http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15435768
Abstract
People often comment on the impact that technology has on people's social skills. Frequently, this lens is used to analyze the limits of social media . However, this paper moves away from simple social skills in seeks out the effects that social media has in generating a greater kind of change, social change. This paper analyzes the impact that social media can have on revolutions in the twenty-first century. I use the Arab Spring as a means to point out the strengths and weakness that social media forums can have on a revolution. Primarily looking at Twitter and the role that Tweets played during the Arab Spring, I outline the role that Social media can play in times of uprising. Like most things, moderation is key. While social media offers many benefits, in excess, it can generate chaos and present an apparent lack of directions. This ultimately raises the question of how will changes in technology change us and how we change humanity.

Nathan Willis
William Penman
Interpretation and Argument
December 2, 2013
Not Following the Leader:
How Social Media Impacted the Arab Spring

Introduction As long as there have been established governments, there have been revolutions to test them. In times past, these revolutions frequently came from people discussing their dissatisfaction with other members of their towns. The advent of the telegram allowed people to overcome the barrier that distance created. Yet, two major problems remained: the time that elapsed between correspondences and the lack of ability to communicate with masses of people. However, developments in technology and the birth of social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have overcome these barriers. The effectiveness of social media as a way to facilitate a revolution was tested during the Arab Spring of 2011. The revolutions in the Arab Spring, the name given to the series of uprising that occurred throughout 2011 in the MENA region, Middle East North Africa, differ from every revolution prior to them because they incorporated the innovations that social media developed. Instead of simply spreading messages through picket signs and chants during demonstrations, partakers in the Arab Spring spread their messages through status updates on Facebook, tweets and pictures on instagram. Consequently, this revolution allowed for global participation and a type of individuality that previous revolutions did not have. In this paper, I evaluate how the individuality and global involvement that social media fostered benefitted the Arab Spring, as well as how it hindered it. This paper discusses the background of the Arab Spring, as well as the way instances of rebellion moved from local disturbances, to messages of change being sent all across the globe via Twitter. This paper also looks at the drawbacks that a revolution heavily influenced by technology carries. Examination of the pros and cons of the role technology played in the Arab Spring supports the belief that technology has many things to offer, and a catalyst in social revolutions is certainly one of them.
The Arab Spring On December 17th, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire; his self-immolation was in response to harassment from Tunisian officials as he sold his vegetable. While Bouazizi died days later, his act is generally regarded as the event that triggered the Arab Spring (citation). The day after Bouaziz's self-immolation, hundreds filled the streets of Tunisia's Sidi Bouzid. This event in Tunisia led vast political changes in Tunisia culminating with the abdication of Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali, the former Tunisian President. However, the changes did not stop at the Tunian borders. Less than a month later, Algerian police were forced to take the streets and quell a riot taking place in the streets. Exactly a month later, an Egyptian man lit himself on fire allegedly due to a lack of satisfaction with the living standards. Events like this comprised what is now known as the Arab Spring. Throughout 2011, and into 2012, four countries saw regime changes, two other countries faced civil uprising, and major protests took place in six other countries. The myriad revolutions and protest fostered an extremely tumultuous environment. While this is the case during any instance of fracas, the Arab Spring differs from other revolutions due to the role that social media played in organizing, spreading and globalizing the messages echoed during the protests. The impact of social media The Arab Spring is not the first instance of a region being consumed by revolutions. In
1848, Europe underwent a series of rebellions similarly to the Arab Spring. Countries such as
Italy, Germany, France, Denmark and many others, all saw their governments shaken and, in some instances altered. While the revolutions of 1848, like the Arab Spring, had a domino-like occurrence, the two series of revolutions are extremely different as a result of their respective time periods. The emerging social media forums of the twenty-first century endowed the Arab
Spring with traits that previous revolutions lacked. The two most prominent ways that social media shaped the Arab Spring are the individuality it gave participants and the way it enabled people across the world to participate. The role of social media allowed more individuals to play a role than perhaps in any other movement. While some would say that involvement through social media creates a shallow involvement and a minimal commitment, Clark and Chalmers would still say that this type of connection to a revolution is just as necessary and just as valid. Andy Clark and David Chalmers, two cognitive scientists, vouch for the idea of cognitive pairs, that is the idea that humans should interact with and use technology as a means to change their environment. While Clark and
Chalmers reference a person playing Tetris, the Arab Spring offers a far deeper and more comprehensive example (8). A year after Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation, Remi Kanazi, a poet of Palestinian descent, tweeted "A year ago, many didn't think popular uprising was possible. Today those same people are carving out the pathway to their future. #Bouazizi"
(Twitter). Althogh Kanazi is already a fairly well known individual, forums such as Twitter,
Facebook and instagram allowed average people to share their messages with many people.
This cannot be said for any other series of revolutions prior to the Arab Spring. While it is apparent that social media did not give revolutionaries their voices, it is not undisputable that social media amplified the voices they were courageous enough to find within themselves.
Global Impact of Social Media Arguably the biggest difference between the Arab Spring and any other revolution, or series of revolutions, is that the uprising was not contained inside the Middle East North Africa region. But rather, the dissatisfaction with the governments of Arab Spring countries was shared globally; this was largely due to social media. Robin Sloane, the author of Mr. Penumbra's 24 hour bookstore, says that social media allows us to "clone pieces of [ourselves] and send them out into the world to have conversations on your behalf. Even while you're sleeping, your media
- your books, your blog posts, your tweets - it's on the march. It's out there trying to make connection," (citations). The effectiveness of social media in the Arab Spring emphasizes this conclusion. During the revolution in Syria, almost 3 millions tweets were sent; the spread of these tweets were emphasized by the fact that of the 3 million tweets 1.25 million were retweeted. This indicates that not only were people sending out messages, but people were also reading these messages and then sharing them with their followers. Consequently, the messages sent from Arab Spring countries did not remain in their countries. This spreading of messages caused conversations to take place internationally thus raising awareness about the tumultuous climate in Arab Spring countries. While this awareness did not necessarily lead to international intervention, it is a very safe assumption that this heightened awareness led to fiscal and global support. In his letters from a Birmingham prison, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about an interconnection between humans. The Arab Spring showed that social media has the potential to reestablish and even heighten the interconnection between humans.
Removing Barriers Through Social Media In the past, the spreading of a revolution, much like the spreading of any set of ideas, was frequently hindered by two things: time and distance. However, as time and technology have progressed, it has become increasingly easy to overcome these obstacles; the Arab Spring showed this through the impact of social media. Due to innovations in technology and the mass usage in technology people were able to instantly share ideas with others no matter what part of the world they lived in. In many ways, this is the manifestation of Katherine Hayles', a literary critic, theory of posthumanism. Hayles extended the idea proposed by Hans Moravec that you could put "human consciousness into a computer," and thus people could interact with other people without regard for human differences. In the instance of the Arab Spring, these differences were primarily geological. Yet, despite these differences in locations social media sites allowed for 140 character long messages to be spread all across the world in seconds. For that reason, while social media certainly did not initialize the revolutions that took place in the
Middle East and North Africa, without a doubt, it did help accelerate them.

