The Role of New Media in Arab Uprisings: Al-Jazeera focus

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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DECLARATION

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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 of Egypt and Tunisia. With the incident when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Tunisia due to the injustice and unequal behaviour, a wave of frustration, riots and protests ran through the citizen of Arab. This research provides an overview of how media is represented as a medium fo communication. It has described the reasons and factors which led the people to come on streets and bring the regime of their leaders to an end. In all this situation, social media emerged as a significant medium through which people planned organised and discussed the strategies and venues for their non-violent protests. The research, hence, examines and analyses the vital and pivotal role played by social media and how the most popular channel AL-Jazeera played its part in providing the coverage and information to the people.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1 DECLARATION 3 ABSTRACT 4 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction 1 Research Problem 1 Research Background 3 Research Aim and Objectives 5 Adoption of Communication Technologies 5 Introduction to New Media- Social Media 7 Media Representation 9 Role of Media in Influencing Perceptions 11 Introduction -Al-Jazeera 13 Arab World and Social Media 14 Not Cyber activism Newbie’s 17 Social Media and Arab Uprising 19 CHAPTER 2: ARAB UPRISINGS 21 Introduction 21 The Arab Uprisings 21 Reason for Protests in 2011 22 CHAPTER 3: Role of Social Media and Al-Jazeera (channel) in Arab Springs 29 Introduction 29 Substantive Role of Aljazeera 29 Role of Al-Jazeera in Arab Uprisings 30 Attempts to Block Communication in Arab Region 33 Role of New Media in Arab Uprisings 34 Use of Social Media by Al-Jazeera 44 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 46 REFERENCES 51

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction
The introduction chapter provides an overview of what the research is all about. This section provides an idea and background of the research and the perspective of the topic. The next section gives an idea about how media is being repented. The chapter later covers the role media has played in affecting and influencing the perception of its viewers and peoples’ perception. Followed by a section covering how social media emerged as a powerful medium for communication and became a part of life. Lastly, it provides an idea of the role social media is playing in the Arab World and its role in Arab Uprising.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the research topic, providing a basic idea of what the research is focusing on and what it is about. It also provides an overview of where the Arab uprisings started from and what happened while the protests events were taking place. It further gives an introduction of the new media and its emergence, followed by some studies explaining how media represents different agenda in order to influence people’s perception. The chapter also describes the discuss the role of the social media in the Arab Spring, furthermore it asks question on how the media explain to the world or the Middle East the role of social media in the Arab Uprising.

Research Problem Arab Uprisings have been marked as a major revolutionary event in the history of the Arab World. Social media emerged as an effective tool used for communication by people during these riots and protests. It has been identified by different researchers ((Zayani & Sahraoui, 2007:61; Allagui & Johanne, 2011: 1439; Amos, 2011; Bradley, 2012: 101; Cartarescu, 2010: 84; Jansen, Zhang, Sobel & Chowdury, 2009, 88) that media played a significant role in these uprisings, many of these authors stating the media as one of the causes for the riots to happen (Korany & El-Mahdi, 2012, 122). Social media provides an extensively designed platform through which people are able to interact anytime, and anywhere, with each other (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel & Chowdury, 2009, 88). They are able to share their views, opinions, feelings and activities with others all the time. This unique quality of social media attracts more and more people to become its user. People feel connected to each other when they daily get to know each other’s activities and feel that they are a part of other’s life. This has helped people in creating and bringing serious topics of discussion under the highlight, making people realise and make them to think about these topics of discussion. One of these topics is the Arab Uprisings. Twitter offered a clear evidence of where the people who are engaged in discussions or democratic conversations are located during the revolutions (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, 68). Twitter tends to provide them a way into a broader world of technological conversations; majority of them involved mobile phone for texting, voice messages or picture messages.
This research focuses on analysing the role played by media- television media as well as social media. The mains focus of this research is to analyse the role played by Al-Jazeera as a television network and social media (specifically social networking sites and blogs) in the Arab Springs. The study also identifies the role of social media as being the cause of these uprisings or being the way of communicating these riots. The study will initially focus on analysing how media represents and the role media plays in shaping up the thoughts, perceptions and opinions of people. Followed by the chapter that is focused on Arab Springs. This chapter will briefly analyse the Arab uprisings and the factors that led to this event. The next chapter focuses on analysing the role of Al-Jazeera and social media in Arab Uprisings. This chapter will help us in identifying whether social media was a cause of these uprisings in Arab or not. By conducting qualitative secondary study, this research will include studies conducted by different researchers focusing on the topics relevant to the research objectives.

Research Background
In the areas of Middle East and North Africa, especially in the Arab countries, since the self-immolation of Bouaziz in Dec- 2010, there have been a series of disruptive behaviour and protests, events and uprisings that have been known as Arab Uprisings. In 2011, there started a wave for protests and riots across the Arab world. It initiated from Tunisia and then moved on spreading to other parts. Just recently it began with the events of the Tunisian upspring on 18 December, 2011 and proliferated, leading to similar revolt in different countries like, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Syria and other Arab nations (Manrique & Mikail, 2011).
On 25 January 2011, mass protests demanding the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's regime and urgent political and economic reforms took place in different parts of Egypt. After 18 days of continued demonstrations, on 11 February the protesters succeeded in over throwing the president and his government. Power was handed over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to lead the country through the transitional phase. In many ways, Egypt has been a key Arab state since the relationship between the US and Mubarak have been playing a high-profile and significant role, previously. The US was allowed to use Egyptian airspace and Suez Canal in order to support its operations. Egypt was considered to be a powerhouse at that time, as it maintained important standing globally, and many believed that American value and policies were taking over the regime (Manrique & Mikail, 2011). Egypt was a regional powerhouse which also maintained important global standing. Therefore the significance of the revolution is considerable especially as they are backed by the US and regime change is very unsettling for Western foreign policy.
According to Cottle (2011), in the initial months of the year 2011, there was series of chaotic events witnessed in North Africa and the Middle East which soon turned into the Arab uprisings. It was not just the stunning speed with which these successions spread but also different ways in which media communications have inextricably involved in these events. His research focused on analysing the ways in which media communications have facilitated these remarkable events and helped in communicating about these events to people. In his research, Cottle notified (2011) what surprised many was the rapid spread of protests and insurrections in traditionally authoritarian regimes in the near and middle east. Western commentators and media were especially struck by the use of social media to help, coordinate and report the events and activism. These protests started with the revolution in Tunisia, which began on 18th December 2011, and was ultimately forced the President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to resign on 14th January 2011, and deport to Saudi Arabia. This president had been in power for more than quarter of a century. Surely, these protests were a big threat for the dictators and rulers who have been in power for a long time, for many western as well as other government seemed to be immovable. This is one of the major reasons why these protest were highlighted by the media and supported by every other person who had been a victim to such rulers/ dictators. And also the new media was first attributed by the overthrow of Tunisians Ben Ali, Mubarak of Egypt and Ghaddafi of Libya, particularly, by the help of organisation like, Aljazeera, and the social Media like, Facebook, twitter, Skype etc. In no time, the media itself focused on the use of social media as a medium of coordinating and communicating about the protests. The role that new media played in the Arab spring was initiated by the recent social networks. Another important role was played by media organization such as Aljazeera, as significant informal and organizational role in the Arab spring, especially in Tunisia, Egypt and later Libya.
During this period, the Egyptian protesters had an opportunity to access large extent and maximum publicity. Furthermore, a significant level of attention of the world was focused on these protests, mobilizing news media coverage of their protests. Different news channels and newspapers, including major players such as CNN and Al-Jazeera, gave priority to Egypt's news round the clock. Programmes (such as Inside Story and News Broadcasting) were interrupted to broadcast the latest news of the Egyptian protests and many newspapers and other media channels changed sides during this period.

