Civil society in Yemen in the era of network communications and new media: on the civil activism issue

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to analyze the specifics of the Yemen “new media” functioning associated with the use of the Internet and digital technologies, paying special attention to the functioning of citizen journalism. The problems of studying Arabic online communications in the context of regional and intrastate conflicts are touched upon. Materials reflecting the activity of various groups of civil society in modern Yemen are considered. We analyze the changes in the consumption of media products in the context of the civil war, the peculiarities of Internet communications and some contradictions in the media discourse in the Yemen Internet sector. Based on the socio-cultural and information-culturological approaches to the media, we note the reasons for the lag of “new media” and establish the factors that affect the nature of civic activism. A particularly important factor is the impact of mass culture, reflecting the patterns of globalization. We draw conclusions about the reasons for the backlog of the national media in the era of the “digital divide” caused by the economic crisis and the civil war. The prospect of studying civic activism on the Web will be to analyze the impact of the “Arab Spring” on the student audience in Aden.