...The Role of New Media in Arab Uprisings: Al-Jazeera focus by [Author’s Name] [Faculty Name] [Department or School Name] [Month Year] ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible. DECLARATION I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University. Signed __________________ Date _________________ ABSTRACT This research is focused on analysing the role played by Social media in the Arab Uprisings. During l8-day period, the Egyptian protesters succeeded to a large extent in achieving maximum publicity and attracting the attention of the world by mobilizing news media coverage of their protests. The role of media is to provide information and communicate messages to others. Media played a significant role in ringing political changes to the countries belonging to Arab region. Since a long time, the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other countries were facing problems due to the unequal and biased policies developed in the country by the leaders. These riots turned out to be an outcome of the frustrations and annoyance which were filling up the people...
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...Role of Al Jazeera in the Arab Spring Since December 2010, the entire Arab world has gone through major political transformation. Monarchies that had enjoyed absolute power for hundreds of years have been overthrown; some are in the process to be overthrown and other state leaderships have adopted some flexibility in their system of administration to protect themselves. The public revolt against the state leadership, popularly known as the ‘Arab Spring’ or the ‘Arab Awakening’ “took everyone by surprise not because people had no reason to revolt” (Khanfer 2012, p. 2) but because it took unprecedented scope and speed. An act of self immolation by a street vendor in Tunisia in a show of public revolt against corrupt government not just toppled centuries old dictatorial regime but also became a source of inspiration for Arab masses to revolt against their governments. “The self-immolation triggered unrest in Tunisia and ultimately the resignation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. This was followed by unrest in a number of Arabian countries that the global press dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’” (Friedman 2011). So far, the spring breeze has entered into 20 countries in the Persian Gulf and the North Africa. Four countries—Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen—have overthrown their governments. Algeria, Iraq, Iranian Khuzestan, Israeli border areas have witnessed major protests. Syria has landed in a civil war. Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon have gone through protests and governmental...
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...In this era of the new and social media, does it really matter who owns the `mainstream’ media? “It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.” (Clemens, 1897) Foreword According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights written up by the United Nations, its states that, “Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people” (UN, 1948). Articles 19 to 21 specifically target the freedom of thought, conscience and belief of human rights that a Democratic government must abide by and Egypt is no exception. Arab Spring Turmoil has been brewing in Egypt, causing great pain to its inhabitants, destroying homes and families and creating complete mayhem in the process. The first marked incident according to The Guardian is on the 1st of January 2011; a suicide bombing attempt took place outside a Coptic Church in Alexandria. By the 25th of January Egypt finally joined the Arab Spring alongside Tunisia, Yemen and Algeria. The ‘Arab Spring’ was an activist movement by several Middle-Eastern countries in an attempt at freedom from political and religious oppression and authoritarian...
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...Book Review: The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution Written By: Marwan Bishara Lilia Gomez INTL 5000 (Fall Semester) The book that I am reviewing is titled The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution. It is written by a well-known political analyst named Marwan Bishara. Mr. Bishara works for the Al Jeezera (the primary news channel for the Arab world) as a Senior Political Analyst. The book is in the perspective of an Arab and not by someone within the Western media/culture. He writes about the Arab revolutions and the history behind it. Mr. Bishara debunks several thoughts of how the Arab revolutions started and how the media (both Arabic and Western) have played a major role within these causes. Mr. Bishara’ book is self-described as an essay in which he reflects on the history of the revolutions up until present and how social media and the Arab youth population played a part. He credits the youth of being able to over throw decade old customs, governments, and regimes. In addition, he describes the rise of many positive organizations that formed because of the revolutions such as women’s groups, sports teams, and a higher employment rate. Although he praises the rise of these types of organizations, Mr. Bishara faults the lack of organization and commitment to principles as the basis of...
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...Through the history, there’s no conflict about reasons of the revolutions anywhere in the world. It might be social, economic or political reason. Almost the same reason for all revolutions of the modern age is different by depending on new mode of perception and sure communication and information technology was most effective factors in the modern revolution. Virtual reality now is the resort for Arab people ,where the virtual reality is the place that people can talk without fear ,can talk in different issues like politics and religions ,that they afraid to talk with it in actual reality(real life). Where in virtual reality we cannot physically reach it. They lived a utopia virtuality or what Paul virilio called “teletopai”, a utopia tele-medaited...
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...Censorship and the Chinese Communist Party: Sustainable Progress? The Communist Party of China despite the perceived benefits of Internet freedom has gone to great lengths to censor information and electronic communication of its people. Spending billions of dollars and a staggering amount of manpower, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to filter its Internet causing human rights activists and political dissidents to cry foul. However, the CCP has successfully found an impossible balance between censoring content they deem subversive while taking away the opportunity for horizontal mobilization against the party all the while still taking an approach that doesn’t completely ban access to the internet allowing China to not fall behind other internet oriented countries. Although many argue that electronic censorship of any kind is detrimental to human and political rights at the expense of the regime’s power, the CCP’s approach in selective censorship of the Internet while maintaining the growth of the Internet as a budding industry has proven largely successful. The Communist Party’s recognition of the Internet as one of China’s greatest assets paired with its selective censorship of its content and its users continues to solidify the CCP’s power as the single party of China. Its continuation of censorship bears positive implications for China politically in strengthening national sovereignty, economically in improving economic prosperity, and socially in protecting...
