young, not yet married women in Lebanon based on her personal experience in the comic “Quid pro quo”. The post was prepared for the Egyptian-initiated Kolena Leila64, a project that intends to spread awareness about women’s circumstances in the region.65 It depicts her talking with her grandmother about her blogging and artistic activities, and her grandmother just wanting her to get married. Illustration 22 & 23: Extracts from “Quid pro Quo” by Maya Zankoul66

http://mayazankoul.com/2009/12/30/quid-pro-quo/, screenshot taken on November 18, 2011

Yet the state of women’s rights is also addressed by the male bloggers in my sample, such as Hanibaael, Adon and Khodor. Khodor, for instance, shows his solidari-

64 http://www.kolenaleila.com/, accessed November 18, 2011. 65 For an overview of Lebanese bloggers’ participation in 2010, see: http://globalvoicesonl ine.org/2010/01/06/lebanon-bloggers-participated-in-kolena-laila/, accessed November 18, 2011. 66 Maya prepared this post in the context of the Kolena Leila initiative, see below.

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ty with the campaign Jinsīyatī (My nationality) by putting its logo on the sidebar blog. The campaign advocates the right of Lebanese women to pass on their nationality to their husband and children.67 Assaad covered the campaign and the Jinsīyatī march in June 2010 in a blog post and provided information and pictures.68 Many male Lebanese bloggers participated in the Kolena Leila initiative as well. In 2009, Adon participated in the project with his post “The Arabic Leila… and the Arabic Ahmed” in which he notes: With no doubt, our sins in the Arab World are many. But our worst sin is against the female in our society. We have no “in between” solution. We either want her a Virgin Mary, trapped inside a piece of black cloth away from people or light, or a naked Magdalene and “Sois Belle et tais toi” as the French proverb says: “Be Beautiful and shut up”, where she becomes just an object to us, not a human. In both cases, the male –who encourages this reality – is in fact scared of this female because he can’t see past his passion, making himself an object too and not human.69

With “we” Adon refers to the male in Arab societies in general and thus places himself as part of the problem. He puts the responsibility for this state clearly in a particular male attitude towards women in their society. Hanibaael participated in the same project with a piece on domestic workers. Therein he addresses the abuse of foreign workers in Lebanon and speaks about physical and sexual assault, as well as the cases of suicides among foreign domestic workers.70 The topic is dealt with in various ways outside of such campaigns and projects, as well. A post by Khodor titled “They say Leila is sick”71 addresses the suppressed role of women in the region. He starts by depicting quite a sombre picture of honour killings, execution by stoning and all kinds of crimes committed against Leila. In the end, however, he writes about her beauty and strength, her symbolising justice and her capability to change history. In these examples, gender inequalities are addressed from various legal, social or cultural perspectives.

67 https://nationalitycampaign.wordpress.com/, accessed November 18, 2011. The campaign demands that Lebanese women be able to pass on their nationality to their children. 68 https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/, accessed November 18, 2011. 69 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2009/12/25/, translation by Global Voices, http://globalv oicesonline.org/2010/01/06/lebanon-bloggers-participated-in-kolena-laila, both accessed November 18, 2011. I made only minor changes. 70 https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/2009/12/28. He also addressed this issue in his series on minorities in a post on January 14, 2011, accessed November 18, 2011. 71 https://jou3an.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/, accessed November 20, 2011.

306 | III P UBLICNESS Another translocal topic that certain bloggers address is the state of the environment, in particular climate change. In my sample, Hanibaael, Liliane and Adon, in particular, address these issues. Liliane tries to give general information about climate change72 and to raise awareness.73 She was very active in covering the Copenhagen negotiations in 200974 and also addressed climate politics in Lebanon.75 She also advocates writing about the issue in social media, for example during the Twestival 2009.76 Hanibaael and Adon are in part also committed to environmental issues. Hanibaael covered the Copenhagen negotiations77 and advocates ‘going green’ on his blog’s sidebar. Illustration 24 & 25: “Go Green” (Hanibaael) and “Green Resistance” (Adon/Ninar)

https://hanibaael.wordpress.com/ and https://sag hbini.wordpress.com/, both screenshots taken on November 20, 2011

On his blog, Adon writes under the category of “green resistance” about the state of environmental movements in Lebanon and beyond. In a post about the new envi-

72 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/08/climate-change-vs-global-warming-what.html. For an overview of all her climate change-related posts, see: http://blog.funkyozzi.com/search/l abel/Climate%20Change, both accessed November 20, 2011. 73 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/08/make-change-in-climate-change-before.html, accessed November 20, 2011. 74 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/12/hopenhagen-failahapen.html, see also http://blog.funk yozzi.com/2009/12/urgent-crisis-in-copenhagen.html, both accessed November 20, 2011. 75 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/11/could-climate-change-be-on-new-cabinets.html,

ac-

cessed November 20, 2011. 76 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2009/09/twestival-beirut-suppording-indyact.html,

accessed

November 20, 2011. 77 https://hanibaaelbaael.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/, accessed November 20, 2011.

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ronmental movements, he addresses the dramatic situation of the forest in the region (translated from the Arabic): In the few last years, Lebanon and the occupied territories have witnessed the burning of more than seven million trees, a number more or less equal to the inhabitants of Lebanon. A forest needs more than half a century until its green area has grown that big. The population in both countries will suffer and they already do so today.78

Based on this evaluation of the situation, he describes the global changes, discusses new and old forms of environmentalism and names organisations such as the “Earth Liberation Front”79. The post ends with an appeal to defend the earth and thereby ourselves. On his blog, Adon also provides background information about the energy crisis, in particular in relation to his book about the topic.80 In an interview Adon told me that, when he still worked for a journal, his critical work about environmental issues did not made it into print if he criticised the policies of certain businesses. Although environmentalism is not a major theme in the Lebanese blogosphere overall, this reflects that blogging functions as a space where such issues can be made public beyond the editorial control of a newspaper or any other instance. iii. Addressing the basis of their publicness: internet infrastructure and laws You don’t need revolutions for the internet to go off in Lebanon. All you need is bad weather and the internet ceases to exist. So if anyone is planning some e-revolution like the one in Egypt, I suggest they wait until the summer. BLOG BALADI, FEBRUARY 27, 201181

Along with gender, the environment and the sectarian political system, Lebanese bloggers address in an often humorous manner the deficient state of the internet infrastructure in their country. They are all confronted with it on a daily, be it through

78 https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/, accessed November 18, 2011. 79 http://www.lastcrisis.com/, accessed February 28, 2011. 80 Ibid. 81 http://blogbaladi.com/najib/lebanon/how-to-cut-off-the-internet-in-lebanon/, November 18, 2011.

accessed

308 | III P UBLICNESS electricity cuts, the expensive internet services or other problems. Reports on experiences with internet use are frequently posted in the blogs in my sample. On several occasions, Maya tells about her struggles and disillusionment with the internet services, for example in a post called “internet disorders”. 82 Illustration 26: Extract from“Internet disorders” by Maya Zankoul

http://mayazankoul.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/internetdisorders/, screenshot taken on November 18, 2011

The post starts by saying: “If you’ve been using internet in Leb, you’re prone to experiencing the following psychological symptoms…”83 The comic continues, depicting her as a protagonist in four situations, that are each headed by the name of one disorder: “obsessive compulsory disorder” when the electricity cuts just in the middle of reading an article “bipolar disorder”, when a download fails just at the end because of an electricity cut “depressive disorder” when a video takes ages to upload and “paranoia” when nobody she calls feels responsible for her DSL problem. 84

82 http://mayazankoul.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/internet-disorders/, accessed November 18, 2011. 83 http://mayazankoul.com/2009/09/02/internet-disorders/, accessed November 18, 2011. 84 Ibid.