Research Aim and Objectives The main aim of this research is to analyse the role of new media and Al-Jazeera in Arab Uprisings. This aim has been achieved through following main objectives: * To examine the adoption of communication technologies * To understand how media represents things and influences people’s thoughts and perceptions * The analyse the role of Al-Jazeera in Arab World * To analyse the role of Al-Jazeera in Arab Uprisings * To examine the role of new media in Arab Uprisings

Adoption of Communication Technologies
The Internet has been one of the most rapidly and widely adopted technologies in the history of our society (Goodman et al., 1998; Rogers, 2003). Reagan (1987), as cited in Atkin et al. (1998), found that "adoption of a given media innovation is most powerfully related to adoption of other technologies" (p. 477). Interactive media such as e-mail, teleconferencing, and now social media are considered interactive communication technologies.
But why does this occur? The very nature of interactive media creates interdependence among adopters. "An interactive innovation is of little use to an adopting individual unless other individuals with whom the adopter wishes to communicate also adopt" (Rogers, 2003, p. 343). It is asserted by Dimaggio that the need for maintaining confidence of the ill-informed stakeholders means that the firms is less innovative and creative with respect to its practices. He further argues that there is unsettlement by the lower class distinctiveness in the increasingly popular industries; elites have started creating a sophisticated culture of their own (through universities, the arts, social clubs, etc) separating them from those of the commoners. Further, interactive communication technologies possess a reciprocal interdependence in that "the benefits from each additional adoption of an interactive innovation increase not only for future adopters, but also for each previous adopter" (Rogers, 2003, p. 344). This shows the reason how interactive communication has been able to play a significant role in spreading word-of-mouth about the protests and influencing people to join to these protests. This medium of communication has increasingly became popular among people of Arab, due to which media was capable of immediately become a part of the lives of people and a medium of getting information during the times of Arab uprisings.
New media communications in Arab World has not just conveyed ideas and images that are consumed and circulated widely in today’s globalized flow of communication, rather the media communication have entered into their everyday life through social media. With the beginning of social media use and hype created about using social media, the people living in Arab states together with the people of world have been using its modernized tool for expressing their thoughts, opinions and views regarding different things, may it whether be civic and or political. This section discusses over the passage of time, how communication technology has been adopted by people in the Arab World. It further focuses on discussing how interactive media has emerged, in order to provide an introduction to the emergence and importance of interactive media and ICT. The next section discusses how social media has emerged as a significant interactive medium and as a part of life.

Introduction to New Media- Social Media
Interactive media plays an important role in communication and social media has emerged as a significant medium for interaction and association among people as it has been significantly observed during the Arab Spring. This section provides an introduction to social media as a medium of communication and how it is becoming a part of everyday life of people of Arab and all across the world.
Arab World, like other parts of the globe, is not alienated from the powerful and modern method of communication that connects people around the world-known as social media. Social media which is mostly assumed as social network websites has emerged as a significantly valuable source of communication with the continuously developing technologies, specifically computer technology. Since the human nature is curious, always seeking information and searching for ways to adopts fast and easy ways of communicating and socialising with each other (Dellarocas, 2003, 1424), this has led new media to become increasingly popular in Arab world. Due to this emerging popularity of social media, people were easily able to communicate about the protests and events during Arab Spring on mass level. People substantially created various discussion forums and blogs where they used to share information and talk about the latest happenings across the Arab world. With constant developments in the media, the various mediums of discussions and electronic communications, like instant messaging, individual bulletin board systems, blogs and online communities, have fostered incorporating a style of personal ad, like myspace.com and facebook.com, increasingly being used to interact and arrange the protests and other events throughout Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, etc (Rugh, 2004, 56). With the emergence of social media in Arab World, there is a sharp and exponential increase in the amount of personal and general information shared online as people have been able to communicate interact with lot of people using interactive media. According to a recent research study, Social media across Arab world (Ghannam, 2011) identified the use and uptake of new social media throughout various Arab countries. It also highlighted the immediate aftermaths of Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, stating that the Arab world witnessed the rise of a vibrant and independent social media and
According to a recent research report, Social Media in the Arab World (Ghannam, 2011), documenting the uptake and use of new social media across different Arab countries and published in the immediate aftermath of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, ‘the Arab world has witnessed the rise of an independent vibrant social media and gradually increasing the engagement level of citizens in the use of Internet which is expected to attract 100 millions Arab users by the end of 2015. The research also concluded that these social networks mobilize, increase transparency, entertain, inform, create communities and seek to hold governments accountable for their deeds (Ghannam, 2011: 4). The new techniques and tools of conviviality and sociability can therefore prove to be democratizing in both the sense of facilitating collective intercourse and interaction in everyday life, along with providing ways for organizing changes within the system and establishing democratic politics (Ghanavizi, 2011; Sreberny and Khiabany, 2010).
Social media has emerged as a habitual activity and a vital part in the lives of people across the globe. It is generally considered by people as a website or a platform where they can share their personal views, opinions, observations, and suggestions using it as an effective mean for communication, a way to promote globalization, interact and participate with other people in different countries across the globe (Rieh, 2002, 145). Unlike television shows, newspapers, magazines, and radio programs, social media’s main focus is on sharing personal details, thoughts, views, information connecting millions of people across the globe. Most commonly used tools for social media networking are YouTube, Facebook, Forms pings, Twitter, Flicker, and Blogs which provide facilitation in creating and exchanging personal details and ideas at a faster pace as compared to any other conventional and traditional media. The concept of social media is defined in a number of ways by various scholars and researchers. According to one of the definitions, social media is defined as any kind of internet-based and mobile-based technology which tends to promote social interaction and sharing of user-generated content. This includes blogs and micro-blogs, like Twitter and social networking websites such as Facebook and video sharing websites like YouTube (AI-Jassem, 2010).
In this modern era of technological innovations, it is filled with complex and modified methods of communication facilitating easy accessibility, fast deliver, and reliable source. People across the globe communicate by using various methods that are cost-effective and time efficient. One of these methods is using social media, through which information is delivered and used through the Internet- the most influential and powerful tool of communication for the millennium. The next section provides how social media and journalism has been effectively playing their part in influencing the perception of their viewers. This will help in understanding how media represents different things to influence people and the effectiveness of media representation in revolutions and different events.

Media Representation
Social media and citizen journalism have emerged as key source of seeking and sharing information and spreading news in the Arab world, specifically after the occurrence of Arab Uprisings during the early 2011. From the NPR’s Andy Carvin and the Guardian to the Al-Jazeera, news organizations have recognized that journalism is only one section of the broadly established ecosystem for online communication, there are various ways in which interactive communication can be done using latest technological developments. Thus, along with these news organisations the journalists started using social media networks for spreading information about protests and
Fang (2001) attributed the huge divergence in the coverage of the second story to two main factors. The first factor was differences in the diplomatic relations of the reporting countries with the countries in which these events took place. He stated that as the event country had weak diplomatic relations with the country in which one of these newspapers operated, the newspaper was allowed to portray the event in an aggressive way; stronger diplomatic relations motivated the other newspaper to do the exact opposite. The second factor mentioned by Fang was the policies of the newspapers themselves, which he says can play a very important role in influencing how a newspaper will portray any event to the public (Cottle, 2008; Milne, 2005). Fang concluded that the portrayal of foreign protests is highly determined by what he called 'ideological and political opportunism, as well as the obligation to justify the policies adopted by the government' (Fang, 2001: 611).
Moreover, Coleman and Wu (2009) have argued that there is a much stronger effect of attributes reporting compared to issues reporting with regard to influencing the public agenda and the general readership. They also observed that the reports that were presented by media about the attributes of election candidates tend to have a high correlation with how people perceive these candidates, which reflects that these media reports strongly influence perceptions.
Furthermore, Luther and Miller (2005) observed that while reporting protests, news media outlets tend to ignore or diminish the significance of those that go against the most dominant political views and those that are held by the political elites. They further stated that the usage of certain legitimizing or delegitimizing keywords in the news stories is a result of these outlets' efforts to influence the public agenda and rank the - importance of different issues. Previously, most of the media falls under strict regulations, control and supervision of governments. The emergence of new media signified a shift from the highly monolithic media to a more pluralistic media. Nevertheless, it was not until the 2011 revolutions that lead to actual sift towards the political reformations. Additionally, Reese and Buckalew (1995) found that the effect of agenda-setting of the media efforts tends to be amplified when the media, after influencing people's opinions in the first place, start reporting public opinion. With these studies, depicting how media has been effectively influencing and shaping the opinions and perceptions of people, it could be easily understood the role played by media in the increased revolutions in the Arab world.

