Alexandra A. Siegel

Book Project

From hacking the phones of activists to doxxing and harassing journalists, governments and private actors have increasingly harnessed online tools to surveil, suppress, attack, and silence opposition. But even in the face of severe digital repression, diverse actors continue to express dissent publicly online. Relatives of arrested activists broadcast updates of prison conditions to their millions of followers and call on the international community for aid. Anonymous dissident social media accounts document government corruption and royal family dramas. Activists in exile create and disseminate viral videos calling for mobilization in their home countries. When and to what extent are Internet users resilient to digital repression? Under what circumstances can dissent still penetrate authoritarian internet control? What are the political consequences of exposure to digital repression and dissent for everyday citizens?

This book addresses the puzzle of risky online activism in the face of severe repression. Drawing on large-scale, cross-platform social media data, interviews, and experimental evidence from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and the US, I argue that the technological affordances of social media—including its transnational reach, anonymity, and opportunities for virality—continue to offer valuable political opportunity structures for activists and dissidents—even when they face high levels of risk. By documenting the continued resilience of online activism and its impact on everyday citizens, this book provides new insights into the evolving relationship between repression and dissent in the digital age.

• “How Exiles Mobilize Domestic Dissent,” with Liz Nugent. (Forthcoming at Journal of Politics)
• “Civil Organizing in War: Evidence from Syrian Facebook Communities,” with Rana Khoury. (Forthcoming at Perspectives on Politics)
• “#Asylum: How Syrian Refugees Engage with Online Information,” 2024, with Jesica Wolff and Jeremy Weinstein. (Journal of Quantitative Description ).
• “How Exile Shapes Online Dissent: Evidence from Venezuela,” 2023, with Jane Esberg. (American Political Science Review).
• “How Threats of Exclusion Mobilize Palestinian Political Participation,” 2023, with Chagai Weiss and David Romney. (American Journal of Political Science).
• “Opinion Manipulation on Farsi Twitter,” 2023, with Amirhossein Farzam, Parham Moradi, Saeedeh Mohammadi, Zahra Padar. (Scientific Reports).
• “Modeling and Generation of Realistic Network Activity,” 2023, with Stefan Tschimben, Isabella Bates, James H. Curry, and Keith D. Gremban. (MILCOM).
• “Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? Estimating the Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Attitudes and Behaviors,” 2021, with Ala’ Alrababa’h, Will Marble, and Salma Mousa. (American Political Science Review).
• “In House vs. Outsourced Trolls: How Digital Mercenaries Shape State Influence Strategies,” 2021, with Shelby Grossman and Renee Diresta. (Political Communication).
• “Kingdom of Trolls? Influence Operations in the Saudi Twittersphere,” 2021, with Chris Barrie. (Journal of Quantitative Description).
• “Tweeting Beyond Tahrir: Ideological Diversity and Political Intolerance in Egyptian Twitter Networks,” 2021, with Joshua Tucker, Jonathan Nagler, and Richard Bonneau. (World Politics).
• “Trumping Hate on Twitter? Online Hate Speech and White Nationalist Rhetoric in the 2016 US Election Campaign and its Aftermath,” 2021, with Evgenii Nikitin, Pablo Barbera, Joanna Sterling, Bethany Pullen, Richard Bonneau, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua Tucker. (Quarterly Journal of Political Science).
• “How Saudi Crackdowns Fail to Silence Online Dissent,” 2020, with Jennifer Pan. (American Political Science Review).
• “#No2Sectarianism: Experimental Approaches to Reducing Sectarian Hate Speech Online,” 2020, with Vivienne Badaan. (American Political Science Review).
• “The Islamic State’s Information Warfare: Measuring the Success of ISIS’s Online Strategy,” 2018, with Joshua Tucker (Journal of Language and Politics).

• “The Politics of Identity and Sectarianism,” with Fanar Haddad, Lisel Hintz, Rima Majed, Toby Matthiesen, and Bassel F. Salloukh. In The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research Since the Arab Uprisings, edited by Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, and Sean Yom. Oxford University Press, 2022.
• “Online Hate Speech” In Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, edited by Joshua Tucker and Nate Persily. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
• “New Media and Islamist Mobilization in Egypt” In Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies, edited by Melani Cammett and Pauline Jones. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• “Twitter Wars: Sunni-Shia Conflict and Cooperation in the Digital Age.” In Beyond Sunni and Shia: The Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East, edited by Frederic Wehrey. Oxford University Press, 2018.

• “Official Foreign Influence Operations: International Broadcasters in the Arab Online Sphere.” POMEPS, 2021.
• “Using Social Media Data to Study Arab Politics.” APSA MENA Politics, Newsletter of the MENA Politics Section of APSA, 2019.
• “Committee on Digital Platforms Report.” Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth, 2019.
• “Producers of Disinformation” In Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature, edited by Joshua Tucker. Hewlett Foundation, 2018.

Working Papers

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Teaching

Courses Taught at CU Boulder

Previous Teaching Experience

Policy Engagement

• The Social Media War in the Middle East
• The Congressional Tweet Tracker: Mapping the Immigration Debate in Real Time
• “The Exile Effect: Venezuela’s Overseas Opposition and Social Media,” with Jane Esberg, International Crisis Group.
• “Viral Pulpits: Clerics and the Sectarianization of the Gulf Online Sphere,” Project on Middle East Political Science Briefing.
• “Here’s what ordinary Arabs think about the Syrian refugee crisis,” with Chris Tenove, Monkey Cage Blog, The Washington Post.
• “Sectarian Twitter Wars: Sunni-Shia Conflict and Cooperation in the Digital Age,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.