When this book was conceived, sometime in 2003, the initial intent w as to construct a series of case studies with which to provide comparative perspectives on transitions to the information age in authoritarian Middle Eastern countries. The goal was to investigate, using ethnographic methods, whether or not findings of a similar investigation, launched in 1997 in Kuwait, would have any meaning with the passage of time (and an increase in Internet diffusion rates) across national boundaries. Until 2011, the working title of this manuscript was ‘Information (without) Revolution in the Middle East?’. The placement of the question mark at the end was important, as it indicated a growing concern that the changes in everyday life observed in my fieldwork would gather steam and explode. What began as relatively low expectations (1997–2004) for the political importance of people's resistance using new media tools intensified, leading to questions about regional stability as we barrelled towards the Arab Spring (2005–11), for reasons explored systematically in Chapter 1.

The initial indications in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait were that something politically transformative was occurring (explored in Chapters 2 to 4) as a result of ‘enhanced freedom and voice’, linked with Internet use by those interviewed for this study. Two conversations in Cairo in 2004 (as analysed in the Introduction) were the first indicators of more enhanced civic engagement for this researcher. In 2004, I wondered if this discursive explosiveness would catch fire and spread, which with hindsight seems like a premonition. As I type these last words, the disappointment with the Arab state's counterrevolutionary efforts (as explored in Chapter 6) suggests the need for a new title. If this book were written today with evidence of new media resistance collected between 2011 and 2016, the title might be ‘Revolution Undone: The Resurgence of Authoritarianism in the Middle East (except in Tunisia)’.