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The post ends by saying: We waited, what? 10 years for DSL! (I wasn’t even in Leb yet and hearing people talking about the arrival of DSL). Well maybe it wasn’t thought of that DSL needs electricity, and we have SERIOUS electricity problems. I don’t know if it’s a summer effect, but I feel that lately rationing has become irrational! No lights at night, sometimes 12 consecutive hours of rationing and more! I hear people talking about simple solutions to the problem… Such as using the energy from the “jabal zbeleh”85 and such things. I hope that someone will act about it soon! Until then, I wish you a bright and happy day!86

Maya links the internet problem in Lebanon to the country’s electricity shortage, which leads to daily power outages.87 The experiences she presents are well known to everybody using the internet in Lebanon. Another blogger, LayalS, commented on this post: “i’m suffering from all of these disorders.. everyday I go through this.. every single day.. and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to end soon.. [sic]”.88 Liliane, too, is quite active in addressing internet issues in Lebanon. This became very visible in her engagement in the Ontornet campaign in 2011.89 On her blog, she too provides information about the state of the Lebanese internet, although sometimes in a manner not so serious. In a post on February 15, 2011, she congratulates Lebanon for its position in a speed test for downloading on the internet: “Ladies & Gentlemen, I am so honoured and happy to announce to you that Lebanon has reached the TOP position (from the bottom) among all countries when it comes to Download Speed.”90 A test on Speedtest91 thus showed that Lebanon was in last place in an international comparison.92 Liliane also collects stories about internet speed in Lebanon

85 “Rubbish mountain”, reference to an illegal rubbish dump outside of Saida. See: http://w ww.nowlebanon.com/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?ID=86941,

accessed

November

18,

2011. 86 http://mayazankoul.com/2009/09/02/internet-disorders/, accessed November 18, 2011. 87 Another example in which she addresses the long waiting time for any upload is “Killing time”, in which she suggests using the time for reading. http://mayazankoul.com/2010/0 5/28/killing-time/, accessed November 18, 2011. 88 http://mayazankoul.com/2009/09/02/internet-disorders/, accessed November 18, 2011. 89 See her portrait 3.2. 90 http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/02/omg-lebanon-mabrouk-for-becoming-1.html, accessed November 18, 2011. 91 http://www.speedtest.net/, accessed November 18, 2011. 92 See also http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id= 125761#axzz1G7vFguyB, accessed November 18, 2011.

310 | III P UBLICNESS and asks her readers to contribute.93 In another post, she publishes a call to stop the Lebanese internet law that was discussed in June 2010.94 There is a new internet (ICT and e-transactions) ESSA law that is might highly be passed soon in Lebanon. This law doesn't protect the internet users. And this law might end up being like most laws in Lebanon, a gate to corruption, to sectarianism and to embezzlement. Stop This Law! We are the internet users now and we should have a law that allows big corporate companies not be afraid to have a branch in Lebanon, thus creating a lot of job opportunities and allowing Lebanon to become a hub and a pioneer in internet business. But alas, Lebanon once again, might really succumb to money and greed.95

Within the post she mainly criticises that the law would not protect Lebanese internet users, whereby she presents herself as a representative of them. She says the law could foster corruption and sectarianism and thus links it to wider political problems within the country. At the end of the post, she provides a list of other bloggers and shows that some of the Lebanese bloggers are united for this cause. Among them are Plus96196, Beirutiyat97 and Maya’s Amalgam,98 who also provide information about the law and present the demands of Lebanese internet users.99 The blogger Trella also engages in the campaign against the internet law. In his post, which can be translated as “The crazy one talks and the wise understands,”100 he issues a call against this law, which is most vivid in the picture he posts. It was used by other bloggers as well.101

93

http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2011/01/im-listening.html, accessed November 18, 2011.

94

See chapter 1.1.

95

http://independence05/2010/06/stop-lebanese-internet-law.html, accessed June 29, 2010.

96

http://www.plus961.com/2010/06/a-stand-againt-essa-and-the-new-lebanese-e-transact ion-law/, accessed November 18, 2011.

97

https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/2010/06/14, accessed November 18, 2011.

98

http://mayazankoul.com/2010/06/14/internet-joke/, accessed November 18, 2011.

99

The next day Liliane followed up with another post called “Expensive and shitty, that’s what ICT in Lebanon is!”, see http://blog.funkyozzi.com/2010/06/expensive-and-shitty-t hat’s-what-ict-in.html, accessed November 18, 2011.

100 http://trella.org/1186, accessed November 18, 2011. 101 https://danyawad.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/ict/. The post includes the same picture that was posted on Trella’s blog, see above.

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Illustration 27: #STOPTHISLAW by Trella

http://trella.org/1186, screenshot taken on November 18, 2011

Trella links this issue to a wider criticism of the Lebanese state of mind: “The attempts of the Lebanese government and naturally the state are summarised in the ongoing attempts to fix the chaos and not to organise it, along the lines of ‘cover it from above and deflate from the bottom’.”102 The main argument of the post is that the law heralds the start of a new phase of restrictions and suppression (translated from Arabic): The Lebanese state tries to put conditions on the use of the internet by means of unclear articles, which allows it to control each talk and each correspondence and each e-mail sent by or to you in the near future. Yes, the Lebanese state tries tighten the rope around personal and public freedom by forcing the internet providers to save information and documents, which allows insight into everything that happens on the web, exactly like the Iranian, Tunisian and Turkish laws. This is the beginning of an area of electronic blocking and media blackout. Under the veil of organising and offering better service and an electronic climate for banking services, the Lebanese state will forbid visiting certain sites in the future (if the law passes) – and who forbids it this? Really, we entered a new area of suppression and persecution of activists, although in a hidden manner.103

Trella places the internet law within a much wider frame of political suppression in Lebanon, but is more explicit and excessive than Liliane in her post. He is less con-

102 http://trella.org/1186, accessed November 18, 2011. 103 Ibid.

312 | III P UBLICNESS cerned with internet services, and does not discuss technical questions, but highlights the political meaning of the new law. The degree to which these concerns are justified was discussed on the SMEX104 webpage and elsewhere. The group’s statement criticised how the law was pushed forward and that it was not submitted for review to NGOs and others as had been claimed.105 Finally, a common effort by several NGOs led to a postponement of the vote on the law.106 The bloggers, however, did not follow up on the case. Their main effort was to support the anti-law campaign in an early stage. Addressing the basis of the structure of their own publicness is an important topic; bloggers also take part in various initiatives to promote a better internet (such as Ontornet) and take common action for it. Thus one can argue that parts of the blogosphere show at least momentary features of a “recursive public”, a term coined by Christopher Keltey (2008) in his study of free software. He defines a recursive public as a public that is vitally concerned with the material and practical maintenance and modification of the technical, legal, practical and conceptual means of its own existence as a public; it is a collective independent of other forms of constituted power and it is capable of speaking to existing forms of power through the production of existing alternatives. (Keltey 2008: 3)

As these examples show, bloggers address the practical means of existence of their own public in revealing and criticising the poor infrastructure and also the legal means of existence; the technical means of existence are presented, in particular in the blogs of the IT bloggers such as Liliane, Rami. The degree to which the bloggers form a ‘collective’ is, however, not that evident. Bloggers can act as a momentary, even fragmented collective when taking common action against internet restrictions and freedom of speech,107 but do not form a permanent collective. In the bloggers’ self-image, the independence of “other forms of constituted power” (see Keltey above) – be it traditional leadership in politics or in the media – is very characteristic of their blogging, and they envisage and practice alternatives.

104 Social Media Exchange, for more information see chapter 2.2. 105 See http://www.smex.org/2010/06/stop-the-new-internet-law-in-lebanon/, accessed November 18, 2011. 106 http://www.smex.org/2010/06/we-stopped-this-law/, see also https://www.facebook.com /stopthislaw, both accessed November 18, 2011. 107 As the various posts in solidarity after Khodor was interviewed by the Army’s security forces show (see chapter 2.2).

