Anna Antonakis-Nashif, Freie Universität Berlin

Gender Activism and New Social Media in Tunisia's Transformation Process

New Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's) played a crucial role in how Tunisians communicated and organized the uprisings in 2011. In this context ICTs can be analysed as a tool for creating networked “counterpublics” within an authoritarian system with restricted and manipulated mass media that had an emancipatory potential. In my thesis I want to explore the potential of these new networks especially regarding durable new forms of participation for women and their potential to overcome stereotypes and restrictive gender roles in the transformative processes after the Revolution. Situated in a normative and emancipatory framework, the aim of this work is to present the internet's accessibility as a critical resource for the improvement of democratic citizenship with gendered effects.