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Social media and arab spring essay
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Social Media and Its Effectiveness in the Arab Spring According to the data from the Arab Social Media Report in 2011 by Mourtada and Salem, the amount of social media usage increased immensely during the Arab Spring period from January 1st to March 30th. The number of Facebook users in the Arab nations almost doubled, up from 14,791,972 (as of April 2010) to 27,711,503 (as of April 2011) (Mourtada and Salem 9). Similarly, in the first three months of 2011, the number of tweets increased from 55 million to 155 million a day (Mourtada and Salem 15). This increase in social media usage was used to spread awareness regarding the Arab Spring revolution. The Arab Spring was a series of democratic revolutions in the Middle East that resulted in …show more content…
According to Fahim in "Slap to a Man’s Pride Set Off Tumult in Tunisia," on Dec. 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, a street vendor, placed himself on fire after a policewoman embarrassed him in public and foreclosed his fruit stand. After a few weeks, the images of Bouazizi in flames were released to the internet by Shamseddine Abidi, a 29-year old interior designer. Abidi posted the images on his Facebook page, which led to news of the unrest was spreading quickly on Arabic television channels, as well as the foreign news channels (Fahim 5). Similar to Bouazizi in Tunisia, in Preston’s "Movement Began With Outrage and a Facebook Page That Gave It an Outlet," a picture of Khaled Mohamed Said’s bruised face was spread on the internet by Said 's family and caused an enormous outcry in Egypt. When Wael Ghonim, a Middle East marketing director for Google, publicized the frightful images of Khaled Mohamed Said’s dead body on the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said,” the webpage quickly drew the attention of up to 500,000 subscribers (Storck 22). Another example of the effect of social media is the Syrian refugees ' crisis in 2015, which American media do not cover very much. However, through abundant images that were posted on my friends’ Facebooks, I know this is a serious humanitarian crisis. Social media has …show more content…
For example, the protest lasted eighteen days in Egypt 2011; the activists and protesters used Twitter to organize and arrange their uprisings. Twitter helped the protesters immediately inform and alert each other to police movements. According to Mourtada and Salem, the most common trending hashtags across the Arab region in the first three months of 2011 was ‘#egypt’ with 1.4 million mentions (16). By including ‘#egypt’ in their tweets, any Twitter users could involve and coordinate in the Egyptian demonstrations. As a result, the volume of tweets ‘#egypt’ increased extremely. Another example, according to data from "Bahrain Internet Usage and Telecommunications Report" by Internet World Statistics 2010, Bahrain stays on the top countries terms of Internet high penetration with "a penetration rate of 88%" (2). Consequently, activists take advantage of social media when they need to organize protesters. In the documentary film Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark by Al Jazeera in 2011, tens of thousands demonstrators came out on the streets and gathered in the heart of the capital, Pearl Roundabout, to rage against the ruling Khalifa family. Social media has not only helped protesters hold online discussions, but also organize a mass
The issues of how technology is influencing our nation today has come into play with social media and surveillance in our personal lives. We use twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. to express our opinions on things and as a voice to inform people on what’s going on in today’s society. We have learned how to use the tools we’ve been given to change our lives forever; our government has access to all of our personal information in exchange for our protection against terrorism. In Bijan Stephen’s article on “Black Lives Matter” and Rebecca McKinnon’s chapter on “the Arab Spring”, they both touch on the power of technology in negative and positive ways.
The article named “spring awakening” wrote by Jose Vargas describes the impact of social media in converting the mentality of young Egyptian generations into bold and defend their inalienable rights as a citizen. This article justifies how social media can mobilize a tremendous number of people to stand up for their rights. The reasons that inspire my emotion is emerging of “Wael Ghonim” as a legendary vocal figure of action for change, revelation of social media as earthquake for change, and fundamental soci-political change.
Twitter and tear gas central focus is on how the internet gas boosted the way protests movements are being
In 2010 the Middle East experienced a disturbing series of protests and riots against the government. The term Arab Spring was coined as an allusion for the 1848 revolutions that rocked the Arab world. This devastating revolution saw its inception in a chain of small scale protests for the democratization of the Arabian governments. With its start in Egypt and Tunisia it has not failed in affecting every Arab country from Libya, Sudan and Morocco in the West to Yemen and Saudi Arabia in the East. A branch of the same revolution has successfully managed to become the cause for a civil war outbreak in Syria and even stretched its influence outside the Arab world to affect Iran and Mali.
Smith, Aaron and Joanna Brenner. “Twitter Use 2012.” PewResearch Internet Project. 1-3. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
What is often called “the spark that started it all,” occurred on December 17, 2011 in Tunisia. A street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the corruption of the government. (Arab Spring, 2013) The 26 year old Bouazizi sold vegetables on the streets of Tunisia to make a living. His self-immolation was brought on when his cart of vegetables was confiscated by a policewoman. (Abouzeid, 2011) Bouazizi then went to the provincial headquarters to complain to officials about his situation. However, they refused to see him. Angered at the way he was being treated, Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest. (Abouzeid, 2011) He was taken to the hospital and stayed there until his death on January 4, 2011. Bouazizi’s self-immolation caused such an uproar that even Tunisia’s dictator, President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, visited him in the hospital. Bouazizi’s mother, Mannoubia, said, “Mohamed did what he did for the sake of his dignity. He lives on, his name lives on. I am proud of what happened in Tunis, I am proud that he is known throughout the Arab World.” (Abouzeid, 2011) Bouazizi’s self-immolation had such a huge impact on Tunisia that Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14.
