My name is Alex Hanna. I’m a PhD student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Substantively, I’m interested in social movements, social media, and the Middle East. Methodologically, I’m interested in social networks and textual analysis. I examine how social movement actors use social media in authoritarian state contexts and processes of mobilization in which the media help facilitate activism. My dissertation is on social media in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution – the process by which actors came to use it and how it (potentially) helped to overcome collective action problems.

I also work with the Social Media and Democracy group in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Right now we’re working on a project surrounding political communication on Twitter during the 2012 elections.

Twitter: @alexhanna
Website: http://alex-hanna.com