Want to start a revolution? Tweet about it
2011 could very well be known as the year of the uprising. Up until this year’s so-called “Arab Spring”, where an unprecedented series of demonstrations across the Arab world led to the deposition of three tyrants (and potentially more), their regimes, combined, had held power over their respective nations for over 85 years. This may lead one to ponder, what took so long for these revolts to occur? And why is it that they all happened within the same year?
And while the Arab Spring was probably the most significant, it was hardly the only example of a massive-scale demonstration we have seen this year. As conflict in Libya was escalating, riots in London were simultaneously beginning. Soon after, the still-ongoing “Occupy” movement began to catch fire, originating on Wall Street but quickly spreading to places as far-reaching as Australia. But what’s most interesting of all (to me, at least) about these movements is that none of them seem to have any form of identifiable leadership – rather, they seem largely to be just large groups of people united in a common cause. Is there a reason why the grassroots model has suddenly become so effective?
The answer to all of the aforementioned questions may have much to do with a relatively new medium of information dissemination that is arguably more powerful than anything else the world has ever experienced – the Internet, and namely, social media. Social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit allow users to share, stream, or otherwise accelerate large quantities of information to other users around the globe instantaneously, allowing for information cascades to occur at unprecedented magnitude and speed.
The effects of social media on a revolution can be observed on many levels. First of all, it serves to “stir the pot”. Sites such as YouTube give people the means to share anything they want – including some of the most ruthless brutalities performed at the hands of dictators, captured in their naked, uncensored form. Very often, these videos are captured on mediums as seemingly innocuous as a bystander’s cell phone camera. One viral video is enough (think of how many millions of views certain videos have) to create a mountain of outrage. Say that the video receives 5,000 views, and of those 5,000 people, 500 of them are agitated enough to decide to tweet about it, or post it as their Facebook status. This in turn reaches whoever each of those 500 people are connected to, and so forth. It’s not hard to see how this results in a massive cascade. And when the rebels themselves see how much positive reinforcement they are receiving, they become even more motivated to push on, acquiring, in the process, a cascade of new supporters – who are either excited to be a part of something big, or simply afraid to be caught on the wrong side of revolution.
Sources:
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/ISN-Insights/Detail?lng=en&id=133669&contextid734=133669&contextid735=133668&tabid=133668&dynrel=4888caa0-b3db-1461-98b9-e20e7b9c13d4,0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233,40db1b50-7439-887d-706e-8ec00590bdb9
http://www.tgdaily.com/software-features/58426-arab-spring-really-was-social-media-revolution