Social Media Collaboration for LIBR 559M

Introduction: The Role of Social Media in the Arab Spring

On December 17, 2010, Mahommad Bouazizi lit himself on fire outside of a government building in Tunisia after his fruit cart had been confiscated by police. Following the news of Bouazizi’s act, protests erupted throughout the Middle East and North African countries (MENA) known as the Arab Spring, overthrowing governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya and brutal crackdowns in Bahrain and Syria. Bouazizi’s suicide ignited protests in countries that were ripe for social unrest suffering from high rates of unemployment, rising food costs and rampant corruption.(1) The protests of the Arab Spring were all active on various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Many studies have been done to determine what, if any, impact social media had on these protests. Van Lear refers to three main links between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and political participation: decreasing participation costs, creating networks and supporting a collective identity.(2) Optimists believe that ICTs are strengthening civil society and democratic institutions by “enhanc[ing] mobilization participation among traditional excluded or underrepresented groups and individuals in the political process.” (2, p.3). However, Van Lear points out that what may really be happening is that social media is creating a digital divide, reinforcing inequalities of the underrepresented such as the poor and the elderly.(2) Discussions of the role of social media in the Arab Spring often return to this question: does social media have a democratizing function? By allowing citizens to freely communicate and share information, has social media helped to overthrow corrupt governments?

Social Media Played A Significant Role in the Arab Spring

There are many writers and political commentators who are quick to acknowledge the critical role social media played in the Arab Spring. Yet few people are willing to make the argument that new media was the only significant tool used to protest the governments involved. Rather than arguing this extreme, it is instead more useful to examine the more nuanced role that social media had and continues to have for people living in areas where conventional media is subjected to a high degree of governmental control.

There are two popular sides of this opinion that are of particular note in this paper. The first, as argued by Khondker, states that social media was a crucial tool used to mobilize political outcomes during the Arab Spring, but it was not the only tool used.(3) Conventional media, Al Jazeera specifically, were also invaluable in disseminating information. Khondker explains that “new media is a tool, a means rather than the end of social movement.” (3, p678) Social media helped to organize demonstrators, but it by no means was a replacement for physical demonstrations.

Shirky is of a similar opinion. He acknowledges the significance of social media in political uprisings, stating that it is a “basic truth” that “communicative freedom is good for political freedom.”(4) However, his argument predominantly stresses that “social media’s real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere – which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months.” To support this, he advocates strongly for freedom of communication, aided by social media. In summation, both authors concede one on central point: “There is no question that social media played a significant role in the political movements in Tunisia and Egypt, but one should not overstate the role.” (3, p678)

Social Media’s Role in the Arab Spring has been Overstated

Critics of social media role in the Arab Spring include The Guardians Evgeny Morozov and best selling author Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell wrote in The New Yorker that Facebook is best used for coordinating groups of acquaintances and “Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met”.(5) Gladwell's argument against social media causing the zeitgeist of the Arab Spring focuses on the strength of relationships. While standing up against a corrupt institution, citizens often risk their personal well being. These risks are only taken by people you have established strong personal relationships with. Gladwell doesn’t believe that social media can create these type of “strong” (5) relationships.

High profile critics of social media do not deny that social media such as Twitter had any impact on the Arab spring. The uprisings in Arab Spring did make use of social media however, the importance of technology has been too highly emphasized. The role of technology in developing countries is closely covered by the creators of media through such technologies. These people are too close to the technology and through its use “may simply be too excited to provide a balanced view”.(5) At the turn of the 1980’s and 1990’s, the tape recorder and fax machines were praised as the founders of the Iranian revolution. A role which has long since been swept under the rug of history. Critics of social media's role in the Arab Spring predict the same fate for Twitter in thirty years time.

In his piece in The Guardian, Morozov eloquently summarizes his perspective that, “the grievances that pushed protesters into the streets deserve far more attention than the tools by which they chose to organise”.(6)

US presidents over the last thirty years have stated that “the long-term survival of authoritarian states depends on their ability to control the flow of ideas and information with and across their borders.” (quoted from 7, p. 29). With alternative sources of news, authoritarian governments have less control over the spread of information. As Dewey et al. noted in the final report for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Iranian revolution was noteworthy for its use of social media despite the attempts of the Iranian government to suppress internet use and to track protesters via their Twitter accounts.(7) Moreover, normal mobile phone users were key to providing news to Western media outlets that would otherwise have little access to the events. On the other hand, governments have become more savvy in censoring information, posting their own propaganda through social media outlets and tracking down bloggers and activists online (7).

Wolfsfeld et al. found that like traditional media, alternative forms of media reacted to activities that had already occurred.(1) Their study found that the use of social media sites like Facebook increased as the protests occurred, but they argue that you need to look at the political contexts of the country to understand the real impact of social media. Social media should be seen as a tool, but not a necessity. For instance, if you look at the 2009 revolution in Iran, there were only 8,600 registered Twitter users in Iran out of a population of 70 million.(1) The likely reason why so many believe that Iran was the “Twitter Revolution” was because many of the posts used by Western media were in English.(7) Indeed, in Tunisia after Bouazizi’s suicide, YouTube and Facebook spread videos of Bouazizi and later police beating protesters. However, as noted above these pictures did not garner international attention until they were picked up by Al-Jazeera. Furthermore, although social media was widely used, there were civil society groups such as trade unions, education unions human rights groups that also organized members. (7)

Conclusion

Whether social media was the main reason that the protests movements broke out is still being debated as well as the long-term impact on society. However, it is certain that social media played some role in the protests that erupted.

References

1. Wolfsfeld G, Segev E, Sheafer T. Social media and the Arab Spring: politics comes first. The International Journal of Press/Politics [Internet]. 2013 Jan 16;1-23. doi:10.1177/1940161212471716 2. Van Lear, J. Internet use and protest participation: how do ICTs affect mobilization? Working Paper PSW-paper [Internet]. 2007 [cited 2012 Oct 31];1: 1-24. Available from: http://webhost.ua.ac.be/m2p/publications/PSWPaper2007_1_JeroenVanLaer.pdf 3. Khondker, H. H. Role of the new media in the Arab Spring. Globalizations [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2013 Feb 2]; 8(5):675-679. Available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14747731.2011.621287 4. Shirky, Clay. The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign Affairs [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2013 Feb 2]; 90(1). Available from: http://search.proquest.com/printviewfile?accountid=14656 5. Gladwell, M. Twitter, Facebook, and social activism. The New Yorker [Internet]. 2010 Oct 10. [Cited 2013 January 31]. Available from: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell 6. Morozov, E. Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go. The Guardian [Internet] 2012 Mar 11. [Cited 2013 January 31]. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopians 7. Dewey T, Kaden J, Marks M, Matsushia S, Zhu B. The impact of social media on social unrest in the Arab Spring. Stanford (CA): Defense Intelligence Agency (US); [Internet]. 2012 Mar 22. [cited 2013 Feb 3 2013]. Available from: http://publicpolicy.stanford.edu/system/files/SocialMedia_FINAL%2020%20Mar.pdf