The Changes In Communication And Technology English Language Essay Example

three concludes with a brief summary of the major findings, limitations, suggestions for further research, and pedagogical implications. It also includes a general conclusion. Before delving into the theoretical model, there will be a presentation of a timeline of important events in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, which began on January 25, 2011.

Timeline: Egyptian Revolution

This provides a historical overview of the revolution that led to the end of Hosni Mubarak's thirty-year presidency.

In January 2011, Egypt experienced a rebellion led by militants protesting against poverty, unemployment, government corruption, and President Hosni Mubarak's rule. The uprising started on January 25, a national holiday honoring the police forces. On this day, Egyptians held a large gathering known as the "day of fury." The following day, Cairo's police violently dispersed the protesters using tear gas, water cannons, and batons. Witnesses reported gunfire being shot into the air.

Protests persist in multiple cities on January 27, as demonstrators refuse to depart until their demand is satisfied. Egypt experiences a notable disruption in internet and mobile phone text messaging services on January 28, as it prepares for further protests after Friday prayers. President Mubarak gives a speech on January 29, announcing the cabinet's removal but declining to resign personally. His current location is unknown. As of January 30, Tahrir Square in Cairo remains filled with thousands of protesters.

Despite growing calls for his resignation, Mubarak refuses to step down on January 31. In Cairo's Tahrir Square and Alexandria, people defy the imposed curfew as around 250,000 gather in the square and hundreds march. Reports indicate that internet access in Egypt remains affordable. On February 1, Mubarak announces on television that he will not run

for re-election but still declines to resign - a key demand of the protesters. Preparations commence on February 2 for another day of demonstrations against President Mubarak's government.

The ground forces remain in and around Tahrir Square, deploying armored combat vehicles. According to Cairo reports on February 3, heavy gunshots targeted anti-government demonstrators in Tahrir [ Liberation ] Square, resulting in at least five deaths and several injuries. The following day, hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters gathered for the "Day of Departure" in Cairo's Tahrir Square. On February 5, the remaining thousands within Tahrir Square expressed concerns about an upcoming military attempt to evacuate the area. The protests continued on February 6, with military gunfire reported near the cordon set up inside roadblocks close to the Egyptian museum.

February 7 witnesses a significant crowd refusing to vacate Tahrir Square, while banks resume operations but schools and the stock exchange remain shut. Wael Ghonim, an activist and Google executive who was previously detained by the government, has been freed and is seen as a potential leader for the pro-democracy movement. On February 8, protestors continue to gather in Tahrir Square, transforming it into a makeshift campsite.

In the capital, dissenters gather outside parliament to protest. Both labor unions and other dissenters join in on February 9, with some calling for Mubarak's resignation and others demanding better wages. Throughout the country, work stoppages occur. On February 10, in Tahrir Square, dissenters react angrily to Mubarak's announcement that he will stay in power until September. They raise their shoes and demand the army's support in rebellion. Subsequently, on February 11, thousands of furious protesters take to Egypt's streets. As a

result of these protests, Hosni Mubarak resigns as president and cedes power to the military.

February 12: People celebrate in Tahrir Square until early morning. Pro-democracy dissenters begin to clean the square. Source: Al Jazeera and bureaus.

Introduction

In this section, I will provide a review of the relevant literature and define basic concepts such as communication revolution, power, social change and revolution, social networks (Twitter), and describe the two analytical approaches to be used in this research - Critical Discourse Analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics.

Communication revolution

Revolutions have always been social and involved media.

Published during the American Revolution in 1776, Thomas Paine's influential booklet "Common Sense" had a significant impact on American settlers and quickly became the most widely read publication of its time. It was even recited aloud in taverns and coffee shops. John Adams, the American president, recognized its crucial role by stating that without the writer of "Common Sense," George Washington's sword would have been raised in vain (Cited in Harmer, 2006, p.34). The recent use of mobile phones and social networking websites in protests within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is not entirely unprecedented.