Role of Media in Influencing Perceptions
In order to understand the role of new media in Arab uprisings, it is important first understand how it influences and shapes people’s thoughts and actions towards certain event. A study conducted by Smith et al (2001), related to the problem of selective reporting, or most commonly known as selection bias, analyzed the impact of coverage of protests presented by news media on the communication of the agenda presented to general public. Through their research it was observed that unlike print media, there is an opportunity for television media for only reporting demonstrations that are fitting into certain themes (see also Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993, 114; Gans, 1979). Their research also identified that the main focus of these reporting is on the issues or the themes only, instead of focusing the actual events on themselves. According to this report, media try to portray certain perspective while demonstrating an event which eventually affects the mind, thoughts and perception of the people watching the news. This means that by portraying certain perspective about the event occurring, media influences people’s mind by diverting their attention and thoughts into certain direction. But still, it depends on how people tend to perceive things, whether they agree to the opinion presented by media or they disagree depends on the way people as conceive things (see also Gitlin, 1980; Halloran et al., 1970). It was concluded by Smith et.al that it is expected that social movements are mostly threatening to the existence of socio-economic order which tends to attract episodic coverage as compared to thematic. Episodic events tend to demonstrate strong and real events that define and explain certain issue, whereas thematic coverage provides general or collective evidences. This means that both the coverage will affect human minds in different manner and lead them to think in different ways about the things happening around.
These studies help in developing an understanding about the way media has been influencing and how it portrays different events in order to influence people through its representations. These studies tend to show that there is a relation between media representation and the way people perceive political personalities and political issues. While the independent newspapers and television stations were gaining traction, it appeared as though the government was also making moves to rein them in, especially in the run up to November 2010' s parliamentary elections. The editor of one of the most popular independent opposition papers, Al-Dustour, was fired and a popular news talk show, Cairo Today, was ordered off the air. Though the government denied it, journalists and press freedom advocates claimed that both incidents were behind the scenes moves by the government to tighten their grip on the independent media. As these studies shows that there is a relationship between the attributes represented by media and the way people perceive, it will help in understanding the role new social media has played in the overall Arab uprisings. By reviewing these studies, it provides an idea about how media has contributed to the protests and revolutions of 2011 in Arab world, and led people to react in certain manner resulting in increased number of people in every protest. Social media has played a significant role, by influencing maximum number of people and communicating the information and news about the protests to a mass level. Following sections gives an overview of how social media penetrated into Arab world and how it has gained importance in daily lives of Arab people.

Introduction -Al-Jazeera
Al-Jazeera emerged as a unique, innovative channel for the satellite television, as it was Arabic channel which featured journalist form Arab reporting news about Arab World and was purely based on the Arab perspective. They were not reluctant for commenting or criticizing any government’s actions and issues. Al-Jazeera provided the journalists and its guests a platform through which they can raise voice of opinion with wider latitude than any other channel was offering. It immediately became successful and gained the viewership of millions of people all across the Arab World (Cheung & Thadani, 2010, 329). Uncontrolled and uncensored, the Al-Jazeera channel was extensively accessed by anyone using a satellite dish. Since the Arab government was no longer able to halt the transmission of the satellite, it could not completely control the news content on tense televisions channels any longer. Saudi Arabia was the only government which banned and abandoned the dishes, but according to Miles (2005), the law was and is still seldom and nominally enforced. An unrestrained and free medium was becoming a reality and the Arab people in different parts, regions and states watched this channel with extreme curiosity.
The main concept and focus of Al-Jazeera was not to just deliver the news. The staff of Al-Jazeera worked on creating programmes that actually presented an analysis of the news intending to initiate a controversy and debate, such as The Opposite Direction, modelled keeping the defunct CNN program, Crossfire in view (Al- Qasim, 1999). The host and moderator of the program, Dr. Faisal Al-Qasim, have presented his doctoral dissertation analysing Crossfire. In the programs presented by Al-Jazeera, the journalists use to select guests in order to generate controversies. These guests were allowed to freely discuss and debate about the issues that were faced by the Arab World and this was a unique quality of the channel which resulted in its success. The programs presented on Al-Jazeera, prominently showed the government officials discussing and debating on the dissenters for the first time ever on the satellite television of an Arabic channel (Al-Qasim, 1999). It also started producing and on-airing shows in which people from all over the Arab world could call-up allowing them to provide their feedback and express their opinions. Some of the programs were even based on discussing role of Islam in the Arab society, while others were focused on debating about women’s right and human rights.
With so much of diversified point of views and widely liberal, Al-Jazeera was focused on committing itself to maintain a sense of balance, where open-mindedness became the central theme for the channel. Soon, Al-Jazeera channel announced its motto as to be “the opinion and the other opinion” (El- Nawawy & Iskandar, 2002). This was the time when the direct criticism on the government started occurring, from the viewers, as well as from the journalists themselves. Al-Jazeera satellite channel is one of the major sources for information and news for the people living in Arab as it is one of the initial television channels. Due to its mass reaching, it has developed a reputation, of being a trustworthy, professional, and independent channel which focuses on the major issues that are most valuable to the streets of Arab (Filiu, 2011, 59). Long before, the Arabic civilians lost their trust and confidence on the national media news, which were assumed to be a mouthpiece supporting the government.

Arab World and Social Media
Social Media has brought significant revolution and with the emergence of electronic media communication, the Arab countries, moved from farming the way people communicate in these societies and communities, which depended on the generosity of sea and land, to the modem entities in terms of interaction and transmission of information through current and up to date means of communication. Due to this, the ways and media of communicating and interacting with each other also change to great extent. The strict implementation and application of cultural beliefs and customs prohibited many to openly express their views and ideas and openly interact with each other. Yet, the Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia, have been open to the use of a new and one of the most popular communication platforms, social media. Social Media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs are web-based services that enable individuals in constructing a semi-public or public profile within a restricted system, coherent a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature (means a system) of these connections might differ from one site to another (Cheung & Thadani, 2010, 329). Therefore, it attracts most of the people, as they can interact and share information keeping their personal information confidential. Furthermore, through these mediums people tend to increase their social circle and interactions which also contributed highly in spreading and communicating about the revolutionary protests across the Arab world. People form one area to another area and from one community to another community, were interacting and providing information to whomever they can, in order to increase the number of people participating in these events.
In Arab World particularly, internet users have increased 19 times in the last 10 years while mobile cellular subscribers increased almost 50 times (Cheung & Thadani, 2010, 329). This allowed the improvement of Internet devices that have now incorporated and a necessity for all people's life, as the use of Internet and social media increased substantially. With increasing support for social media, the Arab world has been able to communicate and express their feelings, views, sentiments, and perceptions in online communities that were not possible before. Arab countries have continuously gained accessibility to mobile phones and to some extent wireless internet. A report published by international Telecommunications union (ITU) (ICT, 2012), the report has examined trends of information and communication technology throughout the Arab region and identified the areas where ICT needs policy restrictions. It has been observed through their report that most of the people in Arab world come online mainly because of the increasing use of 3G networks on mobile phones giving people accessibility to the Internet, and the increased number of computer at home able to access the internet through wireless networks. By the end of 2011, around 30% of the population in this area was found using the Internet. This was compared to Asia or Pacific regions which were calculated to be around 27 percent and greater than Sub-Saharan Africa calculated to around 13%. These stats explain the increasing share of social media technology (Internet) users in Arab World. This show how widely new media communication has influenced people’s lives, which contributed towards the increased communication level during the 2011 revolutions.

(Source: ICT, 2012)
Many scholars are very careful with the use of the term "revolution" in dealing with socio-technical change. According Howard, describing the effect of Information and Communications Technologies in some countries may not be a "misnomer" because in some Muslim countries, democratic would barely exist without the internet (Howard, 2010). According to media source, a "social media revolution" is occurring in Egypt. There at least ten million natives of Egypt that are online, three million have accounts on Facebook and 400% of which posts on Twitter (Amos, 2011). Moreover, the SocialBakers.Com which provides a reliable social media statistics posted the massive growth of Facebook users in the country and it was reported that Facebook penetration in Egypt is 14.36% compared to the country's population and 67.72% penetration of population online. The total number Facebook users in Egypt reached up to 11553280 and are growing by more than 2161700 since the last six months, which is a massive growth for the country.

User age distribution on Facebook in Egypt

Source: (socialbakers.com)

Not Cyber activism Newbie’s
Accordingly, this is not the first time Egyptian activists have made use of these tools. Hussain (2011) traces the birth of cyber activism in Egypt to 2004. In an Arab Media & Society journal article titled "Core to Commonplace: The evolution of Egypt's blogosphere," Hussain (2011) pointed to the formation of a group called Kifaya in early 2004 as one of the first instances of the burgeoning Egyptian blogosphere becoming a forum for activism. Kifaya primarily sought to end the reign of Mubarak and see truly free elections take place in Egypt.
"Kifaya's manifesto called for civil disobedience and sought to break taboos and establish a right to demonstrate and talk about the country frankly," Radsch wrote. "A natural symbiosis between Egypt's early core bloggers and the emerging protest movement helped popularize the Egyptian blogosphere as a site of protest as Kifaya grew in popularity during 2005." In the years that followed, the Egyptian blogosphere gradually became more influential, especially when it came to directing press attention to under-covered stories. Amir, himself a blogger since 2005, points to an incident during the 2006 celebration of the Muslim holiday of Eid il-Fitr, when several women were assaulted on the streets of Cairo. "As expected, local media ignored such an incident, as they normally have their own priorities," Amir said. But, the Egyptian blogosphere took the story and ran with it, making such a stir that the mainstream media took notice and began to cover the attacks.
It is clear that social media was the tool of choice for the young Egyptian activists (including the April 6th groups of activists) who organized the January 25 demonstrations, but the protests certainly would not have caught on as they did if what Iskandar referred to as the "climate" for revolution was not already present. "Things were already happening at so many different levels," he said. Iskandar, who is of Egyptian heritage, was paying particular attention to the country's increasingly unstable political climate. He writes a weekly column for the English version of Al- Masry Al- Youm, one of the country's leading independent newspapers, and had often written about the turmoil in Egypt in the months leading up the revolution. From his point of view, it was important not to get too caught up in the social media angle of the story and overlook the reasons Egyptians were so dissatisfied with their government. As this section provided an overview of the social media usage among the youth and Arab World and the way different activists groups were being formed, the next section provides an overview of the role of social media in initiating the activists approach in the Arab world.

