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Encouraged by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, and the Arab Spring, young Moroccans began to organise huge demonstrations across the country demanding more democracy, social justice and anti-corruption measures. The 20 February movement, named after the first demonstration held on that date in 2011, is a good illustration of one of the new social movements characterized by an intense use of technology and their diffuse membership. This article explores how protesters challenge the dominant institutions and norms in society through their struggle and how they try to create new meanings for these institutions, not only by protesting but also by using social media. We argue that using new social media is not only a vehicle for the mobilisation of activists, but also represents a form of new meaning-making for them: they participate, not only in a local sense, but also globally. Their online activities intersect and influence offline practices and vice versa, creating a continuous interaction which exerts an influence on both worlds. It is precisely this interconnectedness of offline and online worlds that is the decisive force in these movements and creates new meaning-making.
Key words: Morocco, Arab Spring, new social movement, social media, meaning-making
Introduction
This article explores the meaning of social media in the social uprisings during the 'Arab Spring' in Morocco, and the way activists in the 20 February movement, named after the first big demonstration held on that date in 2011, have used social media to mobilise the population and realise their goals. Communication and information technologies proved to be important means of informing and mobilising people in the Middle East to demonstrate against their political leaders. The use of the internet, mobile phones and Facebook has led to numerous scholarly discussions taking place about the value of social media and the political influence it has had on the rise and development of the socalled Arab Spring (Abbink 2012:4).
Various scholars and activists had high expectations of the potential of the internet and social media to 'democratize' society; the popular media called the protests in the Middle East a 'Twitter revolution' set up by the Facebook group generation (Khondker, 2011:677) and in authoritarian societies such as Morocco and Egypt, in particular, where freedom of speech was very restricted,...