Chirrup, a social-networking tool, was linked to two major protests: one in Moldova in April 2009 and another in Iran in June 2009. These protests saw many people taking to the streets to express their disagreement with the official results of the presidential election.

Some observers even dubbed these demonstrations as the "Twitter Revolution" because of Twitter's significant involvement. Similarly, when President Joseph Estrada was ousted from power in the Philippines in 2001, it became known as the "SMS Revolution" due to dissenters utilizing text messages extensively to mobilize for Estrada's removal (Solow-Niederman, 2010).

According to a plan officer at the United Nations University, these events have been termed as "the world's first e-revolution" - a governmental transformation brought about by new forms of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) (Comninos, 2011). This indicates that the world is on the verge of a new era, filled with potential and challenges. The ongoing revolution is equally significant as any in human history, focusing on information manipulation and communication through technology. What differentiates this revolution is the ability to swiftly and extensively access and share information due to the power of information technology. These advancements are leading to major societal changes.

According to Steve Johnson (2009) of Time, Twitter's revolutionary ability to share information creates an accessible platform for people from diverse backgrounds to engage in conversations and participate in political decision-making. This shift in power and control over information occurs within the realm of New Media, diverging from traditional media elites. Now, bloggers, podcasters, and Tweeters have the means to distribute information.

Power

The term "power" originates from the Latin word potere, which signifies "to be able." This fundamental meaning highlights power as a universal capability that we all possess to shape our lives and the world around us. Nevertheless, based on most individuals' encounters with economic and political institutions, power is commonly associated with "control, influence or authority over others."

According to Castells (2009, p.10),

power refers to a societal actor's capability to influence the decisions of other societal actors in line with their intentions, interests, and principles. Coercion or shaping meaning through discourses are ways in which power can be exerted. In 2007, Castells introduced the concept of counter-power as the ability of societal actors to challenge and transform established power dynamics within society. It is essential for individuals to question the dominant worldview and frame their concerns in alignment with their broader objectives for social change.

Toffler (1990) claims that there is a global shift in power known as "power displacement," which entails a fundamental alteration of power dynamics. Toffler asserts that knowledge is progressively becoming the primary source of power, surpassing conventional forms such as force, wealth, labor, energy, space, and time. In fact, Toffler argues that "Knowledge is the guiding star in tomorrow's worldwide power struggle."

(1990, p. 20) According to Nye (1990) and other authors, power is shifting from traditional forms like military and economic power to softer forms such as technological and communications capabilities.

Social change

The internet plays a crucial role in enabling communication among emerging social movements.

The internet serves as a potent tool for militants in the political realm, enabling them to shape the media's information agenda. As Castells (2007, p.252) states, those aiming for social change frequently utilize online platforms for this objective. The existing power dynamics are reinforced by a widespread sense of powerlessness that characterizes everyday life. Individuals and organizations burdened with historical problems internalize and accept exclusion from decision-making processes as the standard.

According to Rich (1984, cited in Power and Social Change. Grassroots Policy Project. p.4), impotence occurs when those in power

choose to ignore and disregard individuals, making them feel invisible and unheard. This can create a sense of imbalance, as if one is looking in a mirror and seeing nothing. Resisting this feeling of nothingness requires not just individual strength, but collective understanding and unity. Social change groups formed in various communities and workplaces provide a platform for people to come together, reflect on their actions, analyze their situation collectively, and challenge the existing power dynamics with fresh ideas and experiences. Goldstone (2001, p.121) defines revolution as an attempt to transform political institutions and the justifications for authority, accompanied by mass mobilization and non-institutional actions that undermine governing bodies.

According to Kamrava ( 1990, p.12 ), revolution is defined as requiring the development of both political and societal conditions. In terms of politics, it is necessary for the powers and authority of the ruling elite to be weakened through internal or international developments. The resulting weaknesses and challenges must then be utilized by specific groups aiming to undermine the existing elite. Overall, society as a whole needs to exhibit a certain level of openness to radical change.

