#arabspring and the social network revolutions

The #arabspring #mena lecture would have to have been one of the most interesting I have attended so far in my university career. On ya Ted. To be honest, although I had heard about the revolutions and uprising in the areas, I really knew very little about it.

Dubbed the ‘social network revolutions’, revolutions in many countries continue as citizens battle with their governments, police forces and at times, each other. Revolutions throughout Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Yemen have all been highly influenced by social media, which provided a role of mobilisation, coordination and dissemination of information. Those who were previously overlooked were suddenly empowered, as seen through the various women featured as leaders throughout the events.

Citizens took to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to get their message across, battling with governments shutting down Facebook groups and in some cases, access to the entire internet. Now I don’t know about you, but the fact that a government is able to basically shut down the internet to a country is amazing and incredibly scary to me. Although there were measures put into place to surpass this (such as the SMS to Twitter function) the immense effect a government can have to access to information is astounding. 

Although I will not argue as some are that social media was the cause of the revolutions, I do indeed believe social network can allow us to be heard in a way we never were before. The internet, being dialogic by design, possesses incredible political potential in the way of fast mobilisation, openness, involvement and civic engagement through decentralising information and allowing wide access.