Tunisian bloggers and social network activists have lost their influence on public life. Those pre-revolution kingpins managed to secure news coverage where traditional media failed, but now their influence has retreated as the Tunisian press has gained more freedom.

“Due to post-revolution media liberation, my interest in blogging has diminished as I could perform my work optimally without constraints,” Tunisian journalist and blogger Sofiene Chourabi said.

“E-blogs and Facebook enabled many Tunisians to know what former government agencies sought to hide,” he stressed.

Tunisian bloggers and social network activists have lost their influence on public life. Those pre-revolution kingpins managed to secure news coverage where traditional media failed, but now their influence has retreated as the Tunisian press has gained more freedom.

“Due to post-revolution media liberation, my interest in blogging has diminished as I could perform my work optimally without constraints,” Tunisian journalist and blogger Sofiene Chourabi said.

“E-blogs and Facebook enabled many Tunisians to know what former government agencies sought to hide,” he stressed.

Media vaccum

Chourabi believed that because local media failed to cover the major political and social developments of Tunisia, he was obliged to use new media outlets to speak, in particular about social crises.

Bloggers played an important role in exposing violations of former President Ben Ali’s government and the injustice practiced in the aftermath of the social protests in Tunisia before January 14, 2011.

Videos captured by cell phones or unprofessional cameras unmasked the protests in interior regions where protesters were killed and protests reached the Ministry of Interior headquarters in Tunis, the symbol of “dictatorship”.

Chourabi said he was keen to write about struggles, which lacked objectivity required by media work. This, however, changed after the revolution and the challenge today, according to him, is to present a thoroughly professional media.

For his part, blogger Slim Ayedi said blogging changed his life and perhaps the lives of others who watched what he and other journalists did.

Many media professionals and experts underlined that Ayedi’s experience developed. He now works as a professional trainer in the field of journalism and train the youth on how to use the Internet and develop their skills, in addition to “spreading the concept of citizenship journalism in support of freedom of expression.”

On his blogging experience before 2011, Ayedi said his participation in the revolution “was very simple” and started in 2010 after he lost his job as a journalist at an economic weekly. Therefore, he chose to express his views through citizenship journalism, blogging and social networking websites.

With the outbreak of the revolution, Ayedi filmed several demonstrations in Tunis and published them on the internet “to report more accurate information and footage.”

“I see a lot of my pictures and recorded material in the classical media outlets,” he said. He spoke about certain advantages of blogging, suggesting that he had traveled to many countries in Europe and the United States to report the events of Tunisia. He also continued to work via the internet with civil society representatives through regular publication of recordings and reportages covering local areas in Tunisia, especially in remote regions.

Young blogger Amina Ben Juma also said that blogging changed her life because it offered her an opportunity to become a journalist. She added that thanks to blogging, she received invitations to participate in several workshops and she traveled far and wide without leaving her office. She explored how people in other parts of the world lived and thought.

Loss of interest

Ben Juma admitted that she became less interested in blogging compared to her interest in her journalistic work at private radio stations where she could express her ideas “freely and without restrictions.”

Blogging became widely spread in Tunisia in 2005 when Tunisia hosted the World Summit on the Information Society, since many blogs protested against organizing that international event in a country that topped the list of anti-freedom states.

Blogging peaked in 2006; however, it lost its luster in 2009, giving way to writing on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. Bloggers took advantage of those networks to further acquaint readership with their blogs.

That new era was particularly highlighted with the emergence of the concept of alternative media or the so-called citizenship journalism, which dominated the media world and upheld freedom of expression, especially under a repressive regime where traditional media outlets were characterized by absolute obedience to the man in power.

A simple observance of some Tunisian blogs shows that certain blogs are no longer updated with the same speed and regularity as before or are even somewhat neglected. Besides, some bloggers have switched to Facebook and Twitter for posting their opinions about issues of interest to their country. This trend was confirmed by Ben Juma who said with regret, “Blogging has lost its previous luster after the revolution as the only method to uncover the news obscured by public and private media under dictatorship.”