Online Political Expression and Activism in an Authoritarian Context

In the popular uprising in Tunisia that led to President Ben Ali’s departure on 14 January 2011, Internet was used extensively to broadcast information both nationally and internationally, and to put out calls for mobilization. Its role has however often been analyzed only superficially. In this article, rather than focusing on these critical circumstances, we look back at the history of Tunisians’ uses of Internet for protest purposes. This type of use emerged in the late 1990s and grew rapidly thereafter. We break this history down into three main periods corresponding to three configurations characterized by new actors, new technical systems, and new forms of political expression and collective protest action.