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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 the audiences who use these channels frequently. The key areas where social media could have strong potential include the increasing awareness among target groups of audiences; embracing a level of online ‘engagement’; increasing access to non-formal education; strengthening and mobilizing networks and amplifying the voice of individuals. 2. How do social media work?

Anyone who has Internet access can setup an account (Twitter of Facebook) and register (it is free and only takes a few minutes). A Tweet/face book message can be written online via the Twitter/ Facebook Platform, on a smartphone or computer or via many other means.
The key feature of social media is that it provides a real time means of communicating with the world. Once a user has an account, and then he can find users who are discussing topics of interest, such as peace, politics, movies, music, and much more. One of the most useful aspects of such media is that users can be constantly found new friends and sources of news, arguments and support.
The collaborative nature of social media allows users to connect with people they might not otherwise meet. This sharing of information, ideas and resources ultimately creates an increased level of awareness among users because their learning and knowledge base expands as does their ability to produce more information. It relies on the natural desire and need of human beings to interact and fulfill the need for socialization and reaching out to other people.It is evident that each element of the digital technology used in communication has a particular function and collectively they work to serve the purpose of the user.
The internet is useful for information dissemination and news gathering, social media for connecting and coordinating groups and individuals, mobile phones for taking photographs of what is happening and making it available to a wide global audience and satellite television for instant global reporting of events. For a revolting group which is not satisfied with their political systems, all of these digital tools allow them to bring together remote and often different groups around specific cause and give them channels to bypass the conventional media, which is usually controlled by the ruling system and unwilling to broadcast any news of civil unrest and opposition to the government.
The Information can rapidly reach the protesters through fast internet interaction and the transfer of news and opinions through e.g. Twitter and Facebook. They can be informed about how to counteract the security forces as they tried to disperse the protesters, maps showing locations for protest meetings and practical advice about such things as what to do when teargas is used against groups of protesters. All of these things increased the pressure that the protest movements were able to exert on their governments. On the other hand, inaccurate messages can be problematic with social media, given the large number of people disseminating information with virtually no limits.
Social media has played key role in the Arab revolution -what was known as Arab Spring. This paper will shed light on the experience of Egypt and Tunisia. 3. The experience of Egypt and Tunisia

According to Malcolm, 2010, “Social media can’t provide what social change has always required” meaning the direct contact and the feeling of being together. His position is based on real evidence from the African American revolution that took place during the in the early sixties , and started by four college students sat down at the lunch counter –allocated for whites only- at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. Malcolm indicated that these events became a civil-rights war that went through the Southern states of the US and continued for the rest of the decade. He argued that; those protests had happened without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter.
Although this example shows clearly the role of direct communication in synthetizing groups and individuals around a genuine case and motivate them to act, but it doesn’t necessarily minimize the role of social media in performing the same function in a different time. The internet is the tool of today and the significance of social media tools can best be appreciated if placed within the context of culture and perception towards the media in the Arab world. It is evident that during the last ten years, the Arab region has witnessed a high rate of technology transfer and adoption amongst all developing nations. This has largely facilitated the wide use of the social media and the rapid spread of the revolutionary messages during the Arab spring, leading to the uprisings that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011.
Malcolm Gladwell mentioned that Twitter and Facebook may have been used by demonstrators to communicate during the recent uprisings in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, but it isn’t clear they were crucial in any way to the revolutions there. Malcolm Gladwell goes on to argue that other similar events have taken place in the past — including the demonstrations in East Germany that eventually led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall — and they didn’t require any such tools. However, it is evident that the governments in Tunisia and Egypt were aware of the increasing impacts of social media in the people’s perceptions towards their governance and the subsequent social movements and riots. As a result, both the governments in Tunisia and Egypt got very unhappy about the exchanges of the aggressiveness pictured in the media and shared by different groups, showing the repression of the protests by government security forces. Both governments tried to block the social-networking sites. In Tunisia, it resulted in a negative impact, as more and more followers started to protest and joined the streets demonstrations, until finally, the Tunisian president, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, was forced to change his strategy. He then apologized for blocking the sites and reopened them. Under the increasing pressures from the demonstrators, he offered to open talks with the protesting groups but by that time it was too late to save his government. He resigned on 16 January and an interim coalition government was set up. The social media played its part in the success of the revolution and set the example for others to follow.
Malcolm further argued that historically people has protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented and before the Internet. This is still a weak argument and can’t be used to defeat the strong effect of social media. The role of social media is also evident in the Egyptian revolution in the 2011. The initial organization started through the use of social media where youth started to send out messages against Mbarack regime. This was followed by thousands who demonstrated in the streets of the major cities in Egypt, Cairo, Port Saied and Alexandria. The demonstrators protest against poverty, unemployment, government corruption, and the long-term rule of 30year by President Hosni Mubarak. They raised a number of demands including the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the end of emergency law, and a call for freedom, justice, a democratically –elected government that will improve the equity and equality in the country Alexander, A. (2011).