The Flaws

Although social media played a catalytic role in the Arab Spring, anyone who would suggest that it was without flaws would be extremely naive. The problems with social media playing a role in a revolution became apparent in two main ways. First, in order for technology to facilitate a popular revolution, it must be accessible to everyone. This presented a problem as everyone did not have access to, neither does everyone know how to use, social media. Amy
Wendling, a professor at Creighton University, would suggest that this is how Marx viewed technology. While technology has the potential to aid a revolution, an uneven distribution of it can also lead to antagonization between those who have access to technology and those who do not (205)(201). For something as important as a revolution, the type of animosity that Marx placed on technology would make the aid of technology in a revolution counterproductive.
Furthermore, it is extremely difficult for technology to be a catalyst in a revolution when it is not accessible to anyone in the country where the uprising is taking place. This became the situation in Egypt as the Egyptian government blocked not only Twitter but also Facebook and search engines such as Yahoo and Google. For those who say social media should play a minimal role in a revolution this argument is extremely significant. Had the revolution in Egypt been hinged on social media, the governments internet shutdown would have a crippling effect on the revolution. This sets a huge limit on the role social media can play in a revolution. Apart from the importance and vulnerability of the accessibility of technology, another flaw that technology presented during the Arab Spring was the effect of a perceived decentralization of power. While the ability of people to be heard during the Arab Spring was one of its greatest strengths, it can also be suggested that it was one of its greatest weaknesses as well. Since so many voices and messages were being spread, primarily through social media, it was unclear who the leaders of the revolutions were. Although it was abundantly clear that the people wanted change, because there were so many people seeking many different things, it was unclear what a unified goal was. To some people, this decentralization of authority is the reason why many of the revolutions either faded out or led to a power vacuum. Historically, almost every revolution had a set of individuals who were the clear leaders of the movement. These leaders were often responsible for the messages that were being spread as well as for the establishment of the power that would follow the revolt. However, because social media, in a sense, gave everyone an opportunity to be a leader this role was not filled. Consequently, countries, which that had the same leader for decades, were forced to try to find a new leader who was separate from the old regime. Once again, Egypt provides evidence for how difficult this was. After the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president for thirty years prior to the county's uprising, the government scrambled to find a new leader. Since Mubarak's overthrow,
Egypt's government has been controlled by four different entities: first, the military, then
Mohammed Morsi, the leader of the Freedom and Justice Party, then once again the military and at this time Adly Mansour stands as Egypt's president. The great fluctuation in Egypt's once stable government indicates a flaw with the revolution. This problem can quite clearly be linked to a lack of leadership during the insurrection, which is typically traced back to the role that social media played during the revolution. While the individuality that social media gave participants in the Arab Spring was once glorified, time has revealed the flaw of a decentralized movement. Conclusion Over the course of this decade, social media has completely changed the way people interact with each other. These changes offer great potential not just for how we socialize with friends, but, possibly, also how we can create change. Social media was heavily utilized during the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa; while it added many positive dimensions, it also had many drawbacks. The ability of social media to allow people to interact with people all over the world in seconds not only raised awareness about the status of insurgence, but it also allowed people to spread their personal messages and stories with the world. Never the less, the limits of technology present huge problems in having it be a catalyst for a change. Egypt showed that social media can be cut off, thus presenting a huge problem if it is to be a driving force in generating change. Egypt's trouble in selecting a leader in the aftermath of the revolution also revealed the flaw of a movement that does not have a set of clear leaders. The pros and cons of social media in revolutions leads to the conclusion that social media should play a role, just not a big one. Social media, like the general media, is a great way to spread messages; however, it is not a way to raise a leader. I believe, the ideal way for a movement to incorporate social media is as a means to connect and organize people. If the movement already has clear leaders and a clear goal, then social media is the perfect way to spread those goals. Although social media was not the driving force behind the Arab Spring, the decentralized setting it created was a great hindrance to the uprisings that took place in the
region.