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...Social Media: Information Technology Abstract Social Media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, are universally known and present in parts of the world in today’s society. Social media have become such a part of many people daily activities that most couldn’t image living without it. It has brought many benefits to us, but also some pitfalls. Facebook monitors how third parties use your personal data, however, they also state they cannot guarantee “that third parties will follow Facebook’s privacy policy, if you don’t want your privacy violated, then you probably want to reconsider joining Facebook or other social networks. The definition of “privacy” is subjective, however, things like personal information such as name, living and working locations, job, career, education, income, relationship status, contact information, and bank information should be safeguarded at all costs to prevent things like stalking, identity theft, fraud, and other attempts to undermine a person’s life. It’s not all bad, Facebook has reunited family’s, long lost friends, and is helping police officers catch the bad guys, however, like anything, too much can be bad for you. More recently social media has been known as the tool that facilitated many uprising in Middle Eastern countries. It helped kick start a revolution known as the Arab Spring. Facebook was used to schedule activities such as gatherings to protest, Twitter was used to coordinate an array of events at a moment’s notice...
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...The Impact of Social Media in Marketing Management Journal of Business; ISSN 2233-369X; Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 The Impact of Social Media in Marketing Management Giorgi BAGATURIA* Margaret JOHNSON** Abstract The advent of the social media has brought about tremendous changes and advancement in the marketing process and has made it much better on the one hand and much worse on the other. However, nowadays, it has been widely accepted that social media is the next big trend in the marketing world and several studies have shown that these media or channels are often more effective than the traditional ones. Since the turn of the century, social media has steadily emerged ahead of the mass media as the most used media. Both print circulation and TV viewership have been falling consistently over the years; for instance, TV viewership has gone down almost 50% since 2002. In contrast, social media has reported massive gains since the early days of MySpace, with social media usage among U.S. adults increasing by 800% over the past eight years (Edwards, 2013). For marketers, this is a huge advantage because the rapid transition from mass to social media presents the opportunity to create impactful, relevant marketing messages. This data-powered personalized marketing approach is not only much more effective, but also more costefficient and scalable. Recently, social media has become a term synonymous with business marketing. Although still in its early stage, there is still so...
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...liberation ? a gathering whose motivation was the progressive foundation of genuine Financial, social, and political equity crosswise over sexual orientation and shading lines. CORE- ( Congress of Racial Equality) The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) got to be one of the main extremist associations in the early years of the American Civil Rights Movement. In the mid 1960s, CORE, working with other social liberties , dispatched a progression of activities: the Freedom Rides, went for integrating open offices, the Freedom Summer voter activation and the memorable 1963 March on Washington. March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington, was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and demanded civil and economic rights for African...
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...internet was once seen as a medium that diminished social capital (Kraut et al, 1998). Now it is seen as a way that maintains social contact (Wellman et al, 2001). In the article Opening Closed Regimes, the writers wondered whether Mohammed Bouazizi believed he would play such a role in releasing a wave of protest for democracy in the Arab world. His story of stepping in front of a civic building in Tunisia and setting himself on fire in protest of the government was one of many that were retold on social networking sites in ways that stirred protesters to organise protests and criticise their governments. (Howard et al, 2011). Residents of the Arab nations used social media to help inform Western news teams about events on the ground. Social networking helped put a human face on political power and became a causation of the Arab Spring. Of the online tools, social networking sites have experienced the most prolific growth (Diffley et al, 2011). People spend hours connecting to others on social networks (McGrath, 2010). This evolution of social networking could not escape the corporations’ attentions, which are in constant search for new instruments meant to help them increase their market shares (Chis and Talpos, 2011). Studies by Forrester research show that spending on social networking will increase from $455 million in 2008 to $3.1billion in 2014, a 335% increase (Horovitz, 2009). Based on the above, my paper will focus on how social networking has become an indispensable tool...
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...Terrorism: The War in Afghanistan. It was this state of chaos and confusion from which extremist governments like Taliban and fanatics like Osama bin Laden emerged. 86). similarly, their policies about marriage, divorce and other legal proceedings are also derived from their religion (Aronoff, p. He wanted to give back Germany its past glory and respect in front of the world, and for that he wanted to create more living space for Germans and thus he conquered the surrounding German speaking areas and created hatred among the leaders of those countries. This is the only way to co-exist peacefully in today’s world. This is important because it is seen in the past that attempts to bring democracy and socialism in the Arab world have failed so badly that it has made the people of the Arab world to denounce these ideas altogether. This attack is important not only because of how widespread it was; but it is also important because of the way it changed the course of the West towards Islam. With that, the West needs to incentivize the Muslim world to adopt democracy and liberalism so that they see the benefits of these systems themselves. ISLAM AND THE WEST – AN INTRODUCTION Islam and the West are different entities in many ways, but because of the globalization in the world; we see that there is an increasing interaction between these two entities, which becomes a reason for conflict in many situations. Modernization, liberalism and globalization are appreciated. This does not mean acquiring...