The government can be undermined by resistance groups if two important societal factors are present. Firstly, these groups need the ability to distribute propaganda and connect with the popular classes. Secondly, existing conditions must leave the popular categories dissatisfied, leading them to support the resistance groups.

The Arab Revolutions of 2011-2012 align with this understanding of revolution as all revolutions, including recent ones in MENA, aim for social and political transformations. To comprehend how social media contributes to these transformations, I will provide a definition and discuss its various characteristics and

impacts.

Social media

Social media platforms enable interactive communication.

Social media refers to the use of computing machines for people to interact and have conversations about various subjects. According to the Social Media Glossary, it involves user-created content such as pictures, sound, text, or multimedia shared in societal environments like web logs, podcasts, forums, wikis, or video hosting sites. In a broader sense, social media encompasses any online technology that allows the publication, conversation, and sharing of content. At present, there is an ongoing revolution due to the transformative impact of new social media tools on societal activism.

Social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, have disrupted the traditional relationship between political authority and the will of the people (Sheedy, 2011). These platforms make it easier for individuals lacking power to coordinate and express themselves collectively. They are recognized for their role in connecting people during crises, raising awareness about global issues, and helping overthrow autocratic governments. Activists use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to communicate, plan, and organize actions that draw attention to the important role of social media in revolutions. As a result, social media has become a significant topic on the international agenda. Recent revolutions are often called "Social Media Revolutions" or "Facebook/Twitter revolutions," highlighting their association with these online platforms rather than solely attributing them to popular uprisings. Essentially, social media is an online platform that allows users to share content, communicate with friends, and engage with others.

e.g. Twitter is a real-time information web that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. It is described on its own web page (www.twitter.com). At the heart of Twitter are tweets,

which are small explosions of information.

Each Tweet is limited to 140 characters. Users can accumulate followers who receive their Tweets and can also choose to follow others and receive their Tweets. Users have the option to reply to their friends' Tweets or retweet them, which means reposting someone else's or their own Tweet onto their own profile. These features have been developed as the site has grown in popularity (Ostrow, 2009).

Twitter has added a hunt map and hashtags, allowing users to group their updates and follow swerving subjects. Tweets with the Jan25, Egypt or Tahrir hashtags are grouped on Twitter's site. Dissenters can communicate with each other and circulate important tweets. Research shows that Twitter users have unique features that differentiate them from users of other social networking sites such as Facebook.

They have great mobility - most users who "tweet" or post updates do so from mobile devices like Blackberries or iPhones, allowing them to post from anywhere and frequently check on those they follow (Solow-Niederman, 2010). Twitter, being both a tool and a website, presents more challenges for government censorship (Cohen, 2009). Users do not need to go to the Twitter website to tweet or read other users' posts; they can access and post tweets in various ways that don't involve the Twitter site. Unlike shutting down a website like Facebook, blocking Twitter would require individually locating and blocking each user, which is difficult.

(Critical) discourse analysis

Discourse is defined as stated by Fairclough (1992, p.

63 ) as `` a manner of action, one signifier in which people may move upon the universe and particularly upon each other, every bit good as a manner of

representation '' . According to Fairclough, discourse can be seen as both a way people interact with each other and the world, and a way to express and represent ideas. To further explain the social aspect of discourse, Gee ( 1990: 143 ) defines it as a collection of socially accepted ways of using language, thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and acting. These ways can be used to identify oneself as part of a socially meaningful group or 'social web', or to convey a socially meaningful role.

Gee's definition highlights the importance of linguistic communication in discourse, but it also recognizes that discourse extends beyond just language. Another key aspect in Gee's definition is the role of societal groups, as discourse indicates membership within a group. The second perspective on discourse is its role in representation. Fairclough (1995: 56) explains that discourse refers to the language used to represent a specific social practice from a particular viewpoint.

