ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates discursive construction of the Arab Spring as proliferated in prominent activist discourse through various social and conventional media sites within the context of the discourse of illusion. Analysis of the data reveals that similar rhetorical processes and linguistic resources found in the discourses of terrorism were employed in the activist discourses proliferating in different forms of media, creating, however, entirely new discursive illusions. The Arab Spring, and in particular the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, was widely touted as the 'Twitter revolution' or the 'Facebook revolution', particularly by the Western media. The rhetorical strategies analysed for the purpose of depicting the National Democratic Party (NDP) and other anti-revolutionaries as criminal, thuggish, satanic and barbaric, giving rise to a reality which not only necessitated the uprisings but instilled within them the power to legitimise political authority. The chapter explores the rise of discursive illusions in the context of the Egyptian revolution, drawing in particular on new media discourses.
