Ted Talk Analysis

Social media has quickly emerged as a dominating force that is not only shaping culture and global trends, but influencing how others perceive the world by making it easier to access world news and public opinions. “The global media landscape in the first decade of the twenty-first century represents a complex terrain of multi-vocal, multimedia and multi-directional flows” (Thussu 376). Although social media has spurred many revolutions and brought together like-minded thinkers, it still proves to be a difficult terrain to navigate and even more difficult to harness its power for long-standing democracy. In the article "Social Media: Destroyer or Creator?" and Wael Ghonim’s TED talk, both the positive and the negative ramifications of social

Because the internet and social media are an aggregate of lived experiences and public opinions, it can create a polarizing environment fueled by distinct agendas that is amplified “by facilitating the spread of misinformation, rumors, echo chambers and hate speech” (Ghonim). Ghonim witnessed the internet, which was once his safe haven, become “a battleground filled with trolls, lies, hate speech” (Ghonim). This toxic environment precludes any progress towards democracy and can further destabilize an already precarious government. After Mubarak was forced to step down, “Egyptians lived in a utopia for 18 days during the revolution. They all shared the belief that we could actually live together despite our differences, that Egypt after Mubarak would be for all” (Ghonim). This euphoric atmosphere soon dissipated, overwhelmed by the polarization of the two main powers – the army supporters and the Islamists (Ghonim). “Supporters of the army and the Islamists used social media to smear each other…” (Friedman) and “on the 3rd of July 2013, the army ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, after three days of popular protest that demanded his resignation” (Ghonim). Social media facilitated not only the topple of Mubarak, but the topple of democracy in Egypt. Social media marginalized the democratic center (Friedman) and silenced voices like Ghonim that should have served as a voice of reason for the people of Egypt. Because of social media, Ghonim and his peers became marginalized within their own revolution instead of being the leaders of democratic change in Egypt. The reigns were swiftly taken from them because “while it's true that polarization is primarily driven by our human behavior, social media shapes this behavior and magnifies its