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Blogging and the ‘traditional media’ In the following, I will now briefly outline the relation between bloggers and the mainstream media in Lebanon, since the ‘countering’ is often understood as directed towards the wider media environment in Lebanon.108 In academic debates about counter-publics, the relation between counter-publics and the ‘dominant public’ is crucial. However, differing stances about the relation are to be found, as Riegert and Ramsay outline (2011: 3ff): while Wimmer (2009: 64) criticises that what has been studied as counter-publics mostly is not independent from the dominant publics, Downey and Fenton (2003: 193) argue that exactly “a degree of interaction with the mainstream media may offer the criteria for successful political intervention”. I will not compare the issues the blogosphere addresses with those the overall media sphere focuses on. There is a lack of comparative studies and the theme is beyond the scope of this monograph. However, I will outline the mutual relationship from the point of view of exemplary journalists. First of all, compared with the situation in Egypt, the Lebanese media showed little recognition of Lebanese bloggers during the time this study covers (from summer 2009 to summer 2011). It cannot be said, as Hirschkind (2011) outlined for Egypt, that newspapers rely on bloggers for their stories. Also, Riegert and Ramsay’s analysis of interlinking behaviour between blogs and the ‘mainstream’ media (2011: 13) “does not support the notion that the blogosphere and the local mainstream media (especially the old-school news outlets) would be intertwined to any great extent. Rather they seem to be, with a few exceptions, simply existing in parallel worlds.” This assessment was also reflected in the interviews I held with Lebanese journalists. Generational differences and developments in media practices must be considered when examining journalists’ perception and awareness of local Lebanese bloggers. At least my interviews with two political journalists, one an established political news editor at An-Nahar, the other a young journalist from AsSafir’s youth outlet, indicate this. When I asked Nabil Bou-Mounssef, the political chief editor of An-Nahar whether he followed blogs, he explained that since he was mainly concerned with political news, his mind was with the events,109 and although he found blogs interesting, he did not have time to follow them. This stance shows that he, as an established journalist, did not perceive Lebanese blogs as an additional news source in his work or of any relevance for covering political events. However, Bou-Mounssef knew bloggers who were also working as journalists, such as Imad Bazzi (aka Trella), who occasionally writes as a freelancer for An-Nahar.

108 See also chapter 5.1 where I have discussed in more general terms the relation between blogging and journalism as two domains of practice and how both influence each other. 109 Interview conducted in Arabic on April 15, 2011 in his office at An-Nahar.

314 | III P UBLICNESS The younger journalist Ibrahim Shahara (born in 1981), who works for Shabab asSafir, is quite aware of blogs by young Lebanese. While not particularly interested in literary blogs, Shahara told me that he read some blogs by activists and mentioned Hanibaael’s and Khodor’s blogs as examples. In his assessment of the role of blogs in the mainstream media, however, he shared a view similar to that of his older colleague: Blogging in Lebanon does not offer any news, no information [maʿlūmāt]. It is more like single persons write, not necessarily information. It is not a source for traditional journalists, as it is in Egypt. In Lebanon, no information is published, it remains general information, and they do are not sources for information on events, no sources for news [khabr]. […] You cannot read a blog in order to know what happens in the country. However, at the same time they show the atmosphere of what happens, the activists in civil society […] the issues of Isqāṭ an-Niẓām, for instance. You know what’s going on related to opinions, but not to information or news.110

Although blogs did not provide newsworthy information in the strict sense, in Shahara’s view one could inform oneself about the “atmosphere” and the state of civil society and activism. For his work as a journalist Facebook was a better source for news than the blogs were. Most things that happened found resonance in Facebook – and in his view even the traditional media cannot do without considering Facebook anymore. Yet, he admitted that this is certainly stronger in his generation. Beyond that, in covering the Arab uprisings, the Lebanese media do consider blogs and other social media from Egypt, Syria etc. As Rania Massoud from L’Orient le Jour, a Lebanese daily in French, told me, she relies on blogs and other social media, in particular for covering the revolt in Syria in spring 2011. “You get direct access to people’s experiences” and also “their thoughts and ideas”. Yet she also felt ambiguous about the reliability of blogs as sources.111 Occasionally however, Lebanese bloggers appeared in the Lebanese media, either as advocates in a certain domain, such as freedom of speech,112 or in their activities apart from their blogs, such as Maya’s publication of her comic books. Sometimes blogging as such attracts short reportages or articles, for example the

110 Interview conducted in Arabic on April 14, 2011, in a café in Hamra, Beirut. 111 Interview with Rania Massoud, April 20, 2011. Rania Massoud started to present websites in a weekly rubric in L’Orient le Jour; this column also presents blogs. 112 For instance, Khodor took part in a television debate on freedom of speech on New TV on May 21, 2010; and BBC interviewed him on February 22, 2010 on the privatisation of a Lebanese internet company.

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Lebloggers election coverage in 2010.113 With the increasing public interest in blogging and social media during the Arab uprisings, individual bloggers gained slightly more attention; for example, Trella was portrayed in a newspaper article by the pan-Arab newspaper Dar al-Hayat114 and Rami was interviewed about blogging on Lebanese Future TV.115 Beyond that, bloggers are requested to give interviews in their role as writers and activists. Adon was interview on New TV during the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement as a secularist who is critical of the movement,116 and Assaad was interviewed as one of the organisers of the movement. Another link with the traditional media is the bloggers’ involvement in journalism themselves. In my sample, Adon, Assaad, Hanibaael and Khodor were already working as journalists before they started to blog. They were all often frustrated with editorial limits in their work and so opted to open a blog in addition to their journalistic writings. The publications these bloggers have been working for are mostly from the leftist spectrum of the Lebanese print media (Al-Akhbar and As-Safir). In sum, although according to the journalists I interviewed blogging had no major impact on shaping traditional media coverage in Lebanon to date, there is also interaction between the two fields. Embedded and self-perceived counter-publicness Overall, it is important to emphasise again that the field of blogging does not function as a space separate from wider social movements. It is strongly linked to other initiatives, groups and movements, such as feminist groups117 and the wider antisectarianism movement, which also are intense users of social media. Practices of counter-publicness in blogging are thus to be understood as linked to various spaces of activism on- and offline. Bloggers are involved in raising awareness for and documenting concrete causes such as the Isqāṭ an-Niẓām movement or new restrictive internet laws – on their blogs as well as in other social media. Counter-publicness

113 See chapter 2.2. 114 http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/233966, accessed February 17, 2011. 115 http://www.plus961.com/2011/09/my-interview-with-future-tv-on-blogging-in-lebanon/, accessed September 22, 2011. 116 As he told me, an old friend of his was responsible for the report and knew his political stance about the movement from the blog (Adon i2). He posted the interview on his blog: https://saghbini.wordpress.com/2011/03/28, accessed March 30, 2011. 117 One example is the feminist collective Nasawiyya, http://www.nasawiya.org/web/ (accessed November 18, 2011). The collective is active in blogging and tweeting as well as on Facebook.

316 | III P UBLICNESS in blogging is primarily characterised by the merging with other social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, rather than the traditional media. Nevertheless, the field of blogging has links to other more established media, which is reflected by the links between and common actors in Al-Akhbar, As-Safir, and certain activist blogs, and thus between a Lebanese leftist publicness and the field of blogging. All the bloggers in my sample expressed their disgust with the political system in Lebanon, the politics of the two main political camps and the biased media coverage in the traditional media. Blogging functions as a way of expressing discontent and opens up another space that still is political, but not in the traditional sense of politics. A considerable number of predominantly English-writing bloggers take a clear ‘anti-politics’ stance toward Lebanese party politics in Lebanon (see also chapter 7), yet they still address societal problems. The bloggers from the activist and leftist spectrum take a different position and call instead to address the “real issues” (Adon i1), yet they also position themselves as standing outside Lebanese party politics.118 Of the latter group, Khodor, Assaad and also Trella discuss local politics but in a way that is quite different from the traditional media: their main aim is to pinpoint to the factitiousness of the whole system. Adon and Hanibaael are even less concerned with local politics in this sense. Hanibaael focuses rather on underground movements and popular culture, Adon on environmentalism and religious and political thought. Both try to establish forms of specific ‘issue publics’119 that bring topics to the fore that differ from those covered by the traditional media. Whereas blogs cannot be said to influence the agenda of the traditional media in Lebanon in a significant way in the timeframe of this study, blogging can be understood as a space of “withdrawal and regroupment” (Fraser 1992: 124). As practitioners perceive it, blogging functions as an “alternative frame of debate” (Adon i1) in which the sectarian system and its authoritarian features are broadly opposed and particular issues, such as gender inequalities, racism and environmental pollution, are addressed. Yet it is not the topics per se, but also the style of writing by which counter-publicness is practiced. Mocking and making fun of politics is a common strategy and style to expose what, in the bloggers’ point of view, is a ridiculous political system. Riegert and Ramsay (2011: 16f) highlight that the use of humour is a significant feature of the Lebanese blogosphere compared with others in the region.120 For the bloggers, humour is a way of dealing with what surrounds them.