Similar to Tunisia the government started by blocking the internet and started suppressing the demonstration who decided to keep to their places in Tahrir Square. The increasing pressures bushed Mubarak to declare that he won’t run for reelection in September, followed by the return of the internet service. The pressures increased and finally Mubarak stepped down and the Egyptians celebrated an overwhelming and a historical achievement.

4. Conclusion
From the above case studies, it is evident that social media can be a very strong and effective tool in shaping the opinions of the public around specific cause. By clicking the “like” button in the key board, you are actually translating the idea/opinion into action and reaction.
Although I disagree with Malcolm position regarding the role of social media in the Arab revolution, I tend to agree with him that social media also has its limitations in the sense that it can provide temporary link and ties that individuals share via social media could not be as strong as the ties and connections characterizing direct personal relationships. For example Malcolm argued that, Facebook may be enough to pursue a representative to vote a particular way on an issue, but not enough to force that representative to resign, stressing that traditional relationships are the most efficient mechanism through which these ties are realized. I also think that personal relationships is based more on the good recognition of the other individual and hence the mutual confidence and respect which are the foundation for lasting relations and connections. Other limitations of social media are; the big gap in the level of participation of social media users. Getting a thousand likes on a Facebook page does not necessarily translate into one thousand mobilized protesters. One common problem is the difficulty to control the information and messages. Of course, the basics of the social media are the ability of anyone to engage, freely and without restrictions on the on-going discussions and voting. This is true even if some use of the media space is used to spread incorrect information. And some users are simply not reasonable or rational and use the anonymity as a means to see how outlandish a message they can post.
In addition, the social media lacks privacy and security (Gray, 2012; Lindsay, 2011). The means by which data can be collected, retained and mined for other purposes is not coordinated or controlled, in addition to the fact that what is posted on the Internet cannot be removed. Errors can be recalled, but are not erased.

References
Malcolm Gladwell, October 4, 2010 Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true&currentPage=all#ixzz32R6ERkiB Alterman, Jon B. “The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2011): 103-116.
Axford, Barrie. “Talk About a Revolution: Social Media and the MENA Uprisings.” Globalizations, Vol. 8, No. 5 (October 2011): 681-686
Alexander, A. (2011, February 9). Internet role in Egypt’s protests. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12400319 Greg Miller. (2011, February 4). Senators question intelligence agencies’ anticipation of Egypt uprising. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/ content/article/2011/02/03/AR2011020305388.html?nav=emailpage El Amrani, I. (2011, January 28). Urgent: Egypt has shut off the Internet. Arabist. Retrieved from http://www.arabist.net/blog/2010/6/14/the-murder-of-khaled-said.html
Essam El-Din, G. (2011, April 17). The coincidental rise and momentous fall of Hosni Mubarak. Ahram online. Retrieved from http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/
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