SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study highlights various counter-hegemonic discourses in Egyptian blogs. It underscores how bloggers protest against the authority of both state and social institutions. It departs from existing empirical research in its theoretical approach and methodology in terms of size, categorization and analysis of sample. The key empirical results of the thesis show that it is more rewarding to ‘look at what blogs are talking about’ than to ‘look for’ the applicability of a theoretical theorem to the discourse on blogs. As a result, the findings that emerged during the analysis of sample, and the postmodern theoretical trajectories that arose from the same, were not anticipated and quite insightful. Finally, this study provides a nuanced understanding of resistance-bloggers, the position of the blogosphere within the Egyptian social-nexus, upon which, it is hoped, future studies of blogs can build.