Public Space &Media

♦Public Space: definition

♦Public Space &Democracy
♦The Arab Spring & Digital Space
 Public Space
• Public spaces are an important asset to our cities. They
provide people many opportunities to come together and
engage with. the community. If public spaces are successful
they are inclusive of the diversity of groups present in our
cities and create a social space for everyone in the society to
participate in.
• Jurgen Habermas’ theorisation of the public sphere, most
thoroughly explored in his work The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere (translated 1989), was
an attempt to find possibilities through which democracy
could be realised.
• The public sphere is the arena within which debate
occurs; it is the generation of ideas, shared
knowledge and the construction of opinion that
occurs when people assemble and discuss. Although
real and experienced, the public sphere cannot be
located in particular place or identified as an object.
It ‘cannot be conceived as an institution and certainly
not as an organisation’, writes Habermas, rather it is
‘a network for communicating information and
points of view’ (Habermas, 1996: 360). The public
sphere is where ideas and information are shared. It
is where public opinions are formed as a result of
• of communication.
• Habermas dates the formation of the terms of public
sphere and public opinion back to the 18th century.
Before the rise of the Bourgeoisie and the creation of
bourgeois public spheres the understanding of the
term ‘public’ was quite different. Before that time the
representation of authority through a lord was called
‘public’ referring to the public representation lords
were seen as. This public representation was merely
stating their authorities before the people than for the
people they governed.
• Public spaces actually exist in modern democracies
that are industrially advanced, constituted as a
social-welfare state and where masses of people are
supposed to form a public. It is an idealistic model of
democracy which is shaped through structural
changes of society that ended in a transformed
understanding of the public sphere. Habermas
himself had to admit that the participation of women
and the inclusion of minorities is to be considered.
 Public Space & Democracy
• In the wake of the Arab Spring and the Occupy
Movement, questions of political use of public
space are back on the policy agenda in many
countries. But as Western governments
celebrated the occupation of Tahrir Square in
Cairo, Egypt and Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain,
they did so from sites that are themselves
increasingly barricaded against their own publics.
Public spaces are essential stages for the
performance of key roles in democracies.
 The Arab Spring &The Digital Space
• In the scheme of demonstrations perfected by the Arab revolutions,
the small rallies emanating from the mosques (and other gathering
places in the city) converge on the square. Sometimes the security
forces block the way to the square, and the demonstrators retreat
to their mosques or disperse to prepare for a comeback. Sometimes
they manage to penetrate the security cordon and reach the square
where other demonstrators join them to swell into magnificent
public protest, such as the ones we witnessed in Tunis, Cairo,
Alexandria, Benghazi, Manama, and San‘a but also in smaller cities,
such as Dar‘a, Homs, and Hama in Syria and Ta‘iz in Yemen. The
protestors stand together in their square, hoisting their banners
and chanting their slogans demanding the departure of the corrupt
• regimes. The squares virtually become their homes, their
operation rooms, and our window on their revolution.
They sometimes morph into the places where they live,
sleep, pray, socialize, demonstrate, and shape their
destiny. Many lost their lives defending their squares and
their burgeoning revolution therein against the attacks of
the security forces and the regime’s thugs (named
differently in different countries). Others found meaning
to their lives in finally breaking the chain of fear and
revolting against the regimes that had dehumanized
them for so long. In fact, squares such as Tahrir Square in
Cairo, Taghyir (Change) Square in San‘a, and Sahat al-Sa‘a
(Square of the Clock, renamed Freedom Square) .
The Egyptian Revolution
• The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 took place following a
popular uprising that began on January 25, 2011. Millions of
protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious
backgrounds demanded the overthrow of the regime of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
• ♦Causes:
• police brutality
• political censorship
• widespread corruption
• high unemployment
• Food price inflation
• Low minimum wages
• All of which led to the overthrow of Mubarak
government and the writing of a new
constitution.
• During the Arab Spring the public space and
city squares turned to be disturbing scenes of
protests across the Arab world and Europe,
but these public protests existed long before
the 21st century.
• City squares became to be endowed with a
symbolic value. Tahrir Square in Cairo, Pearl
• Roundabout in Bahrain, and Green Square in
Tripoli, to name just a few. These public spaces
benefited from a lack of state surveillance
which was exploited by those who gathered in
numbers which reduced the vulnerability of
the individual protester.
• Besides the mobilization of public spaces
during the Arab Uprising the role of social
media was very crucial as it led to grassroots
assemblage, the rise of civil society and
• active citizenship.
• Social media like Facebook made a revolution. In
Egypt’s case, it was simply a place for venting the
outrage resulting from years of repression, economic
instability and individual frustration.
• Social media and digital spaces in the Arab Spring
served as a touchstone for future testimonials about
a strengthening borderless digital movement that is
set to continually disrupt powerful institutions, be
they corporate enterprises or political regimes.
• Finally, public spaces in the Arab World are regaining
their civil roles through the daring deeds of
anonymous citizens, without necessarily
relinquishing any of their other functions that still
distinguish them from each other and endow them
with their various epochal or urban references. In
this new order, both spaces shelter and nurture the
expression of the people’s civil rights, each at its best
capacity and in its best tradition. Such spaces have
been detrimental to indigenous self-expression for
Arab citizens.