... The societal pattern of political relations is expressed differently in broad, socialist, and Marxist political discourses... . The way we perceive the universe varies depending on the societal roles we assume at any given time: it is influenced by the social relationships we establish in communication. This fundamental connection between context and discourse is a core principle of systemic functional (SF) theory (Halliday 1994; Halliday and Hasan 1989; Martin 1992). The two perspectives on discourse - discourse as societal action and as representation - are inseparable.

Discourses are the means by which we socially interact and express our membership in specific groups and societal roles. Through these roles, we shape and convey our understanding of the world. In turn, by

representing our experiences in certain ways, we establish our identity within these groups and roles. Discourses are social processes, producing texts that capture the exchange and creation of interpersonal and representational meanings. According to Halliday & Hasan (1989: 11), a text is an object in itself...

and an case - an case of societal significance in a peculiar context of state of affairs. It is a merchandise of its environment, a merchandise of a uninterrupted procedure of picks... . Critical Discourse Analysis ( henceforth CDA ) " is the denudation of inexplicit political orientations in texts. It unveils the implicit in ideological biass and therefore the exercising of power in texts " ( Widdowson, 2000 ) . It is an effort to critically analyse the relationship between linguistic communication, political orientation, and society.

According to Van Dijk (1993), critical discourse analysts aim to comprehend, uncover, and challenge societal inequality.

Fairclough (1995: 132-3) provides the following definition of CDA:

CDA refers to discourse analysis that consistently investigates the often obscure relationships of causality and discovery between

• discursive patterns, events, and texts, and
• broader societal and cultural constructions, relations, and processes; it examines how these patterns, events, and texts emerge from and are shaped

by power relations and struggles over power; and it investigates how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society functions to secure power and hegemony.

The origins of CDA can be traced back to critical theory, which is associated with the Frankfurt School of Social Research. Critical theory is characterized as a research standpoint with a critical perspective on society (Langer, 1998, p.3). More specifically, it is used to refer to any theory concerned with critiquing ideology and the impact of domination (Fairclough, 1995, p.20). In the 1970s, a group of linguists and literary theorists at the University of East Anglia developed the concept of critical linguistics.

Their attack was based on M.A.K Halliday's Systemic functional linguistics.

Systemic Functional linguistics

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), also known as Systemic Functional Grammar, systemics or systemic linguistics (White, 2000) can be used to describe the grammar of language as used within social situations. It is grammar that explores how language and context are linked together through meaning. Eggins (2005: 21) states that: what is characteristic of systemic linguistics is that it seeks to develop both a theory about language as social process and an analytical methodology which allows for the detailed and systematic description of language patterns. The systematic description of language patterns describes the functions or meanings of language through the use of three meta-functions. The three meta-functions within SFL – experiential (conceptual), interpersonal and textual – are utilized to explore the structures of speech acts within context and patterns (White, 2000: 3).

The significance of these maps

in linguistic communication is conveyed through three meta-functions. The experiential meta-function denotes experience, the interpersonal meta-function depicts interaction and conveys attitudes, and the textual meta-function forms a cohesive whole by combining experiential and interpersonal significances. These meta-functions correspond to the three variables in the context of state of affairs (field, tenor, manner). The conceptual meta-function expresses the field of discourse, the interpersonal meta-function expresses the tenor of discourse, and the textual meta-function expresses the manner of discourse. These meta-functions are expressed simultaneously in language. Both clause construction and discourse construction recognize these meta-functional significances (Halliday; Matthiessen, 2004; Martin, 1992).