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...James Petz The Tunisian Revolution: The Beginning of the Arab Spring In Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries, revolutions have broken out. The Tunisian revolution, or the “Jasmine Revolution,” was the start of the Arab Spring, or the collective term for these modern revolutions in the Middle East. I chose to study and write about the Tunisian Revolution because I am very interested in Middle Eastern and modern studies. In my contemporary global studies class, we briefly studied modern revolutions, but I would like to research more on this topic. These revolutions are still causing chaos today, which is part of the reason it is so interesting to me. To start my research, I came up with a few questions about the revolutions, which guided my research. These questions were: Why did the citizens start to revolt? What is happening during the aftermath of the revolution? What effect does this revolution (Tunisian) have on other countries? Why has Tunisia succeeded while other countries have not had the same success? These questions were very helpful when it came to doing research. While doing my research some websites were helpful, when others did not have quite the same usefulness. The two best sources that I used for my research were Britannica and Aljazeera. These sources had great insight on the revolution in Tunisia, especially the Aljazeera article “Political Violence and the Efforts to Salvage Tunisia’s Revolution.” Aljazeera has even sent field agents...
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...y 1. Introduction Social media is gaining more and more acceptance and popularity as a practical and strategic method for communication and organization among wider group of people, making it an ideal platform for popular use. This paper attempts to stress the role of social media in shaping opinions and motivating collective actions. It draws example from the recent Arab revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. In this regard, the paper will debate the arguments made by Malcolm T. Gladwell, is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, peaker and a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. Malcolm was critisized by many Arab activists because of his contradictory views regarding the role of social media in the Arab Springas he made it clearly that he doesn’t think such tools amount to much. In an online chat that Malcolm Gladwell did for the New Yorker's website , he explicitly stated that the internet can be an effective tool for political change when used by grassroots organisations as opposed to a core crop of activated individuals. Thus, simply showing that the internet was used to publicize, and even organise protests in the Middle East does nothing to counter his argument. The paper would argue that social media could be very strong and powerful communications tool for a particular group of audiences as well as the general public. One value of using social media is that it is simple and can easily be used by various channels to deliver messages that are unique to...
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...Case Study: Facebook 1) In my country of origin, Morocco, Facebook is used primarily by people from 15 to 35 years old. The social network played a big part in the outburst of social revolts referred to as “Arab Spring”, since it was one of the only mediums for the people to keep their freedom of speech in times of tyranny. But it also has a couple drawbacks, in my opinion, the major one being the lack of control of users over their own personal data. This can represent a big inconvenience in some situations such as applying for a job. Nowadays, with employers making sure to search deeper and deeper into their recruits’ past and present social networking activities, any mistake a person might have made, even a long time ago, could come back and haunt him for the rest of his life. I think that the social network, by promoting freedom of speech and allowing people to keep in touch with their loved ones, even though in today’s globalized world it’s easier than ever to be far from them, is a great tool for the people of a developing country like Morocco. However in years to come, the emphasis should be on the challenge that is personal data encryption and protection, as well as user awareness on theses issues. 2) Faced with the need to define their approach to global expansion, Facebook chose to remain loyal to its values, in order to keep their international credibility as well as to justify their extraordinary IPO ambitions. The company is looking for market with a...
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...Case Study: Facebook 1) In my country of origin, Morocco, Facebook is used primarily by people from 15 to 35 years old. The social network played a big part in the outburst of social revolts referred to as “Arab Spring”, since it was one of the only mediums for the people to keep their freedom of speech in times of tyranny. But it also has a couple drawbacks, in my opinion, the major one being the lack of control of users over their own personal data. This can represent a big inconvenience in some situations such as applying for a job. Nowadays, with employers making sure to search deeper and deeper into their recruits’ past and present social networking activities, any mistake a person might have made, even a long time ago, could come back and haunt him for the rest of his life. I think that the social network, by promoting freedom of speech and allowing people to keep in touch with their loved ones, even though in today’s globalized world it’s easier than ever to be far from them, is a great tool for the people of a developing country like Morocco. However in years to come, the emphasis should be on the challenge that is personal data encryption and protection, as well as user awareness on theses issues. 2) Faced with the need to define their approach to global expansion, Facebook chose to remain loyal to its values, in order to keep their international credibility as well as to justify their extraordinary IPO ambitions. The company is looking for market with a...
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