118 See chapter 7 and 8.1 119 Issue publics can be understood as theme-specific networked publics, which can take more permanent to more fleeting forms. See also, amongst others, Marres 2006 on “issue networks”. 120 Outside my sample, in particular the blogs Hummus Nation and Toom Extra (Garlic Extra, http://www.toomextra.com/) are examples of blogs that deploy much humour and

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Beyond that, bloggers position themselves in opposition to the traditional media and, in their self-assigned role as citizen journalists, seek to counter what they perceive as dominant trends in their society. As I have outlined above, their assessment of the traditional media as reproducing the sectarian system is thus a key to their self-understanding as counter-voice. Overall, I would argue that it is not only the topics and the style of writing that is crucial for the counter-publicness within the field I examined: beyond that, the ways of linking up online, organising on the ground, meeting and taking action in the local field as I have described in the preceding chapters, are the basis for ‘doing counter-publicness’. Synopsis In this chapter I have discussed different aspects of publicness in my field of study. In the first part, I concentrated on the public-private dynamics and showed how the bloggers self-reflexively negotiate their going and being public. They consciously shift and renegotiate the boundaries between private and public, as well as between the personal and the political, in accordance with their experiences and personal needs. In doing so, they construct online selves that allow them to address the issues they consider most crucial, from reviving the Lebanese left to promoting another kind of female identity and expressing problems they find difficult to talk about face-to-face. In the second part, I then focused more specifically on the dynamics of counterpublicness in my sample. Based on my previous findings that the Lebanese field of blogging is not a bounded counter-public with a common identity or background,121 I showed that the bloggers nevertheless situate their activity using a counter-public terminology. They position themselves against the backdrop of a wider public and media sphere and are active in promoting specific issues they consider underrepresented in the traditional media or where they see these media as part of the problem. Criticism of the sectarian system, whether of how it is reproduced in daily life or of the political figures that represent it, is one of the prominent issues in focus in the local field of blogging. Translocal topics such as gender and environment are also on the bloggers’ agendas. Lebanon’s insufficient internet infrastructure and freedom of expression online are frequently addressed, which clearly demonstrates that the bloggers are concerned with the basis of their own publicness. Finally, the findings of the two sections need to be linked together, since the ways of going and being public and the issues addressed cannot be understood sep-

irony to get their points across. See Riegert and Ramsay 2011 for more on Hummus Nation. 121 See chapter 1.4 and Jurkiewicz 2011a and b.

318 | III P UBLICNESS arately – exactly this combination constitutes the mode of publicness in the local field of blogging. The particular understanding of politics and the blurring between the personal and political that the first section explicates are an intrinsic part of the counter-publicness of blogging in Lebanon. It is characterised by the bloggers’ writing about issues relevant to them from their personal standpoint and displaying certain parts of themselves and their daily life experiences. This also includes making oneself vulnerable to attacks – as in particular Khodor, Assaad and Trella do in their way of writing – and constructing online selves that speak for the wider political and social agenda of the bloggers. Thus, the issues they put forward are not the only way that they counter the traditional media. Also in their ways of going public and bringing their personal observations to the fore, they counter the elite-centred Lebanese media, which do not leave “much space to members of civil society groups” and “the daily concerns of the citizens.” (Nötzold 2008: 140) Being political but outside the traditional meaning of politics and providing personal views and criticism are crucial components of (counter-)publicness in the Lebanese field of blogging.

Conclusion: Blogging as field, practice and mode of publicness

This monograph is an anthropological endeavour in the study of a digital media practice in the context of the Middle East. By ethnographically following seven actors in the local field of blogging in Lebanon, as well as including a wider sample of bloggers, I undertook an empirical study of a digital media practice in a local context. My central questions were directed at exploring the material, social and cultural conditions and practices of blog production, the organisation of the local field on- and offline and the practices and understandings of publicness. The endeavour can be understood as part of an “anthropology of the present”1 (Fox 1991) in the context of Arab media studies and media anthropology. I have focused on blogging, a contemporary and possibly temporary digital media practice. One of the main aims has been to shift perspective: from a media-analytic description of an online network structure (that is often called the Lebanese blogosphere) to framing the practice of blogging in the everyday life of its practitioners. I have demonstrated throughout the book how inseparable and intermingled media practices and everyday life indeed are. However, I avoided technological determinism, and rather than emphasising the “dramatic change” through blogging (see Armbrust 2012: 49), I showed continuities with other domains of practice and blogging’s ties to concrete social spaces and forms of social action in Beirut. At the same time, I illustrated that blogging is a dynamic practice, constantly changed by those who practice it and changing its practitioners. Beyond that, combined with various other media practices, blogging contributes to a transformation of media practices of production and consumption. On the level of individual media use that the practitioners in my field are proof of, I have shown changes in media consumption from accessing traditional media towards personally transmitted information

1

When working and writing as anthropologists, as Fox (1991:1) outlines, taking “the world at present” does not simply mean the “contemporary” but also refers to the “peculiar”, i.e. changes in and particularities of the present.

320 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT through social media platforms. Media habits and their intermingling and structuring force in daily life are thus to be considered as part of a gradual change. Moreover, in producing a blog and making it part of one’s daily life and a platform for self-reflection and exchange, bloggers experiment with established writing genres and self-disclosure. I showed how media practices influence contemporary understandings of the public and the private and how bloggers negotiate the boundaries between these two poles and blur the personal and the political. The stances expressed on the level of the blogs’ content are not necessarily new, but in parts continuous with previous articulations, such as in the case for secular ideas in Lebanon, as I outlined in chapter 8. However, as I argued, change is constituted through divergent practices and not merely through information content. Looking at the practice of blogging, we see a “gradual changing of habits, practices and selfunderstandings (see Armbrust 2012: 49). These divergent practices are what this monograph dealt with. In the following, I will now tie together the main findings of the different chapters according to the tripartite structure of the book. I will then set the study in the context of the research fields discussed in the introduction. Finally, in the last part I will reflect upon future research perspectives evolving out of my work. Main findings This study is situated against the backdrop of the prevailing image of the blogger in the Middle East, which is mainly associated with the activist mode and the narrative of online activism as an emergent public sphere in ‘cyber space’. In contrast, I followed a practice-theory approach in the analysis of a local field of blogging. I argued that blogging is not to be fully understood as a cultural phenomenon in Lebanese daily life by merely looking at the product (the blog/text), but that the analysis needs to involve the practitioners and practices in context. Hence, it must include looking at the social spaces on the local level, where bloggers network, cooperate and dispute with each other, and at their wider life context and the concrete practices of production and dissemination. The three main lines of analysis were devoted to studying i. the local field dynamics ii. the complexity of media practices, and iii. the practices of publicness. In accordance with these three perspectives, I will now present my findings.

