Thresholds Revisited: Disentangling Public Space: Social Media and Internet Activism

Abstract

Written in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, T.F. Tierney’s essay on the role of social media in ordering and accommodating new types of publics continues to be relevant. Revisited by both the author and MIT Master of Science in Architecture Studies candidate Mariam Elnozahy, this piece is supplemented with new references and commentary that parse the optimism once associated with the emergence of social media as a platform that could empower underrepresented peoples. With more recent developments in social media and surveillance technology now in mind, Tierney and Elnozahy together explore how speech continues to inform space-making in increasingly regulated environments. T.F. TIERNEY IN CONVERSATION WITH MARIAM ELNOZAHY