Social Media and Arab Uprising
Anne Nelson wrote an article on the Web ‘2.0 Revolution’ after showing the YouTube video of one of the April 6th Youth movement leaders Esraa Abdel Fattah at the 2008 Arab media conference in Dubai, Arab reporters used this video to re-iterate that the Internet is the only way for these young people to express themselves. This group had launched a viral video which demonstrated the notion that people should not be afraid of the government. Later, this group arranged protests and presented a number of demands as the protests gained momentum. People used new media communication for spreading the word about their protests.
The revolution in previous era, where ICT and media did not had to play any significant role, movements and protests were still successful, as people had the power for arranging the and controlling the events, and were not dependent on ICTs for interactions and communication purposes. Although, these movements were successful but the process was little slow and took times and ages before the revolution could actually happen, people had to interact face-to-face and meet each other in-person for communicating them about any happening or event. No wonder, revolutions have been successful earlier as well, but with the advent of the Internet the process of communication has become fast and revolutionary activities can happen at a faster rate. People are now able to send messages in seconds to long distance. This long process of sending messages has become short which has increased the pace with which revolutions can be organised and achieve their objectives. Moreover, the catalyst of new media, particularly the advent of politically active bloggers is altering the nature of dissent in Turkey and in other countries. The article further states, the Arab new media revolution (referring to the Internet) is unfolding in a region in which other forms of social and political evolution have been stymied (Nelson, 2008). In a region where protests and demonstrations are illegal, the Internet has provided a gateway of free expression and dissent for the people of the Middle East. Interaction is suppressed amongst civil society in the Middle East because of authoritarian rule and the desire for the government to keep a stronghold on political activity is motivated by the goal to suppress any challenge to the legitimacy of the government. Nelson continues her discussion over the impact of the Internet on political participation, as she feels that it has created a new political space by developing the interactive media of Facebook, cell phones, text messaging, and YouTube. During the week before president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak was resigning, the total number of tweets in Egypt and almost across the globe, related to the country’s political change reached to 230,000 per day from 2300 per day (Allagui & Johanne, 2011, 1435). The video sharing containing political commentary and protests went viral. The 23 top videos regarding the protest had almost 5.5 million views (Allagui & Johanne, 2011, 1437).

CHAPTER 2: ARAB UPRISINGS

Introduction
The chapter will discuss the socio-economic and political factors, such as the gap between the poor and the rich, unemployment, grudges against government, etc. in addition to the factors leading to the Arab Uprisings, social media has also played a significant role in igniting, proliferating and spreading the protests all across the Arab region. The chapter provides an overview of the Arab uprisings and hoe these were ignited and influenced by various factors.

The Arab Uprisings
This section explains the emergence of term Arab Uprisings. It further gives an overview of the Arab Uprisings. The term Arab Uprisings and Arab Springs was initially coined by the media in the West for defining various types of uprisings and protests jolting the Arab World. It all started when a Tunisian fruit vendor, Muhammad Bouazizi sat himself ablaze after a number of humiliations and beatings that resulted when a municipal lady inspector hit him while he was trying to take his confiscated apples back. After this Bouazizi, in front of the governor office set himself on fire. Various frustrating factors along with this incident ignited the protests and riots which were seen on Al-Jazeera and social networks, growing into ferocity and size (Gelvin, 2012, 111). After this event, number of protests started rising from various regions of Arab World. Riots began in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other parts of the Arab region. These protests are known as Arab Uprisings or Arab Springs.
These uprisings and protests have swept the Arab World resulting in the fall of Presidential tenure of Tunisian President in January 2011, turning into a historical moment in Tunisia’s political history. The world witnessed these events that happened in the Middle East and North Africa with the feelings of fascination, awe, and inspiration, developing an assumption about how powerful media and digital technology can be. The Arab Uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and elsewhere across the Middle East have heavily depended on the power of digital technology, Internet, social media technology and networks, like TwitPic, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in its early stages to accelerate the social protests (Pollack, 2011). Following section will discuss the causes and reasons that led to Arab Uprisings in the Arab World.

Reason for Protests in 2011
This section is completely focused on discussing different factors that contributed to the Arab Uprisings during the 2011 protests and revolts. The revolt leading towards Uprisings started when the different Arab regions started facing problems with fall in standards of living, mass level unemployment increasing to extreme, and widely spread poverty which was considered to be a significant outcome of government in different countries of Arab World (such as Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and other Arab nations) (Dalacoura, 2012). Another very important and significant factor that led towards the protests was the highly dissatisfied youth within the population. The youth was frustrated and dissatisfied as majority of the youth was unemployed, poverty and educational setups. A continuously explosive combination of socio-economic problems and widely spread and deepened political grievances comprised a common thread of causes behind all the Arab uprisings. Even on single act of grief and anxiety which ignited Arab revolution in Tunisia was based on economic factors. For instance, a 26 year old salesperson, Mohamed Bouazizi had set himself on fire, it was mainly due to lack of economic opportunities and increasing corruption.