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i. Blogging as field: local dynamics and continuities By taking the notion of field instead of ‘public sphere’ as a starting point, the internal dynamics of blogging in the local Lebanese field of blogging and the onlineoffline continuum of blogging could be grasped more fully. Field, understood as “a domain of practice in which differently positioned practitioners compete and cooperate over the same prizes and rewards: money, pleasure, recognition” (Postill 2010a: 15), allowed me to shed light both on the interactions between bloggers and on common struggles and aims. To make my observations in the field, following Warde (2004) I also included non-strategic and non-competitive practices. Those Beirutian bloggers I dealt with are very much tied into the local dynamics of social media initiatives and are not merely ‘online activists’. They visit events such as the ArabNet, participate in meetings of the social media initiative SMEX and are involved in this or more temporary social media projects. Furthermore, they show a strong involvement in political activism, in particular advocating for secularism in Lebanon. This environment provides offline field stations for interaction and exchange. The linkages and relationships between bloggers oscillate between on- and offline, real-life friendships, online acquaintances and much more – a spectrum of different relations. Due to the individual character of blogging and the concurrence of being seen and visible, cooperation between bloggers is always endangered by the possibility that individual agendas will become too strong. Nevertheless, as I showed, some common causes unite bloggers; in particular freedom of speech and also technological internet restraints mobilise much support from the bloggers and transcend political and ideological boundaries. The field approach allowed me to trace the relation and continuities with other fields or domains of practice, such as political activism and common professional fields that often build the basis for the blogging activity – at least for those ‘intensive bloggers’ that I concentrated on. It is hard to definitively assess whether blogging is eventually to be understood as a full-fledged field. At most it is a semiautonomous field with strong links to the field of social media and the wider field of cultural production. While the field is fluid and temporary, it also exhibits some rather stable features in terms of which strata of society are actively engaged in and which causes are promoted. ii. The complexity of media practices Framing blogging as practice means understanding it as a social activity and looking at both sayings and doings, as well as concrete materialities and bodily activities. Moreover, following this approach involved examining the different kinds of rewards blogging holds. In contrast to text-centred approaches to the complexity of media practices, this allowed its social location and internal differentiation to be grasped and the continuities with other domains of practices to be highlighted.

322 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT In analysing the concrete production conditions that I looked at and presented in my main case studies, I could show how these Beirutian bloggers constantly strive to integrate blogging in their busy daily life, using work breaks and night hours to keep up with their blogging activity. The material facilities are not always favourable, for example there are electricity cuts and a slow internet connection. Furthermore, all the bloggers I studied are extremely burdened by various work/freelance commitments and additionally engaged in various domains of social action, be it political activism or social media activities more broadly. As I showed, media practices are an inseparable part of daily life of the bloggers. Blogging is not merely integrated in daily life, but also structures daily life routines and weekly rhythms and is furthermore often interlinked with these activities. Beyond that, the bloggers’ professional itineraries are linked to their blogging activity in manifold ways. Many bloggers, especially those in my sample who had already been involved in journalistic and literary writing before, have further developed and cultivated their writing by and through blogging. The same goes for the bloggers with a background in IT or design, in terms of technical competences in the domain of social media, such as setting up and designing websites or experimenting with online campaigns and advertisements. These practices and competences can then be made fruitful in their professional fields or other domains of practice. Hence the bloggers’ cultural capital in terms of education, skills and knowledge is both a prerequisite for blogging and is also increased through blogging. This is not to deny that the actors in my sample understood blogging as a form of social action (Hine 2000), but it recombines different sets of practices – technological, social and political – that go beyond blogging for activist goals and motivations. On the level of blog production practice, I mapped out the different modes of blog production, each oriented towards and linked to particular domains of practice and writing. The first production mode is oriented towards journalistic efficiency and proficiency, focusing on balanced reporting. It strives for rapid production and transmission of the written product. The second mode is oriented towards presenting factual and neatly arranged information, with a view to gaining academic credibility. It is based on thorough research and displays a large time investment. Third, artistic modes of production, whether in poetic or comic form, present another mode that, at least in the material at hand, follows a less clearly organised production procedure. It is often oriented towards expressing the blog author’s subjective experiences and thereby displaying features and problems of the current social, political and cultural context. Beyond that, a fourth mode is characterised by the mixing of different ways of production and alternating between different text genres, from personal observations to ‘research-like’ entries. All modes are accompanied by an activist engagement, yet each is oriented towards a different writing genre.

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Overall, as my analysis showed, as a media production practice, blogging is characterised by features of produsage, i.e. the blurring of traditional producer and consumer roles, as well as practices and convergence of different media tools – in my material Facebook and Twitter are the most prominent. Yet, at the same time, continuities with other production models such as in journalism are striking and suggest that there is not a complete reversal of production processes (as argued by Bruns 2008) and producer hierarchies (claimed by Jenkins 2004). In many of the chapters, I highlighted blogging’s continuities with other practices and production modes that do not make it possible to grant blogging or the field of blogging an exceptional status. Hence, what is special about blogging after all? I argued that one of its distinct features is that it is a recombinant practice that integrates many different practices – be it in the production or the dissemination process. Consequently, the open character of the blogging practice allows bloggers to integrate and recombine a wide spectrum of practices: activism, journalistic writing, photography, design etc. This complexity is also reflected in the complexity of rewards that blogging offers. These rewards can be distinguished between extrinsic rewards such as the strengthening of cultural and social capital and the intrinsic rewards of gratification and self-validation. Moreover, I showed that the motivations for blogging are not fixed, but rather that constant blogging creates new motivation. Despite my focus on blogging, these findings are not confined to this media practice, but can in part be extended and compared with other digital media practices, for example in regard to the similar features of rewards I discussed. iii. Practicing publicness To understand the dynamics of publicness, I focused on the bloggers’ selfunderstanding and their practices of doing publics. This approach highlights the processual character inherent in publics, which are not static ‘spheres’ that actors enter, but are produced by the actors’ participation and constituted by their practices. I explored the audience as a meaningful category in blog production that includes both the local fellow blogger and a translocal readership. Directing one’s writings to an imaginary audience, such as ‘the oppressed’, Lebanese in the urban periphery or Lebanese in the diaspora, stimulates and gives direction to the writing process. The production of locality gave an exemplary insight into the challenges of performing local authenticity before the blogger’s audience. Overall, the convincing performance of this local authenticity by non-local participants is valued by fellow bloggers in the local field in Lebanon. In terms of language choices and intended audiences, I then illustrated that ‘opening up’ and ‘being international’ are guiding principles primarily for the English-writing bloggers. Those blogging in Arabic emphasised the ‘Arabic perspective’ and regional connection and responsibility.

324 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT Yet language is also linked to various belongings and positions in the local field in terms of cultural and social background and the multilingual language landscape in Lebanon. The two different stances towards language use were also reflected in different positions and images of what good Lebanese blogging should look like. The first stance, mostly held by Arabic bloggers, highlights responsibility and also political engagement – although outside the traditional sectarian system. The second stance, mostly held by English-language bloggers, aims at convergence with ‘Western blogging’ and at a non-political, daily-life character of blogging. This Lebanese particularity is certainly explained by the political context, which is characterised both by the political divide between the two political camps and by a strong politicisation of daily life. With regard to production guidelines in terms of regularity, networking and style, however, most bloggers share a common set of rules very similar to those of journalism ethics. All the bloggers regarded transparency in terms of disclosing one’s sources and one’s own position as ethical guidelines in the blogging practice. I showed how the boundaries between public and private are transgressed and consciously blurred in blogging. All the bloggers in my sample seem to be highly aware of making things and their ‘selves’ public to a certain degree. Negotiating what to disclose is a fluctuating process. Experimenting and adapting according to their personal needs and experiences are crucial features of the publicness of blogging, which thus displays a laboratory character. Moreover, the laboratory publicness also entails experimenting with the personal and the political and negotiating their boundaries, such as by establishing ‘non-political’ realms while at the same time providing social criticism. The understandings of ‘the political’ as party politics and ‘high’ politics are to be set in relation to the local political context. Against this background, one tendency among the Beirutian bloggers is to consistently avoid political topics entirely; another is to unfold the factitiousness of the whole system and argue in favour of changing it. These tendencies, again, reflect the two different kinds of blogging ethos in the local field. Both try to bridge the political divides, but through different strategies: the first by actively addressing them, the second by obliterating these differences and highlighting commonalities. Beyond that, bloggers understand themselves as building a space of counterpublicness to the ‘traditional media’ and wider cultural trends. Whether addressing sectarianism or other political and social injustices in Lebanon, blogging is set against the background of the wider Lebanese media sphere. The point is perhaps not whether blog posts reach the mainstream media, which they seldom do, but to cultivate a space and more generally a climate of discussion and to publish the bloggers’ personal criticism. This counter-publicness is embedded in social milieus of the young and educated in Beirut with various links to offline activism.

