...early 1990s the world’s networked population has grown from the low millions to the low billions. Over the same period, social media has become a fact of life for civil society worldwide. Regular citizens, companies, activists, NGO’s, software providers and last but not least government and politics use social media as a new form of communication (Foreignaffairs, 2011). One of the most famous politicians who started to use the power of social media in his political campaigns was Barack Obama. The key differenc of Obama’s campaign strategy in contrast to his competitors was that Obama used social media to communicate and organize individuals by using social media. By using technologies such as computers, cell phones, web sites and many more he reached the goal of every politicians to connect his followers, delivered them with interesting news as well as to build up a strong community. Nevertheless not only Obama tooke advantage of the undeniable power of Social Media and its technologies. Over the past years our society realized it’s power, and there might only be few companies left in the western world that are not represented on at least one Social Media Platform (Obama Buch). But maybe one of the most important topics when we’re talking about Social Media is the reachability of Mass and therefore the political Mass Movements that keep emerging from Social Media Platforms. We might only think about the Occupy Movement, Arab Spring or the most recent example Kony 2012. Those Movements...
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...“The Facebook Revolution”: Social Networking Sites and the correlation with The January 25 Revolution. 1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Information and communication technology increasing with the growing variety of Internet based applications. This new media is not only "library information" to facilitate the dissemination of information to a universal audience, but even more than that. This media is also a powerful tool for communication activities. Furthermore, with Web 2.0 technology, design and use of the Internet has changed much work to do with this new media that Levinson (2009) call this "new new media"- more new than the new media- which shows variances against the classic new media such as e-mail and websites. This media is not merely a tool to facilitate distribution, archiving and text-based, but has become a tool for social media who have the capability delivering media content and providing interaction facilities between readers and writers. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (2010) define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content (photos, videos, links, etc.)." In addition, it is also one of the latest communication channels that enable dissemination and sharing of information can be done quickly and widely through the new media. Undeniably, the year 2008 is seen as...
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...Twitter and Politics MCE 702 Social Media By Asma 31 December 2015 Twitter is no longer a foreign term to many of us. It is a type of micro-blogging service and in the process of profoundly reshaping the way in which politics is practiced and covered by the traditional media. The changes of new media are inevitable for instance; it has become the way politicians interact with the general public to deliver immediate and real time information related to their political movement and development. Real time delivery refers to ‘as and when’ it happens. This is important looking at the speed the data is transferred and shared from one user to another. This is also feeds the hunger for news for the Braggadocian type of followers either for the supporters or the opponent party to look for the information to be scrutinized and talked about in the effort to bring bad publicity. Little intro about Twitter Twitter was first introduced in March 21 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass. According to data collected from Twitter Usage Statistics - Internet Live Statistics twitter has grown worldwide to 320 million active users as of September 30, 2015. It has recorded up until 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year. Twitter supported 54 languages to cater to its global technophile. Its subscriber will be identified by personal choice of twitter handle where an alias symbol ‘@’ precedes the chosen name for...
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...The Role of New Media in Arab Uprisings: Al-Jazeera focus by [Author’s Name] [Faculty Name] [Department or School Name] [Month Year] ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible. DECLARATION I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University. Signed __________________ Date _________________ ABSTRACT This research is focused on analysing the role played by Social media in the Arab Uprisings. During l8-day period, the Egyptian protesters succeeded to a large extent in achieving maximum publicity and attracting the attention of the world by mobilizing news media coverage of their protests. The role of media is to provide information and communicate messages to others. Media played a significant role in ringing political changes to the countries belonging to Arab region. Since a long time, the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other countries were facing problems due to the unequal and biased policies developed in the country by the leaders. These riots turned out to be an outcome of the frustrations and annoyance which were filling up the people...
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...THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON POLITICAL CHANGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST Name Institutional affiliation Date The influence of social media has been felt over many spheres in life. Over the past half a decade, the Middle East countries have been using the social media as a platform in airing their grievances on their governments’ nepotism, dictatorship, and economic stagnation among other political issues that have affected their countries since time immemorial. This paper discusses the influence that the social networks such as facebook, twitter, and YouTube have had influence on the political changes in the Middle East. The paper uses three distinct sources by Samantha M. Shapiro, Alexis Madrigal, and Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain. The research conducted by these authors and analysis shows that these social networks have improved civic organization and information sharing but still has a long way to go in realization of real change in the politics in the Middle East. Learning the influence of social networks on the political changes in Middle East is important in getting to understand the future of the politics in the region. As other countries are enjoying the fruits of democracy, the people in these countries are deprived off the basic needs of a healthy nation such as freedom of speech. With the many positive aspects that have come with social networks, it is optimistic that the rise of these social networks will have a positive influence on promoting...