Cultural minority groups along the boundary line are spreading negative messages about the authorities.
Conceptional:
1. Behaver
2. Procedure: behavioural
3. Scope: Verbiage

Interpersonal:
1. Capable
2. Finite
3. Predicator
4. Complement
5. Temper
6. Residue

Textual:
1. Subject
2. Rheme

Halliday's systemic-functional theoretical account has been widely accepted by discourse analysts as it provides insights into the function and purpose behind the organization of clauses and sentences. Researchers studying language from a critical perspective also use Halliday's theory to understand the choices made by meaning creators and how language functions socially. SFL is not seen as a set of language rules, but rather a set of resources for describing, interpreting, and creating meaning (Butt et al, 2003: 3). Van Leeuwen (2005) explains how scholars studying semiotic systems other than language have expanded on Halliday's work, where he argued that grammar is not a code or a set of rules for producing correct sentences, but rather a resource for making meanings.Halliday's primary focus in his analyses is the clause level of linguistic communication. This level takes precedence

over the morpheme, word, and phrase/group levels.

Halliday (2004: 10) argues that the clause is the central processing unit in the lexico-grammar. It is in the clause where various meanings are organized into a cohesive grammatical structure. Halliday sees the clause as a complex entity composed of three dimensions or meta-functions. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), a contextual and social theory of language, takes a functional perspective and emphasizes the importance of a systemic view. According to Halliday (2002/[1979]: 217), systemic theory focuses on the system rather than the structure when describing a language. It demonstrates how different constructions can function as alternate ways of realizing systemic options. This research paper will adopt SFL to critically examine the discourse on Twitter during the Egyptian revolution, using it as a case study. By employing a systemic approach, the paper will explore and analyze the mode system, which reflects the speaker's attitude towards the truth of a proposition expressed in a sentence, as well as the mood system and the person system in tweets related to the Egyptian revolution (#Jan25) over a period of 19 days from January 25th, 2011 to February 9th, 2011.

Modality

The concept of modality involves a mutual opposition that presents a choice between yes and no, but it encompasses more than just these two options. There exist intermediate grades, such as 'sometimes' or 'maybe'. These intermediate grades, which fall between the positive and negative poles, are collectively referred to as MODALITY (Halliday, 1994). The purpose of the mode system is to interpret the uncertainness that exists between the extremes of 'yes' and 'no'. Modality encompasses a speaker's attitude or opinion towards

the truthfulness of a proposition conveyed by a sentence.

Modality also reflects the speaker's attitude towards the situation or event described in a sentence. Therefore, modality plays a significant role in the interpersonal aspect of language. According to Simpson (1993), modality helps determine the social dynamics and functional relationships within a text.

According to Halliday (2001: 182), modalities in language, which are expressions of chance, duty, and similar concepts, are how grammar shows the judgment of the speaker or author without explicitly using the first person pronoun "I". Modalities never express the judgment of a third party. In Halliday's systemic functional grammar model, language is viewed as a social process that contributes to different societal contexts through the dimensions of field (what is being talked about), tenor (the relationship between speaker and hearer), and mode (expectations for organizing specific text types) (Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 46). Field, tenor, and mode are realized through conceptual, interpersonal, and textual resources and language choices. Modality is part of the interpersonal meta-function which sees clauses and other linguistic units as exchanges of propositions and proposals. Propositions involve an exchange of information, while proposals involve an exchange of goods and services (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p.).

The text (146-147) discusses the exchange of information and reasoning, distinguishing between affirmatory and negative propositions. Systemic linguists refer to the intermediate positions between these extremes as "modalization". Modalization is a linguistic resource that allows for the expression of propositions in a non-categorical manner, expressing degrees of chance and usuality (Eggins, 1994, pp. 178-179; Schleppegrell, 2004, p. 60).

Similarly, mode can also be used to deduce the obligation or inclination of proposals (Eggins, 1994, p. 179). Modality options essentially

"interpret the realm of meaning that falls between yes and no—the middle ground between positive and negative opposition" (Hasan & A; Perrett, 1994, p. 209).

Modalization allows the speaker to indicate their non-categorical attitude towards propositions using lexico-grammatical resources like modal verbs (can/could, may/might, shall/should).