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My study in context The findings of this monograph contribute to the various fields of studies that I referred to in the introduction to this monograph and throughout the different chapters. First of all, it is a study, inspired by ethnographic and practice theory, of a ‘non-Western’ local blogging field outside of Europe and North America – an approach that is still rare in the bulk of media studies, which concentrate mainly on the ‘global North’. Studies of Arab social media have been on the rise, yet there is a tendency to focus on normative notions of democratic change or civil society. Instead, my anthropological approach lay on production context and practices and the self-understanding of the practitioners. – This perspective also included normative aspects, which are important features of production practices and ethos, yet did not have a normative outset. – Following the actors off- and online, I gained insights into the local production conditions and practices of blogging, while at the same time becoming aware of the linkages and continuities of blogging with other domains of practice. Only by being doing fieldwork in Beirut could I understand what it could possibly mean to be a blogger in Beirut and in which context blogs were produced. I asked a different set of questions, not directed at the online content (textual and visual products), but at the context of blogging as media practice, and thus found different answers from previous research. Hence, this study makes a claim for going on site, practicing fieldwork – even and in particular if one treats a translocally connected media practice. This is not to dismiss other quantitative and qualitative research methods and strategies, but in my case they were auxiliary to fieldwork and not the other way around. Overall, this monograph can also be read as a contribution to Arab cultural studies, a research field that is still underexposed (see Sabry 2012), especially in the German context.2 In contrast to much of the political science research within Middle Eastern Studies,3 my study focusses on cultural practices in the region that reflect wider tendencies of social and political life, starting from cultural products,

2

For a counter-example, see the recently established (2017) research initiative coordinated by Dr. Bettina Gräf and Prof. Andreas Kaplony at the LMU Munich: Arabische Massenmedien und (trans)regionale Netzkulturen, http://www.naher-osten.lmu.de/media/, accessed August 25, 2017.

3

As Armbrust argues (2012: 43f), Arab media studies are very much concentrated on ‘news’ rather than education or entertainment, which are equally important features of media.

326 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT their producers and consumers.4 So far, this approach is much more visible in the research agenda of South (East) Asia Studies in Germany.5 In accordance with other studies on Middle Eastern publics (Shami 2009), I highlighted the processual character of the local field of blogging and the shifting character of what is perceived as private, public and political. Using practice theory as one main approach for analysing production allowed me not only to analyse the production practices in context and in detail, but also to understand publicness in the making. While practice theory is not well suited for analysing macro-processes or global media events (see Hobart 2010 and Postill 2010a), the approach proved persuasive for grasping the local dynamics and embeddedness of media practices in social fields and daily lives. Prospects Since the field site is temporary and fluid, the actors and causes associated with blogging in Lebanon have changed – see the foreword to this book, where I outlined where the bloggers now stand. By providing snapshots in time, as I did in this monograph, particular moments in cultural and political life can be illuminated, but I was also able to outline some greater trends in media practices and habits as well the production of publicness. The study could be extended historically, looking at the continuities of publicness in Lebanon across a longer time frame. This was beyond the scope of my research, but the findings presented here could provide a basis for such study. My findings also encourage more conceptual work on digital and other media practices and modes of publicness, extending (or challenging) the arguments I started to build here. Furthermore, my study may serve as an inspiration to study media practices in a more historically comparative perspective, in terms of an anthropological (or Arab cultural studies) media history, as Armbrust envisages (2012). In a similar vein, it could be extended in a comparative perspective by examining media practices in different generations.6 Gonzalez-Quijano’s (2003) early work on the internet in Lebanon touched upon the topic of generational change through new media within journalistic production, a track certainly worth being

4

In the wider research community, these ‘soft’ topics are not perceived as ‘serious’ enough, or they are simply labelled “fashionable topics”, a response I sometimes received when I mentioned my research topic among researchers in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

5

As meetings and discussions in the frame of the DFG network “Medialisierung außerhalb Europas: Südasien, Südostasien und der arabischsprachige Raum” (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2011-2014) have indicated.

6

For instance Bettina Gräf’s article on “From the Pocketbook to Facebook: Maktabat Wahba, Publishing and Political Ideas in Cairo since the 1940s” (forthcoming 2018).

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pursued from a journalistic working practice perspective. Yet, as I showed, the processes of production and reception are not sharply distinguishable, and blogging is characterised as both consumption and production of media. The circulation and dissemination of blog texts, in particular the translocal connections in the process of produsage (Bruns 2008) of blogs and other cultural products evolving from Beirutian and other youth cultures, would be worth examining from a media practice perspective. Further elaboration is needed to understand blogging and other digital media practices as ‘knowledge work’, in which knowledge/experiences/stories are stored and used by different actors – blogger, media activists, journalists, researchers – in an archive both personal and public. A sole focus on one media format might not be the approach I would still follow in 2017. In line with a polymedia approach (Miller and Madianou 2012), focussing on the use of a variety of media technologies and on posting on different platforms seems to be the way to go in future research, also in studying media activism more broadly. However, while in 2016 media anthropologists Daniel Miller and his colleagues argue that “[i]t is the content rather than the platform that is most significant when it comes to why social media matters,” (Miller et al. 2016: 1) I would have some reservations against this focus on content. While perhaps the primary basic units of analysis should not be the platforms as such; more broadly the ways of producing and co-producing, networking and going public, i.e. the media practice and its normative components, seem to me as relevant as the content itself and to be central in the analysis of digital media. That said, the figure of the ‘Arab blogger’, both as a media figure that has attracted much attention in Western media but also as a self-ascribed identity, justifies – if not ‘platform-oriented’ research – a focus on this specific media format and what is ascribed to it. Thus, a study on blogging still matters! To conclude, I hope that the alternative approaches of studying social media I followed and developed in this book contribute to further shifting the focus from rather abstract and static public spheres actors towards processual modes of publicness constituted by the actors’ participation and practices and extending mediaanalytic studies of online activism to encompass ethnographic approaches to media practices embedded in daily life.

Appendix

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346 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT Wood, Josh. 2010. “Lebanon Cracks Down on Internet Freedom.” The New York Times [sec. World/Middle East], November 3, 2010; http://www.nytimes.com/2 010/11/04/world/middleeast/04iht-m04m1leblog.html, accessed April 12, 2010. Worth, Robert F. 2010. “Web Tastes Freedom Inside Syria, and It’s Bitter.” The New York Times, September 29, 2010; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/wor ld/middleeast/30syria.html?_r=1, accessed September 30, 2010. York, Jillian C. 2010. Policing Content in the Quasi-Public Sphere. OpenNet Initiative, September 2010; http://opennet.net/policing-content-quasi-public-sphere, accessed March 8, 2011. Ytreberg, Espen. 2000. “Notes on Text Production as a Field of Inquiry in Media Studies.” Where Do the Front Lines of Media and Communication Research Run Today? Notes on Current Nordic Media Research (blog by id.); http://www .nordicom.gu.se/common/publ_pdf/45_Ytreberg.pdf, accessed December 11, 2011. Zuckerman, Ethan. 2011. “Morozov vs.(?) Tufekci at the US Naval Academy.” My heart’s in Accra (blog by id.); http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/04/1 3/morozov-vs-tufekci-at-the-us-naval-academy/, accessed January 3, 2012.