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...Book Review: The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution Written By: Marwan Bishara Lilia Gomez INTL 5000 (Fall Semester) The book that I am reviewing is titled The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution. It is written by a well-known political analyst named Marwan Bishara. Mr. Bishara works for the Al Jeezera (the primary news channel for the Arab world) as a Senior Political Analyst. The book is in the perspective of an Arab and not by someone within the Western media/culture. He writes about the Arab revolutions and the history behind it. Mr. Bishara debunks several thoughts of how the Arab revolutions started and how the media (both Arabic and Western) have played a major role within these causes. Mr. Bishara’ book is self-described as an essay in which he reflects on the history of the revolutions up until present and how social media and the Arab youth population played a part. He credits the youth of being able to over throw decade old customs, governments, and regimes. In addition, he describes the rise of many positive organizations that formed because of the revolutions such as women’s groups, sports teams, and a higher employment rate. Although he praises the rise of these types of organizations, Mr. Bishara faults the lack of organization and commitment to principles as the basis of...
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...THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON POLITICAL CHANGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST Name Institutional affiliation Date The influence of social media has been felt over many spheres in life. Over the past half a decade, the Middle East countries have been using the social media as a platform in airing their grievances on their governments’ nepotism, dictatorship, and economic stagnation among other political issues that have affected their countries since time immemorial. This paper discusses the influence that the social networks such as facebook, twitter, and YouTube have had influence on the political changes in the Middle East. The paper uses three distinct sources by Samantha M. Shapiro, Alexis Madrigal, and Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain. The research conducted by these authors and analysis shows that these social networks have improved civic organization and information sharing but still has a long way to go in realization of real change in the politics in the Middle East. Learning the influence of social networks on the political changes in Middle East is important in getting to understand the future of the politics in the region. As other countries are enjoying the fruits of democracy, the people in these countries are deprived off the basic needs of a healthy nation such as freedom of speech. With the many positive aspects that have come with social networks, it is optimistic that the rise of these social networks will have a positive influence on promoting...
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...The Political Power Of Social Media In most of the inhabited land, before the 12th Century A.D, political power resided with the King/Monarch. Power was exerted through local feudal, and collection of taxes each year. In 1215 A.D, the Magna Carta was signed by the King of England, giving away some of those powers to the aristocracy. This initiative was replicated in Europe till the 18th Century. The American Revolution of 1775 and the French Revolution of 1789 were products of this period of enlightenment (of Europe mostly) in modern history known as the ‘Renaissance’. As a result of these revolutions and the wars preceding them, political power was transferred to the representatives of the people, i.e. the system of parliamentary democracy. After the demise of imperialism (or at least the ‘older/traditional’ form of it) in the 20th Century, democracy has been the preferred political system in most countries around the world. There is a new kid on the block though. In 2007, the US Presidential campaign for Barack Obama utilized and benefitted tremendously from the massive number of people using social media outlets such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Obama’s presidential campaign raised a record-breaking $745 million. Apart from charisma and prowess in public speaking, Barack Obama and his campaign reaped the reward for engaging people on social media. The following graph demonstrates a clear contrast in the policies of the two contestants (McCain and Obama) during the presidential...
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...Faizan Ahmed Khan 15020568 Professor Erum Haider Pol 320 6 May 2014 How do social media shape the social movements in modern times? A comparative study of Ukraine Crimea crisis and Egyptian revolution for democracy! A social movement can look like and be called many things. Whatever their appearance or name, the goal of all social movements is presumably the same: a change for the better. If this is indeed the ultimate objective of a social movement, it is well worth considering how successfully a movement achieves that objective. In the past ten years, several social movements have grabbed the world’s attention for the change they promised. Deemed successful for achieving their goal of change, though not necessarily change for the better, further evaluations have been sparsely performed. However, in judging social movements, what happens is shaped to a greater degree by the media, specifically. We shall look at modern day Egypt and Ukraine in our analysis. The effect of social media—and the Internet more generally—in both sets of protests is undeniable yet also distracting. Like most historic events, these protests and revolutions were in part possible due to a new technology. Flipping through the pages of history we see that The Reformation in Europe was aided by the invention of the printing press; the revolutions of 1848 occurred in some respect thanks to the invention of the telegraph which transmitted news across Europe of one set of protests overnight; the age of modern...
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...The videos that I believe were most effective in arguing how social media is used to encourage protests, revolution, and social change were in Clay Shirky’s speech How social media can make history, How the Internet will (one day) transform government, and Alexis Ohanian How to make a splash in social media. In Alexis Ohanian speech I found that an issue, in this case humpback killing, can be so troubling that the public can change that with social media popularity. Social media has the power to transform an issue with popularity and I learned that it can be something as little as a meme. In this example, Reddit had a majority vote to what trend their main logo should be and the highest vote was 119,367 votes with 78% of the entire poll being...
