Social Networking and its Role in the Arab Spring
In the article “The Role of Information Technology in Defeating the Arab Regimes: Facebook 2-0 Arab Presidents,” Mahmoud Khalifa discusses how social networking has played an enormous role in recent uprisings in the Middle East, both in Tunisia and in Egypt. The movement is generally known as the Arab Spring. The article discusses the three main roles that social networking, specifically Facebook and Twitter, played. The social networking sites helped to play a role by calling for demonstration, disseminating news about the demonstrations already taking place, and spreading information around the world.
Social networking helped to confirm nationwide support for the cause of rebellion, in both Tunisia and Egypt. Under an oppressive regime, it is often hard to understand who shares dissatisfaction towards a regimes leader. Through the spread of information between networks of unhappy citizens desiring change, it was possible to catalyze the movement and begin the act of protest. These websites helped to confirm both a mutual dissatisfaction with the current situation in these Arab countries and a shared motivation to acquire freedom from a tyrant. This is the call for demonstrations that is mentioned in the article. Egyptian citizens were able to call for this desired demonstration by utilizing Facebook’s invitation feature, to invite others to a desired protest on Egyptian Police Day and on many other instances.
Facebook and Twitter played important roles in the dissemination of demonstration news, allowing for those around the world to see the turmoil in the Middle East. The creation of Facebook events and groups allowed for the whole world to watch as revolution took place. Videos, pictures, and various other forms of information were posted on the sites, gaining support and traction for the cause.
Finally, these social networks allowed for an increased spread of information. Many news stations gained knowledge of the conflict in the Middle East through the careful watch of posts on relevant Facebook groups, Twitter tweets and hash tags, and any other Internet mediums providing useful information. The information that spread through Facebook and Twitter initially helped to motivate news stations in the United States, and elsewhere, to follow the uprising in Tunisia and then Egypt.
It is interesting how Facebook and Twitter allowed for the creation of many weak ties that would not have existed otherwise. The movement started with a much smaller network of strong ties, but through social networking websites, it was possible to create not only countrywide networks to visualize support for the cause, but worldwide networks as well. These weak ties that did not exist prior were extremely important in the Arab uprising because they helped to represent a shared desire to remove the corrupt leaders at the head of each respective country. It is clear that social networking has evolved past the point of simply providing a visualization of the many networks that a user can be a part of in the real world. Social networking has now become a tool to gage interest in products, ideas, and most importantly support for a cause.
Sources:
Khalifa, Mahmoud. “The Role of Information Technology in Defeating the Arab Regimes: Facebook 2-0 Arab Presidents | IFLA.” International Federation of Library Associations, 12 July 2012. Web. 11 Sept. 2012. <http://www.ifla.org/publications/the-role-of-information-technology-in-defeating-the-arab-regimes-facebook-2-0-arab-pres>.
Course textbook: Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World.
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