L IST

OF i NTERVIEWS

1

Main sample (case studies) Adon (Ninar) — i1: February 9, 2010. Café Laziz, Hamra, Beirut (English). — i2: March 31, 2011. Terrace of the author’s flat, Badaro, Beirut (English). Assaad (Beirutiyat) —  i1: January 26, 2010. Café/bar Simply Red, Hamra, Beirut (English). — i2: April 9, 2011. Café Younes, Hamra, Beirut (English). Hanibaael (Hanibaael) —  i1: January 28, 2010. Café/bar T-Marbouta, Hamra, Beirut (English). —  i2: March 30, 2011. The blogger’s house in Ain ar-Rummaneh, Beirut (Arabic). Khodor aka Jou3an (Jou3an) —  i1: January 24, 2010. Café/bar T-Marbouta, Hamra, Beirut (French). —  i2: April 14, 2011. Beirut Mall, Ain ar-Rummaneh, Beirut (French). Liliane aka FunkyOzzy (From Beirut With Funk [formerly Independence05, now Travel with Funk], Go Social Media!, Incoglilo) —  i1: January 21, 2010. Costa Café, Downtown Beirut (English).

1 Only recorded interviews. For all informal talks, the reference is “field notes”. For links, see list of blogs and websites.

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—  i2: April 7, 2011. Restaurant Schtroumpf, Ashrafiyeh, Beirut (English). Maya Zankoul (Maya’s Amalgam) —  i1: December 1, 2009. Restaurant in Gemmayzeh, Beirut (English). Rami (Plus961) —  i1: December 17, 2009. Starbucks, Hamra, Beirut (English). —  i2: March 29, 2011. Café Younes, Sodeco, Beirut (English). Further Lebanese bloggers Farfahinne (Farfahinne): February 25, 2010. Café/bar T-Marbouta, Hamra, Beirut (French). FinkPloyd (Blogging Beirut): November 19, 2009. Chez Paul, Gemmayzeh, Beirut (English). Layal (layalk & leb nights): March 2, 2010. Costa Café, Hamra, Beirut (English). Mariam (Mariam's Photos for Outdoor View): March 24, 2010. Village close to Sur, South Lebanon (Arabic). Mazen Kerbaj (KERBLOG): March 16, 2010. Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Raouche, Beirut (French). Ouwet Blogger (The Ouwet Front): March 5, 2010. Starbucks, Downtown (English). Trella (Trella): February 2, 2010. Regusto, Hamra (English). Wadih al-Asmar (Rêver le Liban): March 10, 2010, Club 43, Gemmayzeh, Beirut (French). Wissam (Ethiopian Suicides): November 21, 2009, Ziko House, Sanayeh, Beirut (English). Egyptian bloggers 2 Abdelrahman Hassan (Estr4ng3d): December 10, 2009 (English). Ahmad Gharbeia (Ahmad Gharbeia): December 11, 2009 (English). Eman AbdEl Rahman (Lasto Adri [I don’t know]): December 9, 2009 (English). Noha Atef (Torture in Egypt): December 12, 2009 (English). Wael Abbas (Al-Waʿī al-Maṣrī [Egyptian Awareness]) December 9, 2009 (English).

2 All interviews were conducted at Hamzieh Rotana Hotel, Beirut during the Second Arab Bloggers Meeting.

348 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT Social media actors/journalists Angelo Beaini (Alternative Society Organization): March 13, 2010. NGO’s office, Zahleh (English). Ibrahim Shahara (Shabab as-Safir): April 18, 2011. Café in Hamra, Beirut (Arabic). Jessica Dheree (SMEX): January 26, 2009. SMEX Office, Beirut (English). Mathew Cassel (Electronic Intifada): Mach 25, 2010. Ziko House, Beirut (English). Moustafa Ghaddar (Women in Technology): March 22, 2010. Costa Café, Downtown Beirut (English). Nabil Bou Mounssef (An-Nahar): March 15, 2011. An-Nahar Office, Downtown Beirut (Arabic). Rania Massoud (L'Orient le Jour): April 20, 2011. Café Sho, Ashrafiyeh, Beirut (French).

L IST

OF BLOGS AND WEBSITES

3

Main sample of Lebanese blogs (case studies) Beirutiyat / Kharbashāt Bayrūtīya (Assaad): https://beirutiyat.wordpress.com/ Ninar / Nīnār (Adon): https://saghbini.wordpress.com/ From Beirut with Funk (Liliane aka FunkyOzzi): http://blog.funkyozzi.com/ [formerly Independence05: http://blog.independence05.com/*] Go Social Media! (Liliane aka FunkyOzzi): https://gosocialmedia.wordpress.com/ Hanibaael / Hanībaʿil... yatasakkaʿ fī -l-arjāʾ (Hani aka Hanibaael): https://haniba ael.wordpress.com/ Incoglilo (Liliane aka FunkyOzzi): http//incoglilo.blogspot.com/ Jou3an / Jūʿān: muwāṭin ḍid al-anẓima al-muzawwara (Khodor aka Jou3an): http:/ /jou3an.wordpress.com/ Maya’s Amalgam (Maya Zankoul): http://mayazankoul.com/. See also: http://mayaz ankoul.com/zankoulizer/ Plus961 (Rami): http://www.plus961.com/

3 This is not a comprehensive list of Lebanese blogs. For a more comprehensive list, see the Lebanon blog aggregator: http://www.lebanonaggregator.com/p/all-blogs-urls.html. All listed websites were last accessed on September 25, 2017 if not indicated otherwise. Websites that are no longer accessible are indicated with an asterisk (*).

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Other Lebanese blogs referred to 29LT BLOG: https://29letters.wordpress.com/* (moved to: https://blog.29lt.com/) Ana Min Beirut: http://anaminbeirut.blogspot.com/ ArabSaga: http://arabsaga.blogspot.com/ Beirut2Bayside: http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/ (closed blog, only accessible to invited readers) Beirut Beauty... "There Are No Ugly Women... Just Lazy Ones": http://beirutbeauty. blogspot.com/* Beirut Drive-by Shooting: http://beirutdriveby.blogspot.com/ Beirut gay boy: http://beirutgayboy.blogspot.com/* BEIRUTGRAFFF: http://beirutgrafff.blogspot.com/ Beirut, heard from the TV: http://littlepaperboat.livejournal.com/B-side Beirut: http s://besidebeirut.wordpress.com/ Beirut in Between: http://beirutinbetween.blogspot.com/ Beirut Notes: http://beirutnotes.blogspot.com/ Beirutologie: http://beirutologie.blogspot.com/ Beirut Public Space: http://beirutpublicspace.com/* Beirut Spring: https://beirutspring.com/ Beirut Tweets: https://beiruttweets.wordpress.com/ beirut update: http://beirutupdate.blogspot.com/ Blacksmiths of Lebanon: http://blacksmithsoflebanon.blogspot.com/ Blog Baladi: http://blogbaladi.com/ BloggingBeirut.com: http://bloggingbeirut.com/* Chouei Chouei Beirut: http://www.choueichoueibeyrouth.blogspot.com/ Chroniques beyrouthines: http://chroniquesbeyrouthines.20minutes-blogs.fr/ Computers and Technology: http://funkyzarathustra.blogspot.com/ Dr. Pamela Chrabieh: http://pchrabieh.blogspot.com/ Ethiopian Suicides: http://ethiopiansuicides.blogspot.com/ Farfahinne: http://farfahinne.blogspot.com/ Gino’s Blog: https://ginosblog.com/ Hakaya / Ḥakāyā (formerly Muzna’s Stories): https://hakaya.blogspot.com/ Half & Half: https://diaryofahalfandhalf.wordpress.com/ Hanane Kaï’s Blog: http://hanane.me/blog/ Hanzala: http://hanzala86.blogspot.com/ Harṭaqāt: https://hartakat.wordpress.com/ hi, kifak, ca va?: https://hikifakcava.wordpress.com/ Hi Mom. It’s me. Beirut Boy: https://guymeetsworld.wordpress.com/* (moved to: ht tps://beirutboyblog.com/) Horizon Photography: https://horizongraphy.wordpress.com/ Jihad Bazzi: http://jihadbazzi.maktoobblog.com/* July 2006 War on Lebanon: http://july2006waronlebanon.blogspot.com/