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...it is important that the views of these very people are taken into consideration when making any policy decisions. The reason why I chose this topic is that in the recent time, traditional as well as social media has brought on a lot of public activism. Hence, it is important to revisit the role of the public in the political debates, discussions, and the overall decision making process. Background to the topic Ever since the world moved ahead of the monarchy and the dictatorship system, the importance of the public opinion came naturally to those who were the primary stakeholders in the politics:- the administrators and the other politicians. In the history of mankind, public opinion has forced to change or alter many political decisions. Hence, the role of public opinion in politics is not a totally new concept. However, in the modern age of information technology, people are empowered to share their opinion and get noticed like never before. Hence, it will be interesting to understand how people are using this power and how the political fraternity is reacting to the situation (Lippmann, 2007). Some recent incidents of interactions between people and politics In this section, we will see how in some recent cases, society influenced the political decision making process as well as the outcome. Back in 2003, the United Kingdom witness the grandest ever public demonstration in its entire history. On 15th Feb, people gathered to register...
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...Arab Spring: Ben Ali and Hosni Moubarak knocked out by Mark Zuckerberg Source: Egyptian Internet Revolution, crazyjunkyard.com 26 years old Mohamed Bouazizi supported a large family selling fruits on the streets of Sidi Bouzid. For years, corrupted local officials who demanded backhander at every term have tormented him and other sellers in the market. On Friday December the 17th Mohamed set up his tools near the central mosque. This day, he did not have the money needed to pay the bribes to be there. The corrupted police officers arrived and took everything from him. They stood in front of him smacked him in the face and kicked him on the floor. Humiliated, Mohamed got upset and started to cry. He headed to the town police station and tried to press charges against those who assaulted him. No one listened to him. He was terribly upset and disappointed by the fact that he could not rely on his authorities for justice to be done. He then went to the closest shop and bought a bottle of fuel. He returned in front of the police station with the fuel, chose a spot in front of the building, poured the fuel over himself and then set himself on fire as a sign of protest and disagreement toward those who refused to listen to his complaints. Horrifically injured, Mohamed was taken to the hospital. Bouazizi hopeless act quickly became popular throughout the city and across the Arab world. The next day, hundreds of people gather at the spot where Mohamed had set himself alight....
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...America, ten years after a socialist revolution has taken place. As the film begins, New Yorkers are celebrating the anniversary of this revolution that has promised a society of freedom and equality for all, but some are disenchanted with this new order. As a result of racism and sexism still being heavily prevalent in society, various groups of women, mostly working class black and lesbians, organize to demand and fight for economic, political and sexual justice through strikes and direct action. The film shows many class struggles, such as, inequalities in economic justice and in the workplace. Women are working harder and being paid less, and their jobs are...
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...Russo Japanese water: 1906 revolutions; Stolypin and the duma; the impact of the first world war (1914-18) on Russia * 1917 Revolutions: February/ March revolutions; provisional government and Dual power (soviets): October/November Bolshevik Revolution; Lenin and Trotsky * Lenin’s Russia (1917-24): consolidation of new soviet state; civil war; War communism; NEP; terror and coercion; Foreign relations * * Gorbachev and His aims/Policies (glasnost And perestroika) and (1931-1991) consequences of the soviet state * consequences of Gorbachev’s policies for Eastern European; reform movements: Poland- the role of solidarity; Czechoslovakia- the velvet revolution; fall of the Berlin wall * china: Mao (1935-1976) Conditions that produced authoritarian and single party states * emergence of leaders: aims, ideology, support * methods of force and legal used to establish authoritarian * form of government ideology establishment * nature, extent and treatment of opposition establishment * domestic policies and impact (structure and organisation of government and administration * political, economic , social and religious policies within domestic policies and there impact * role of education, the arts, the media, propaganda in domestic policies...
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... These modern revolutions implement a series of unique tactics, (provoked by the triumph of the Egyptian rebellion in 2010), and provide a unique prospect for establishing a permanent democracy. However, with existing traditions practiced in the Islamic World that often run contrary to democratic ideals, the unanimous acceptance of democracy and its accompanying social values will indeed be a slow and challenging process in these relatively conservative states. The “lens” through which this essay will be examined is in a critical manner of the Arab Spring events. Although the media deemed the revolutions an overnight success during the time period in which they occurred, the accompanying affects and challenges were blatantly ignored. Indeed, while it is a commendable feat that dictator-like institutions were overthrown in a relatively short period of time (and disputably with little violence), the ability for these democratic institutions to successfully practice political norms modeled after centuries-old democratic states is an immense challenge. The thesis statement will essentially argue that although the Arab Spring revolutions provided the essential platform for institutionalizing democracy in Egypt and Algeria, it is only the first step of an extremely long process to come. The presence of Islamic culture in society is still exceptionally prevalent, and is so deeply embedded in society’s daily practices that it reflects within the social and political conduct of the...
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