ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the state efforts to get new media technologies diffused throughout Jordanian society are having an impact on social and political behavior in Jordan. New media increasingly support oppositional politics and social practice in the region. Censorship, cyber-spying, misinformation campaigns, cyber sting operations; all of these tools and more have been used by Middle Eastern states, to "better" police their publics in the twenty-first century. The chapter explains the field work of Internet cultures in Kuwait, Egypt, and Jordan. There is clearly more democratic access to media than there is political access to democracy. The Egyptian information revolution impact was affecting nonoil-rich societies. This "virtual revolution" is "affecting Egypt's tightly controlled society" by "connecting Egyptians and amplifying their voices as never before". For those of who study other countries, and are interested in mining data at the peripheries of political, social, and geographic power, ethnography is the best method of inquiry.