350 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT Jumhūrīyat al-Ḥummuṣ: http://hummus-nation.blogspot.com/* (moved to: http://w ww.hummusnation.net/) KERBLOG: http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/ Kibot: http://kibot.blog.com/* Klekeesh / Klākīsh: http://klekeesh.blogspot.com/ Land and People: http://landandpeople.blogspot.com/ Layal Khatib: https://layalk.net/* Lebanese Blogger Forum (LBF): http://lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com/ Mariam’s Photos for Outdoor View: http://pic-lb.blogspot.com/ Maria Studio: http://marianachawi.blogspot.com/ MarxistFromLebanon: http://marxistfromlebanon.blogspot.com/ Min Beyrūt: http://minbeirutbilarabeh.blogspot.com/ Mudawwana ash-Shaykh Ḥassan Qāṭerjī: http://hasan-katerji.maktoobblog.com/* Nadine Moawad: http://www.nadinemoawad.com/* OnOffBeirut: http://www.onoffbeirut.com/* Qifa Nabki: https://qifanabki.com/ Qussa / Quṣṣa: http://www.qussa.nl/ Rasha Salti: http://rashasalti.blogspot.com/ Rêver le Liban: http://reverleliban.blogspot.com/ Riham’s Blog: https://threadofdesire.wordpress.com/ Ritachemaly’s Blog: https://ritachemaly.wordpress.com/ Rue89: http://www.rue89.com/* Samidoun network: http://samidoun.blogspot.com/ SIETSKE IN BEIRUT: http://sietske-in-beiroet.blogspot.com/ Sotoor / Suṭūr: https://sotoor.wordpress.com/ Tajaddod Youth: http://www.tajaddod-youth.com/blog-page/ Tarek Chemaly: http://beirutntsc.blogspot.com/ (moved to: http://blog.tarekchemal y.com/) The Angry Arab News Service / Wakālat anbāʾ al-ʿarabī al-ghāḍib: http://angryara b.blogspot.com/ The Lebanese Bloggers: http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/ The Maniachis: https://maniachi.wordpress.com/ The Ouwet Front: http://www.ouwet.com/* ThereforeDesign: http://thereforedesign.com/blog/* This is Beirut: https://thisisbeirut.wordpress.com/ Toom Extra: http://toomextra.blogspot.com/* (moved to: http://www.toomextra.co m/*) Trella / Mudawwana Trīlā: http://trella.org/ Un Peu de Kil Shi: https://unpeudekilshi.wordpress.com/ viola’: http://www.nadinefeghaly.com/ Waqaftu honā wa-katabt: https://danyawad.wordpress.com/

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Egyptian blogs referred to Ahmad Gharbeia: http://ahmad.gharbeia.org/* Estr4ng3d: http://estr4ng3d.blogspot.com/* Lasto Adri: http://lasto-adri.blogspot.com/ Al-Waʿī al-Maṣrī: http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com/ Torture in Egypt: http://tortureinegypt.net/* Lebanese websites referred to http://www.aawsat.com http://www.al-akhbar.com/ http://www.altcity.me/ http://alternative-society.org/* https://www.annahar.com/ https://www.beirut.com/ http://www.beirutnightlife.com/ http://beirut.twestival.com/* http://civilsociety-centre.org/ http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ https://electronicintifada.net/lebanon/*4 http://english.al-akhbar.com/ http://www.facebook.com/ http://www.facebook.com/lebrevolution* http://gemmayze.bloggingbeirut.com/* http://www.hibr.me/* http://www.iloubnan.info/ http://www.ilovegemmayze.com/* http://www.isqat.org/* http://isqatalnizam.org/* http://www.lastcrisis.com/* http://www.lebanonaggregator.org/ (formerly http://lebanonaggregator.blogspot.c om/*) http://www.lebanonfiles.com/ http://lebloggers.org/* https://www.lorientlejour.com/ http://www.menassat.com/ https://www.moqawama.org/ http://www.nasawiya.org/

4

See: https://electronicintifada.net/

352 | B LOGGING IN B EIRUT https://nationalitycampaign.wordpress.com/ http://www.nesreena-mag.com/* http://www.nowlebanon.com/* (moved to: https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en*) http://www.ontornet.org/* http://www.openlebanon.org/* http://www.pecha-kucha.org/night/beirut/* http://www.sawtakonline.com/forum/index.php/ http://shabab.assafir.com/ https://smex.org/ http://www.tajaddod-youth.com/ http://www.therootspace.org/* https://thecubelb.worpress.com/ http://webscience.blogs.usj.edu.lb/ Other relevant websites for this study http://www.alarabiya.net/ https://www.alexa.com/ http://www.alhayat.com/ http://www.amin.org/ http://www.arabcyberact.org/* http://arabloggers.com/blog/* https://arabnet.me/ https://www.blogger.com/ http://www.cyberjournalist.net/ http://www.elnashra.com/ http://en.rsf.org/* (moved to https://rsf.org/en/) https://www.facebook.com/rasidnews/ http://globalvoicesonline.org/ http://www.internetworldstats.com/ http://www.i-policy.org/ http://www.jadaliyya.com/ http://kolenalaila.com/* http://www.maktoobblog.com/* http://www.media-anthropology.net/ http://www.mediasocialchange.net/* http://www.netindex.com/ http://networkcultures.org/ http://www.nytimes.com/ http://www.onlinecollaborative.org/ http://opennet.net/ http://produsage.org/

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http://razanghazzawi.com/* http://threatened.globalvoicesonline.org/ http://www.urbandictionary.com/ http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ https://wikipedia.org/ http://wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/

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Social Sciences and Cultural Studies Carlo Bordoni

Interregnum Beyond Liquid Modernity 2016, 136 p., pb. 19,99 E (DE), 978-3-8376-3515-7 E-Book PDF: 17,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3515-1 EPUB: 17,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-7328-3515-7

Maik Fielitz, Laura Lotte Laloire (eds.)

Trouble on the Far Right Contemporary Right-Wing Strategies and Practices in Europe 2016, 208 p., pb. 19,99 E (DE), 978-3-8376-3720-5 E-Book PDF: 17,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3720-9 EPUB: 17,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-7328-3720-5

Gundolf S. Freyermuth

Games | Game Design | Game Studies An Introduction (With Contributions by André Czauderna, Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman) 2015, 296 p., pb. 19,99 E (DE), 978-3-8376-2983-5 E-Book PDF: 17,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-2983-9

All print, e-book and open access versions of the titles in our list are available in our online shop www.transcript-verlag.de/en!

Social Sciences and Cultural Studies Suzi Mirgani

Target Markets — International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall 2016, 198 p., pb. 29,99 E (DE), 978-3-8376-3352-8 E-Book: available as free open access publication ISBN 978-3-8394-3352-2

Ramón Reichert, Annika Richterich, Pablo Abend, Mathias Fuchs, Karin Wenz (eds.)

Digital Culture & Society Vol. 1, Issue 1 — Digital Material/ism 2015, 242 p., pb. 29,99 E (DE), 978-3-8376-3153-1 E-Book PDF: 29,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3153-5

Ramón Reichert, Annika Richterich, Pablo Abend, Mathias Fuchs, Karin Wenz (eds.)

Digital Culture & Society (DCS) Vol. 2, Issue 2/2016 — Politics of Big Data 2016, 154 p., pb. 29,99 E (DE), 978-3-8376-3211-8 E-Book PDF: 29,99 E (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3211-2

All print, e-book and open access versions of the titles in our list are available in our online shop www.transcript-verlag.de/en!