(Source: Aaltola & Behr, 2011)
Poverty in its literal context does not take us far from the causes and explanation for the uprisings, but comparatively, deprivation, anxiety, desperation, a clash between expectations and reality has played major part in Arab Uprisings (Dalacoura, 2012). With long-standing social and cultural issues (such as employment, inequalities, etc) troubling the Arab world that have come to a head before 2011 with a combination of continuously rate of unemployment, specifically among youngsters (that even the educated youth), out of control corruption, internal social and regional inequalities, and further worsening economic conditions due to the increasing prices of foods and global financial crisis of 2008. Tunisia and Egypt encapsulated most of these problems. For instance, although, the economy of Tunisia was growing healthier in different ways (as mentioned by Aaltola & Behr, 2011), it was not helpful in creating new jobs and employment, recorded unemployment remained higher reaching up to 16 percent in 2011 according to some estimations. The Tunisia announced internal regional inequalities with widespread corruption level, and also the ordinary Tunisians suffering from rising inflation, prices of commodities, and slow growth rate as compared to 2008 (Dalacoura, 2012).
One of the major reasons for these grievances has been the long growing economic gap between the poor and rich people of the countries, like Egypt and Tunisia. According to the report presented by World Bank (Eko, 2012), during 2005 the wealthiest families comprising of ten percent of Egyptians were holding around twenty-eight percent of the total national household income, and the chasm between the classes showed no signs of closing or reducing in the recent years. Despite of consistent growth in the GDP of Egypt from 2004 onwards, approximately eighteen percent of the population of Egypt has been living on less than $2 per day. Another transitory class, accounting of 20 percent, has moved in and out of poverty since the last ten years, which according to the World Bank represented a sense of social insecurity and vulnerability. The economic conditions were more or less the same for the people with proper jobs. Before the revolution, the minimum wage of Egypt, which did not change since 1984, was around 35 Egyptian pounds per month, which is less than six US dollars in April 2011. After 1984, the National Council for Wages raised the minimum amount of wage up to 400 pound, which then increased up to 700 in 2011 (AFP, 2011). As the rate of inflation rate was more than 10 percent for each, at least three years, even salaries that were above the minimum wage and were considered to be good, were no longer enough to sustain for many families. Lower wages and living standards in Egypt and Tunisia, and likewise other countries, were leading the nations towards increased economic gap between the rich and poor people. This gap was significantly contributing towards the frustration that was raised due to various factors in the Arab region.
Another reason that created discontent between the Egyptian government and the people of Egypt was the rising prices of food. In January 2011, the global prices of food reached to their highest level, since the United Nations have started measuring them in 1990 (Al-Jassem, 2010). High poverty rates in Egypt, combined with the fact that the United Nations lists it as the largest importer of wheat in the world, mean spikes in global food prices have hit the country really hard. After a similar spike in prices in 2008 led to riots, the Egyptian government increased the number of people eligible for subsidized food from 40 million to 63 million, according to a World Bank report.
The media was playing its role in political transformations taking place in Egypt and Tunisia. Social media played a vital role in these major and non-violent events. One of the reasons highlighted by William Shaub (as cited by Korany, et al, 2012) was the average per capita and the possible effects on the revolution and protests. According to him, Egypt and other countries have a massive gap in income throughout the time of Mubarak’s control/ regime, which was one of the root causes leading to the uprisings in Arab World. According to two Russian researchers, J. Zinkina and A Korotayey, in their analysis of Egypt revolution, stated that Egypt was one of the fastest growing countries, increasing with the prices of food in the world; and it definitely influenced the destabilization in Egypt socio-political system (Korotayey et al, 2011). During 2008, the protest against increasing food prices started in Egypt. The main event was held by the spinning and weaving factory workers in opposition to the lowered living standards that were caused due growth in food prices (Korotayey et al, 2011). Since then, the living standards continuously went down, increasing the resentment among the people.
Unemployment in the Arab region is considered to be major source that lead the region towards instability of political system and economic insecurity. It was stated by Don Tapscott that around 24 percent of the youngsters in the region were not able to find any good quality job which would help them in maintaining their living standards (Guardian, p. 2011). With the increasing percentage of unemployment, the Arab countries were not able to reduce the rate and change this situation by creating new employment, the scenario turned worse. Usually in case of unemployment, government tends to come up with employment programmes and opportunities which will increase jobs in their countries. But, in case of Arab region, the government had nothing to offer. There were educated people either unemployed or working in low-category jobs. This increasing rate of unemployment was causing the frustrations and anger to rise among youth.
The Human rights and political rights are basic for any society, and the people living in Arab regions are facing a situation that is completely described by Hisham Sharabi in one of his works named Neo-patriarchy. Even when most of the regions reached to a very high level in terms of political rights and democracy, the Arab region still suffered from severely bad political systems which included the lack of free elections and voting rights, freedom of speech, state of emergency laws, corruption, and religious fundamentalism (Sharabi: 2006).
In both the countries, in fact the entire region, a widespread sense of having an economic depression has been vital for the protesting events. While both, Tunisia and Egypt were experiencing a period of economic growth, most of the people living in the countries were facing a decline in their standards of living. Especially among the middle and lower income groups, a combination of high inflation, increasing unemployment, and falling real wages has caused the economic disaster in Arab World. The job opportunities created were primarily for the low-wage and low skilled sector in the economy, which was not able to keep pace with the demographic rates of growth. This was not sufficient as the middle-class youth sector was still disenchanted and unemployed with an economic and political order in which personal relations and contact were trumping the qualifications, with no regards to whether the person was qualified or not it was all a matter of strong relationships, and where corrupted capitalism enabled only those people in position to become resplendently wealthy. People who were in authority were the ones making decisions about who should be employed. Furthermore, due to economic gap between rich and poor, wealthy people enjoyed most of the benefits in the country. It was due to this unemployment which frustrated the youth to form the nucleus of subsequently rising events of revolution. Lack of freedom and political oppression was another significant force that caused protests bringing them onto the streets. Where Tunisians still only knew little about the freedom during the time Ben Ali was in power, the Egyptians had experienced some of their freedom, which was taken away from them, after the downfall of the regime. The abuse of freedom and public authority and violence from police was becoming a part of daily routine in Arab World and the increasing corruption at all levels in the society. All this was leading the nation towards a feeling of alienation and powerlessness within their own country, which were considered to be centre themes of pride and dignity that infused the message in the protesters. The Egyptian and Tunisian protesters were also mourning and grieving the lack of principles and increasing corruption in their governmental arena. Egypt under the rule of Mubarak turned out into an American poodle, where people did not have much freedom for making decisions. Therefore, claiming for the lost dignity of Egypt internationally was another motif for bringing revolution in Egypt which was expected to likely affect the future developments of foreign policies in Egypt. The Arab identity was not concerned with the culture or language; it was confined to the Arab tribes. The problem was arising as many countries had started having weak sense of national identity, leading the region towards fragmentation. It was a combination of three problems: a dignity deficit, an economic deficit, and a freedom deficit that ignited the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and made them so explosive. The people of Arab region were facing similar kinds of problems and frustration which enabled these uprisings to spread like fire across the other sectors and regions of the Arab society. These reasons were also reflected in the slogans and chants of the protests, not focusing on any religious or political agenda, instead it was more focused on what the people were protesting against, which included: corruption, neoliberalism, international tutelage, high prices of food, unemployment, the regime, and low wages. By focusing on the three major deficit factors, instead of focusing on potentially divisive and concrete political agenda, protesters were able to maintain the mass support and cohesions for the rally. As the rallies focused on people’s problems, highlighting the major problems faced by people, such as unemployment, increased prices of commodities, lack of freedom of expression, lack of rights, etc, therefore, majority people supported. Conclusively, In case of Arab uprisings, poverty, unemployment, corruption, inequality, rising prices of food and commodities, increasing gap between the poor and the rich, and extremely dissatisfied youths are considered to be some of the major factors that led the protests.

CHAPTER 3: Role of Social Media and Al-Jazeera (channel) in Arab Springs

Introduction
This chapter provides a detailed description about the role played by Al-Jazeera in the Arab and the importance of the television channel in informing people about the latest news. Furthermore, the chapters provides details about the role played by New Media and Al-Jazeera in Arab Uprisings, and also the way Al-Jazeera used social media for communicating with the people.

Substantive Role of Aljazeera
Aljazeera also as a new media in the Arab world continues to bring exclusive reports to the Arab countries, which gave the people the opportunity to know things that is happening within and outside the country. Aljazeera impacted more information across the Arab world to the Arab audience and as well, brought about sense of community among the Arab Diaspora and bring unity as a key opinion maker during the Arab disunity and appeals to the masses in the Arab countries, through media and has an overt populist orientation to the Arab community. (Zayani, 2005:8). The Arab people see or watch live political, religious, social, and cultural issues across the Arab nation (Faisal, 2005:94). Aljazeera’s action in spreading its wings and developing new media projects and initiative in the Arab spring is not base on a viable project which can bring income to the organisation, but to spread the information to know the happenings in the Arab spring to both those that are within and outside the Arab World (Zayani, 2007:165). He added that Aljazeera in the Arab spring has become more of an imperative than a choice, in terms of the push for democratization process in the Middle East and especially in the Arab speaking countries, which likely to forced emergence of competing media organisations with a sizable margin of freedom. The credibility of this channel in terms of providing latest information and presenting the opinion of general Arab people as well as the other side has led the channel to perform so well during the Arab Uprisings. The channel was a mirror for the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, as they saw their own reflection helping them to believe that they can bring revolution in their country.