Lets take a look at natural disasters, social media helps spread knowledge about events. Not everyone watches the news, and I am sure that those people who don’t watch news have some type of social media. Natural disasters are important and social media helps us be aware of our surrounds where ever we may be. Newspapers can only do so much and they take time to print and reach everyone. In critical circumstances newspapers needs to spread fast even cross borders, however social media ends up doing exactly
Over the past few years, social media has grown rapidly and gained the attention of individuals across the world. What exactly is social media? Basically, social media is a form of electronic communication that allows individuals to communicate with each other, create social profiles, and even share their perception on music and photos. Surprisingly, social media has caused some countries to produce boycotts and other types of rebellions. More than fifty percent of people learn about breaking news through social media. Recent statistics show ninety percent of adults in the United States own a cell phone (King 2015). Eighty-seven percent of those adults use the web, and sixty-eight percent of those adults connect to the web with their
For example, in Saleem Kassim views, “As a result of the many technological advancements and innovations that have revolutionized how individuals communicate, an abundance of information has become available to everyone.” Saleem Kassim’s point is that anyone and everybody can put out information that can be seen by everyone when you are an internet user. For example, the news can tell you that there’s nothing happening in a certain country; whereas, someone from that country can post on twitter and upload videos showing anyone that decides to see the truth of what is really happening in their country. Kassim also states, “Ultimately, public information supplied by social networking websites has played an important role during modern-day activism, specifically as it pertains to the Arab Spring.” In other words, Kassim believes that digital communication has brought people together to fight for something that is a good cause. To have people aware of the truth and to have someone do something about it. Indeed it is highly likely that we bring people together for a good cause but digital communication can also cause a downside through having no censorship on what you post. When more people are brought up of current events trending they decide to hope on board to see if there is anything they can do to help. Not to mention, Graff and Birkenstein view it the same way. Like I mentioned earlier, Graff and
Safranek, Rita. 2012. The Emerging Role of Social Media in Political and Regime Change. s.l. : Proquest, 2012.
Since its creation, social media has caused considerable changes in society. It allows people to connect, create, and learn. Since social media allows people from all over the world to connect, it allows people to share different ideas and promote important causes; social media has become a platform for activism. By sharing, liking, and tweeting all people have become activist for all sorts of causes. In recent years, scholars compared activism of this type to the activism that has occurred during the Civil Rights Movement. Recent debate has quite different views regarding activism through social media as an influential factor in publicizing causes. According to Malcolm Gladwell, social media may aid people in becoming aware of certain issues, but activism through social media does not solve any of the problems they try to fix. He also argues that social media create weak ties between people. I am of two minds regarding Gladwell’s claim regarding social media activism and the ties it creates. On the one hand, activism
From the words of United States President Barack Obama "Call your members of Congress. Write them an email. Tweet it using the hashtag #My2K." (Coffee). Social media has played an increasing and larger part in today's government. Social media has the power to influence elections and connect the people to the policy makers in new ways.
The impact of Social Media on Society Technology has come a long way from its existence till today. In today’s modern world, people are surrounded by technology everywhere. In the present, people are surrounded by disrupting technologies every day. Today, innovators are always creating new technologies that will make an impact on the daily lives of millions. Technology has made the lives of many people easier.
Naturally, journalism would spill over to the Internet and as social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook grew in popularity, so did regular citizens involvement with sharing news. The argument can be made that the explosion of social media journalism was due to frustration from the lack of coverage of news that mattered to society. For example, the lack of subjective coverage of Michael Brown 's death helped with the creation of #BlackLivesMatter and spread of news related to African-American’s and other minorities across the country. After all, journalism is supposed to be a public forum. Millions of people on Twitter share their thoughts and opinions on several topics, furthering the conversation and to some degree challenging society. Things such as “Moments” on Twitter provide us with direct links and summaries to the world’s most important stories and encourage a conversation. According to journalism.org, 63% of users on Twitter and Facebook get their news from these websites. Even more eye opening is that 59% of users on Twitter keep up to date with news stories via Twitter while they are in the process of happening.[3] The rise of social media related journalism has caused some issues however. “Inevitably, as citizen involvement grows, more of our media culture is concerned with talking about news, instead of focusing on original reporting and the vetting of it.”[4] Because the general public has the ability to post as they wish and pass it off as news, it has affected the accuracy of many reports. Many stories lack reputable sources but are shared between millions as an accurate and true story. There are several websites designed to spread inaccurate information. The website www.fakenewswatch.com exists to inform people of these sites in order to avoid mishaps. Recently a Connecticut mom went viral for being involved in an online hoax
Social media is a controversy topic in today’s society. Some people think that social media destroys human interaction and real life human relationships. While others think that social media is a bless to humanity. Social media makes human interaction much more convenient and much faster than real life human interaction, it makes globalization a reality, it gives a chance for introverted people to express themselves, and it also benefit develop international relationships whether its business or social.