• Constance Duncombe
• Australian Political Studies Association

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16 November 2011This paper delves into the emergence of information communication technology products such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and weblogs as part of the growth in social media networks, and the role this has to play in the maintenance of the hegemonic discourse of enlightened West/subordinate non-West.

Using Western media coverage of the events surrounding the 2009 Green Movement protests in Iran and the 2011 anti-Gaddafi protests in Libya, and in particular reports that refer specifically to or actually use non-Western information communication technology (ICT) products (such as Twitter or weblog excerpts, Facebook posts, and YouTube videos made by Iranians or Libyans), this paper will hopefully offer a more substantial conception of how these schemas of cultural representation are still evident within a supposedly egalitarian medium. This paper begins by outlining the methods undertaken in its construction, followed by an examination of the changes in news media as a result of ICT, and what impact this has had on the proliferation of civil society networks. This is followed by an exploration of the material representational schemas inherent in ICT, which is complemented by an examination of the cultural representations evident in Western media reports involving non-Western ICT use.