Role of Al-Jazeera in Arab Uprisings
The rule for journalism at Al-Jazeera have been clear long before the era of Arab uprisings occurring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, etc. Although, Al-Jazeera was not allowed in Tunisia since ages, the journalist within the states helped in lessening the vacuum of information. In this entire situation, where Al-Jazeera was not able to get any scoop, it was however, the first one to feel the actual intensity of protests on the streets. It is important to understand, what was actually going on in the minds of journalist working at Al-Jazeera headquarters (Pollack, 2011, 158).
The absence of an independent media and the controlling of information by the government amplified distrust and cynicism among people. Al-Jazeera contributed to the Arab Uprisings as it ventured to stand out by portraying what people thought and felt. It presented the picture of issues as they were, without moulding it with their biases. Being highly reputed and having significant level of goodwill, the channel has been successfully and constantly influencing the opinion of public (Allagui & Johanne, 2011, 1435). This is the reason why Al-Jazeera has been accused of igniting dissent and protests among people. Without any doubt, as compared to other channels Al-Jazeera played an unprecedented role in the Arab Uprisings, specifically during the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings. Most of the people in Tunisia gave the channel credit of playing a part in speedy overthrow of the regime of Ben Ali. Generally, Al-Jazeera has been loved by civilians of Arab and disliked by the Arab authoritarians. The downfall in the regimes of Egyptians and Tunisians and way Al-Jazeera did the coverage for both the events/ revolutions helped in increasing the channel’s popularity (Khamis & Katherine, 2011, 80). The significant role played by Al-Jazeera in becoming and inspiration for Yemen and Libya cannot be denied. The coverage done by Al-Jazeera was observed to bring noticeable changes in the attitudes of the viewers. During the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, online assets of Al-Jazeera were hacked and in few of the cases they were crashed because of the high number of visitors. However, since the Arab uprisings in Syria and Bahrain, the tracking day of online visitors show that very few online users and viewers are dependent on Al-Jazeera for gathering information and news (Pollack, 2011, 161).
On the other hand, there were some researchers (like, Miles, 2006; McCaffrey, 2012, 154) who argued that the Al-Jazeera acted as a political tool and it was obvious during the transmission it covered over the conflict in Libya. Some of the leaders in Libya complained that the channel has been continuously on routine basis covering selected individuals and groups who were associated to Al-Qaradawi (McCaffrey, 2012, 154). The political part played by Al-Jazeera was again highlighted during the Arab League, unusually, made an attempt to troubleshoot the crisis in Syria in early November of 2011. It has been reported that when proposal was submitted by the leader of the organisation to the Syrian leaders, it was insisted by the foreign ministers that the deal must also include some of the channels to stop their transmission which is biased and poisonous. Although, Al-Jazeera has been considered by people and several researchers as a powerful and influensive force and a number of governments have tried to either limit the impact of the channel on people or seize on political basis. Yet, popularity of the channel and it influence on people depicting the powerful role it has been playing during the Arab Uprisings. Due to its massive reach, the channel has been able to provide information to maximum number of households in the entire Arab region (Pollack, 2011, 163). Al-Jazeera provided extensive coverage of all the events that took place during the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia. The producers and correspondents of Al-Jazeera across the Arab region have been arrested, beaten, harassed and in some cases- like Ali Hassan- killed. As Tunisian and Egyptian regimes were facing riots and protests, Al-Jazeera has been there to capture of every moment the ecstatic revolutionaries, rebels, and protesters were protesting against the regime. In Tunisia, the channels also went on to take footages from Facebook and other social networking websites of the protests and riots that were taking place in the awakening of the fruit-selling self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in 2010, and gave the people a venue through which they can raise their voice and be heard in different parts of Arab. For around eighteen days straight, in Egypt, cameras of Al-Jazeera broadcasted live from Tahrir Square, providing a wider platform and opportunity to the demonstrators while they documented the violence and protest against the Mubarak’s regime and his supporters (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, 64).
When channels like Al-Jazeera, which was reputable and one of the oldest Arab television channel, carried a story or news from social networking websites, the news surely gains credibility and visibility. When people who have no accessibility to the Internet and especially social media networks, they see the news on Al-Jazeera and they take it seriously, considering it as a reliable and credible information based on which they go down on streets where the protests and riots are taking place (Hofheinz, 2011, 1417). Al-Jazeera journalists and reports observed that social media was being accessed by people continuously and they are posting footages, headline and latest, up-to-date information on these channels. For providing the people latest coverage and news, Al-Jazeera went so far as to acquire information from these social networks so that people get latest information and coverage.
Throughout the Arab Uprisings, the popularity of Al-Jazeera exploded as it was the only television channel which was continuously broadcasting the entire revolution from Egypt to Tunisia to Libya to Yemen. It dramatically added news inserts between various segments for news programs, informing people about the events that occurred during the protest which was something very unique and different form the traditional news channels it was powerful, sensation, influential, and shaped the perceptions and imagination of the people viewing and watching new about the current events taking place on streets (McCaffrey, 2012, 155). The channel seeks for various ways in which reports could sneak and show us the live coverage, many putting the reporters and correspondents into serious trouble.
Many times, it correspondents have been presenting and reporting directly from the place where the actual war was taking place, wearing a helmet and a bullet proof jacket and shouting while machine guns being fired all around them. According to the examiners and analysts, Al-Jazeera, for the most part, while covering the revolution in Egypt was impeccable (Eko, 2012, 133). It presented the type of coverage which reflected the commitment towards the revolution and it was felt across the Arab world. Even when the plug was being pulled over the coverage of Al-Jazeera channel by the former regime of Mubarak, the channel somehow managed to continue its transmission with an intention to provide complete, up to date information to the people.

Attempts to Block Communication in Arab Region
Since 28th January, Al-Jazeera played a cat and mouse game with the regime of Mubarak. During the weekend, around ten different satellites replaced their own transmission with that of the Al-Jazeera’s, obstructing the efforts of Egyptian regime for preventing its people from watching Al-Jazeera which was acting as main nemesis. According to the staff of Al-Jazeera, they have been working round the clock, 24/7, for ensuring that they are broadcasting on different frequencies (Mansour, 2012, 134). Certainly, there were different powers who did not want their footages and images pushing reforms and democracy to be viewed by citizens. This is the reason why Al-Jazeera emerged as a central player in the entire dramatic revolution. Unlike other local channels, Al-Jazeera captured the feelings and portrayed the hopes and expectations of the people gathering on the streets to protests.
Al-Jazeera was always criticised due to numerous reason. Among other factors, one is the lack of objectivity and impartiality in covering the unfolding happenings and events in Libya and Syria. Initially, Al-Jazeera was prevented by Syria and Libya from performing its job in doing coverage of the mass protests that was against their dictatorial leaders (Maalouf, 2008). In spite of that, the channel gave lot of space to the defenders and spokesperson for having their say and peddling their lies (Bradley, 2012, 100). A number of researchers believe that the current importance of the channel Al-Jazeera has become even stronger after the coverage of revolutions, leading towards the resignation of regimes (Bradley, 2012, 100). The channel not just reflected in real-time fashion about what has been happening and what events have been occurring from Egypt to Tunisia, but it has actually contributed in creating the revolution. Al-Jazeera is viewed by supporters and critics more as a committed and dedicated for bringing change than the impartially dispassionate chronicle events. The common values which were the base of the revolutions were the values which were promulgated by Al-Jazeera, if not introduced. These values were based on street politics, freedom of association, and freedom of speech and expression (Hofheinz, 2011, 1420).

Role of New Media in Arab Uprisings
With the emergence of social media, which was through MySpace, has drastically changed the way people communicate with each other. Even though, MySpace has slowly gone down, now, Facebook and Twitter taking over as the new dominant social media by using propelling internet-based communication methods. It has not just reshaped the relationships; it is also reshaped the way entire nation is communicating (Flamini, 2011, 225). It has provided a platform for those who were looking for their own voice to present their ideas and views, acting as an outlet to expressions bringing together people who have similar visions and ideas. Since social media has become a part of the life everyone’s life and Arab World is no exception to this phenomena.
Conversations and discussion on political topics on blogs showed the popularity of opinion sharing in Egypt and Tunisia. In the case of Tunisia, discussion about democracy, revolution and democracy on blogs and social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, often have immediately lead to a number of protests in Tunisia and Egypt, spreading up to other regions of Arab World (Khamis & Katherine, 2011, 82). Twenty percent of the blogs started evaluating the leadership of Ben Ali from the day he posted his resignation from the office, and around 5 percent of discussions started a month before the resignation (Khamis & Katherine, 2011, 82). Likewise, the main topic for these blogs was observed to be the revolution until the public protest of around 100,000 people eventually forced the leaders of old regime to resign.
Youngsters, high-tech literate activists have been using web-based communication across the Arab world for fulfilling three main purposes: leverage, organisation, and exposure (Korany & El-Mahdi, 2012, 145). The first purpose was to influence people and make them participate in these protests. New media communication tools were used for informing people in order to engage and involve people by influencing them. The second purpose was to organise, which means that these media and forums were used by youngsters for communicating and interacting with each others in order to plan and organize the events (protests). The third purpose was exposure of these events. Since, the youngsters were constantly communicating and spreading information using new media communication, specifically social media, therefore, these youngsters were utilising these platforms for increasing the expose of the [protests that were organized. As social media was the forum through which organiser could have reached to maximum number of people, they conveyed and spread information about the timings and places where these protests were held using new media communication. Through social media, general people were able to organise, interact and float the message about the protest program. It further contributed in interacting with maximum number of people.
People, specifically youngsters using social networks, made efforts in organising political and social movements, exposing the injustices carried out by governments, and leveraging external and internal stakeholders (i.e. general public) which acted as catalysts for uprisings. Social networking websites enabled flow of communication across cultural, linguistic and geopolitical barriers (Gelvin, 2012, 89). This tool of communication enabled the youngsters and other activists and leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, West Bank, etc to organise the revolutionary protests in new ways by developing online communities for the supporters as well as for those using networks to bring individuals and groups into rally and on streets, internationally supporting the cause. This helped people, specifically organisers, to communicate at a wider level by increasing their reach over the social media. As the Smartphone and mobile devices have been commonly used, protesters were easy to bring together on notice of a moment or single message (Eko, 2012, 112). This type of organisation of events was only possible through a network which was vigilant and instant so that the message was communicated and circulated immediately. In addition to this, the groups were able to create, collaborate and share content to apparently a limitless and an extended audience. Through social media, the young activist’s ability for organising by the help technology has brought the nature movements and civilian actions to a new level and has given them a voice which was not heard previously (Eko, 2012, 112). Earlier, people used to communicate through telegraphs and telephones, therefore, it was not easy to arrange and engage people at wide level for protests. Nowadays, due to extensively defined communication tools, it has become easier for everyone to communicate and spread message at a wider span, hence, it became easier for people to organise the protests in less time and at a large span during Arab uprisings.
Web and internet based communication media, including Youtube, blogs and RSS for unofficial, non-governmental personal narratives to be widely consumed and exposed. The Internet is usually used for is to share opinions, views and ideas through wide range of platforms. The blogs from activists and citizens have exposed the violence that perpetrated by opaque leadership (Korany & El-Mahdi, 2012, 132). In case of Arab uprisings, with the increased usage of social media, government tries to ban the social media sites (such as Twitter, Facebook, etc). It was very difficult and they could not attempt this because there were so many people using these websites that it seemed that this would cause more problems for them.
Using computers and mobile phones, the young activist across the Arab nation has changed the way the world used to approach mobilization, internet freedom and social networks (Chebib & Sohail, 2011, 88). This means that using social media for these purposes, the activists have given the people a new way of raising their voices and sharing their views. The social media was used as an influential vehicle for driving change in the Arab world in the form of Arab uprisings, demonstrating the power of Internet based communication, making a stronger case leading towards freedom of expression and Internet usage (Dellarocas, 2003, 1410). The Arab spring, also commonly known as Uprisings in Arab world, was a beginning of a catastrophic shift in shaping up off Arab World. Although, majority of the political structures and demarcations between the states were same, it was what the inside structure that has significantly changed and been reshaped (Beer & Burrows, 2010, 12).
Uprisings were not just caused as a result of social media solely, but it would more appropriate to state that social media was not the cause of these uprisings, it acted as a medium through which information and news about the uprisings was communicated and it was a reason which led to increased participation and involvement of people in these protests. Social media played a fascinating and powerful role in one of the largest non-violent socio-economic process in the history of Arab world. It would be impossible for just Twitter and Facebook to ignite the entire nation for rising and protesting against their leaders. Social media provided a platform through which maximum people can communicate and non-violently protests against their leaders. The people living in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria were already much oppressed and deeply hurt, even though each with different types of governments, in various ways and in various manners (Salmon, Fernandez & Post, 2010, 162). Social media acted as a single source through which they can bring together the people having similar opinions and views. Through social media, the youngsters who were unemployed in Egypt and Tunisia were able to express their views and anxiety. On the other hand, deeply repressed of freedom, people in Libya and Syria were able to share their views driving the uprisings and motivating each other to stand up against their leaders having deadly outcomes (Salmon, Fernandez & Post, 2010, 162).
To be precise, it is important to analyse the way we are communicating in such events if historical transformations and crisis. The medium through which message is created and delivered, defines and shapes the consequences. The instantaneous nature of social media and how people can immediately communicate self-broadcasted ideas, unlimited posts, broadcasting new slots, and publication deadlines, provides and explanation for the speed and faster rate at which these revolutions and protests have spread, which seemed to be almost vital throughout the Arab region (Korany & El-Mahdi, 2012, 122). Furthermore, it explained the non-hierarchical and often loose organisation of the protests and riots that were unconsciously carried and based on the social networks. Non-hierarchical as these events were not arranged through any defined level of authorities or chain of command.
Claims were made that the powerful representation of social media in stimulating revolution and protests had lent themselves to the charge of technological determinism and media centrism (Flamini, 2011, 231). These claims were observed to be true as social media was used actively by youngsters for motivating and influencing people to come on streets and fight for their rights.
According to Sami Ben Ghabia, a Tunisian blogger explained that most of the content sharing about the revolutions and protests was done using Facebook and Twitter, which was then gathered, interpreted and reposted on different websites. The most significant part in this entire process is the way people used to perceive the message. For this, it was very important for the people to use appropriate medium to convey their message in a way that would influence people. Social networking websites are considered to be effective medium through which messages are presented and conveyed for the purpose of leveraging. This also influenced the way people interpret and perceive the meaning the out of the message. These websites and posts on social media networks were set up to dissent voices of Tunisian people and produce in exile, and then pass them through social media networks and blogs (cited in Ghannam, 2011: 16). Since social networks were easily accessible by the majority of the people, individuals and groups constantly updated the links and information to crowd-sourcing maps. It provided everyone an overview, might not be authentic many times, of what is happening on the streets.
If the content would have been just limited or restricted to one social network, the people of certain groups would be the one accessing to the information and it would not have been disseminated in the ways which proved to be crucial for the media coverage (Ghannam, 2011: 16). For instance, if the news and information would have only been shared on Facebook, then only people using this site would be able to access the news about the events and participate in them. Therefore, various social networks were accessed and used for sharing opinions, views and information about the protests and riots being held in different parts of the Arab region. This also helped in widening the communication channels, thereby reaching a lot of people in short time.
According to Verma (2011), social media has not just been the core reason for the major protests events, but it has also lead some of the biggest news of 2011, from occupy Wall Street to the Arab uprisings. Digital media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, have been considered as the new medium of communication for the year as they gave rise to new generation and new wave of activism (Verma, 2011). Through these social media, events and stories of the uprisings- online mobilization share a common thread.
According to report presented by Dubai School of Government observed that social media tools have been playing a significant role, rather a critical role in the drastic changes widely occurring across the Arab World. The statement might be true in a sense that social media has not been used for negatively influencing people, rather it was used for encouraging people to raise their voices and join their country people in order to protest against the government to resolve their problems. Social media was playing an important part for communication purposes. The reports noted that the Arab Uprisings did not just have an impact on the government; instead it also influenced the business sector (Gelvin, 2012, 100). When the people from Egypt were asked as to where they were getting the information and news about the events during the Arab Spring, 94.3 percent of the respondents stated that they get information from the social networks, more than any other medium is providing up till now. There report provided following statistics for the Facebook users during the years 2010-2011. According to the stats, it is observed that the number of Facebook users have increased in Arab region from 2010 to 2011. This shows that during the time of protests, more and more people were suing Facebook in order to share and obtain information.

Source: (socialbakers.com)

(Source: Dubai School of Government, 2011)
The above presented table show stats of Facebook users during 2011, indicating that the number of users in Arab region increased to the level of that in West. It was observed that people used means of social media for contacting with each other and they were gathered whenever and wherever it was required and planned. Social media surprisingly changed the overall scenario of revolution within the Arab region. It was used as a weapon against the Arab leaders and it is expected to work in the same way in future activities. According to Hussain (2011), it would not be wrong to stated that social media is the sophisticated weapon or is a type of modern tool that bring changes across the globe and be helpful in compelling a leader to let go of his regime and government. The rising of social media and its new use by activists has played a crucial role in empowering, mobilizing, influencing change and shaping up the opinions (Filiu, 2011, 58). It was also stated that most of the protests called in the Arab region were initially made using twitter and Facebook, and therefore, are considered to be among the factors which mobilized the revolutions and movements. The use of social media in the Arab World swelled between January and April. New media is so powerful way of communication that majority of these planned protests ended up coming to life on the streets. These reports show that social media assisted and helped if not enabled the region-wide 2011 historic uprisings in the Arab World.
In the 21st century, the protests revolution might not be covered through television as the government might be in power to ban the channel or it may be influential enough to mould the perspective of the programmes on-aired on channels, but it will be blogged, posted, texted, tweeted and organized through different social networks and blogging websites, suggested through recent experiences. A new research Bradley (2012), analysed more than 3 million tweets, thousands of blogs, and gigabytes content on YouTube and observed that social media has played a vital role in shaping up the political debates and discussion with respect to Arab Uprisings. Discussions and opinions about the protests and revolution often lead major events, and social media carrying and posting inspirational stories about protesters across the national borders (Bradley, 2012, 101). According to the study’s analyses, it was suggested that social media contained a flow of instant messages about the democracy and freedom across the Middle Eastern and Northern African regions and enabled an increase in the expectations of a successful political uprisings. All the general public who was interested in democracy developed substantial social networks and were interested in bringing used social media for organising the political actions. Based on different studies conducted by researchers, it is analysed that social media has become a crucial part of the toolkit that is used for acquiring freedom of expression. According to an analysts Kathleen Carley (as cited by Mansour, 2012), carried out an assessment by developing and using intelligent software for going through different articles based on Arab Springs (Mansour, 2012, 159). This research was to examine the influence of social media on people during the Arab uprisings. Similar to this research, there are number of other researches that argued that the social media influence did not act as causal for the revolution. It contributed as for telling and communicating the message to people providing information about where they should go in order to join protests. Carley argued that it was the impact of social relations rather than social networks. This means that the increasing awareness among people was not because many people were using social networks; it was because many people were involved into social relations leading to spread a significant amount of word of mouth. Some analysts (Mansour, 2012, 159) believed that social media did not act as a catalyst; instead the events which were communicated and shared were acting as a catalyst.
People were able to posts latest information and news on Twitter and Facebook, and posts latest videos on Youtube and Facebook (Pollack, 2011, 155). There was extensive material and content shared on Facebook and Twitter, including blogs where people discussed the reasons and opinions for the revolution. Blogs helps in providing a platform through which activists were able to initiate discussion and invite people for protest to different places. Different blogs written by Natematias (2011) on MIT Centre for Media focused on identifying the media representation during Arab Uprisings; Strenger (2011), on Homo Globalis focusing on the Arab Uprisings, etc. most of the blogs written by general public, specifically youngsters, were based on the impact of using social media in Arab Uprisings. Upon analysing the content available on blogs, it was observed that people were observing and perceiving the situation and events constantly. They shared their opinions and what they expect from these protests. According to a research conducted by Filiu (2011), it was observed that the extent to which the essence of freedom has been facilitated by social networks’ powerful influence in delivering the messages related to political activities, ideology, formation of various parties, and information about potential candidates. Using Youtube, the activists can easily upload the relevant videos to spread the awareness regarding the political activities, while Twitter is related with spreading messages across the millions of people nationally and globally just as Facebook.

Use of Social Media by Al-Jazeera
Once the revolution began, the channel started featuring more than what it traditionally featured. Along with its own reporting transmission, all through the Arab uprisings, Al-Jazeera continuously aggregated content from social media, reproducing Facebook content, repurposing videos from Youtube and delivered Twitter messages to its viewers on television (Filiu, 2011, 59). As many people across the Arab world still do not have complete accessibility to the Internet, Al-Jazeera bridged the gap of communication for them by providing them with latest information and news coverage. Although, being accused of biasness and stopped by a number of government’s supporters, the channel was observed to transmit the actual situation (Eko, 2012, 142). The channel adopted different means through which it could continue providing information and news to the people, specifically to those who are not able to access the Internet and social media networks. Al-Jazeera quickly took a stand and supported protesters form Tunisia and their demands, as well. For instance, it enabled people to post blogs and comment on the blogs using Twitter and Facebook. As the demonstrations and protests became intense, the channel dropped out its regular transmission and scheduling, opting for an open platform for broadcasting images and latest news from Tunisia as it was coming online. The audience from Tunisia used to follow their revolution on the channel, making the station more popular in Tunisia, as it was the only trustworthy and authentic television media considered by the Arab people (McCaffrey, 2012, 160). During the revolutions, Al-Jazeera banners were raised by Tunisians for praising the efforts made by the channel.
According to Korotayev (2011), new media and mainstream media, were seen working in collaborative cycle, with social media acting as a watchdog for different states controlling the media nationally in various ways, and altering the news from international media to increase the dissent and opposition events, such as banning different sites and television channels. Al-Jazeera, as a mainstream media started distributing a flood of disturbing reports, videos and images of the revolutions and uprisings which were easily accessible through Google and Youtube rebounding them back into the countries which were concerned and related to the events (Eko, 2012, 144). Al-Jazeera also used the new social media in different ways to significantly integrate direct links of the news and videos, which has been practiced in West by other journalist. It effectively acted as a medium to provide up to date information, updated flow of communication, and also providing live-streaming of the protests and the images which were obtained directly from the events.

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION

The research was focused on analyzing the role of Al-Jazeera and new media in the coverage of Arab uprisings. According to the studies analyzed, the Arab uprisings have been one of the most significant revolutions in the history of Arab World. Revolts in Arab World were significantly caused for bringing a change in the regime against the autocratic leaders, who have been ruling the Arab countries for decades, stifled media, tolerated little dissent and ruling through an intrusive intelligence agencies and iron-fisted security programs. Youth bulge, corruption, increasing use and communication through social media, assertive military establishments, and unemployment are some of the factors that lead the civilians towards desperation and aggressiveness. The middle class people were looking towards political role model to step in and save them from the problems. The major factors were discussed under the heading of reasons for protests in 2011. This section provided detailed information of various factors, such as poverty, unemployment, food prices, economic gap, and governmental rule and legislations that led the people towards increased frustration and, eventually protests. The youth became angry with increasing poverty, and rising gap between the poor and the rich in Egypt and Tunisia, and initiated people discussion for bringing down the regime of the leaders and make them resign. The protests and riots that began the Arab uprisings in 2010 became successful in overthrowing the Libya, Egyptian and Tunisia regimes. These riots have also been suppressed in some of the states or increased escalating into war in other countries. In the case of Syria, government forces and insurgents were waging a civil war which started having equal level of hatred and savagery as in the case of civil war in Iraq and Lebanon.
Since 2011, the Arab Uprising has introduced a different way for perceiving role of social media and televisions networks can play by information sharing. The image of self-immolation of the Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi launched an outcry against the disrespect and humiliation of civilians in the hand of authoritarian leaders and their apparatus for security; this resulted in a number of questions and reforms rising about the future of Arab countries. Central to the revolutions that overthrew the regimes of Egypt and Tunisia that pressed the reformation and change to be brought in other countries across the region, a major role is played by new media in sharing and translating the ideas in cyberspace and bringing them to real-life actions on the streets. Given the youth bulge in Arab World, modern technology and social media was used for organising and informing people about the protests held to bring the political changes in the countries. Due to their previous experience with the control of government over the mainstream media and the content of transmissions, youngsters in the country were more likely to seek for information and news, and express their views on the Internet. They generally find it to be more accurate and reliable and less controlled by the government. Some of the significant highlights in these Arab Uprisings were the peaceful and dedicated non-violent demands and protests, having a mixture of female and male leaders and participation from different sects, refusing to involve and engage into political and religious rhetoric reminiscent of previous events. Majority of the demands during the protests were for having a freedom of expression, expanded political and human rights and participation, resolution for the economic challenges that have led to increase in underemployment and unemployment, and an end to authoritarian and corruption. Even though, using social media for bringing political changes appears to be comparatively a new idea, the seeds of activism has been already sown consistently since the past two decades with the increasing importance and use of the Internet, end of control of government over the mainstream media, and the increasing availability of new ways in which individuals have been acquiring freedom of expression. Certainly, the sense of empowerment and freedom of expression has most significantly come through the ability of using cyberspace as a platform for sharing information in a way which was not possible earlier. Social media has provided a platform for assembling the ideas, complaints, concerns and share frustrations and desperation. Platforms like Facebook pages, Blogs, Tweets, posting of invitations on social networks, were different ways in which people have been communicating about the events and inviting people to join these protests. Social media also provided an opportunity to bring people together on one platform (media), develop strategies and plan for bringing a change in the country. as against the restrictions that were applied on televisions channels, cyberspace provided a limitless range of medium where maximum number of people could be approached.
It was observed through an extensive literature review that social media has played a significant role in Arab Uprisings. According to some, it was one of the reasons for igniting the revolts, as people were using social media networks, more commonly Facebook (Husain, 2011), Twitter and blogs, for discussing, planning, and organizing protests and inviting people using their contacts and their contacts and informing them about the protests. On the other hand, some of the researchers analysed various factors (such as poverty, unemployment, economic gap, uneven class divisions, food prices growth, racism etc) and highlighted that social media was not the only cause leading towards protests. It provided a platform through which social interactions became a reason for increasing the revolts and protests.
Furthermore, this research also highlighted the role of Al-Jazeera as one of the most active medium in Arab Uprisings. Although, Al-Jazeera did not play extensive role equal to social media, but to some extent it has played part an important role in informing and sharing news. Al-Jazeera’s journalists and reporters have made numerous efforts for providing latest information and up to date coverage about the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts. It was analysed through literature analysis that Al-Jazeera also used social media for collecting information and gathering footages on the protests and areas where the channel was not allowed to access. Al-Jazeera acted as one of the major source of information for civilian of Arab as it was one of the most reputable, credible and oldest Arabic television and the highest number of viewership. The channel had a reach to even those people who were not able to access the Internet. Hence, it was viewed by majority of people in the Arab region for watching latest news and obtaining information about where the protests were taking place. In this way, it also increased the number of protesters and activists. Although, the channel was accused of showing bias in case of Libya and Syria, it has played a powerful and influential part in bringing down of regime in Egypt and Tunisia. On the other hand some of the researchers stated that Al-Jazeera is one of the most reliable sources of new information for the people in Arab. It was also observed that Al-Jazeera is the only channel which took several measures just to provide information to its viewers about the revolution. It collected information from Facebook and footages from Facebook and Youtube and also gave information to the people about where the protests were taking place so that maximum people could join the protests. Furthermore, it collected views and opinions of different journalists showing their point of view over the uprisings. Through this research, it was analysed that new media was one of the most commonly used platform, where Al-Jazeera as being a television channel also used social media during these protests. Furthermore it was also observed that the number of users on Facebook and Twitter substantially increased, as more and more people were using social networks for providing and sharing information with each other. Furthermore, blogged were used by people especially by activists for initiating discussion and igniting the feel and enthusiasm among the people.
Through different studies and literature, it has been observed that social media was not the cause leading to Arab Uprisings; rather it was a significant medium of communicating and informing people about the protests and riots that were held during the Arab Spring.

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