To be honest, I knew nothing about this except that it was happening and so the lecture we had on it was a pretty big eye opener for me. It was so inspiring to hear of people who stood up and risked their lives for freedom and really brought home how lucky we are to live where we do. I thought it was amazing that some of the people who were really leading the revolutions were women who were prepared to put their faces on the internet asking people to join them in fighting for their rights in countries where women are not treated as equal to men.
I particularly liked the interactive timeline we were shown of the Middle East Protests which is a very well put together way to get an idea of how truly amazing the revolutions are. This picture also shows how amazing the revolutions are: look how many people came! The kind of political protests that happen here where a couple hundred people march along a bridge holding signs is nothing in comparison to this! This is just an uncontrollable crowd, an immense amount of people. It's amazing that they are all there, wanting the same thing, all working together. And how did it happen?
Well, Social networking. I particularly liked the quote from an anonymous protestor:
"We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate and Youtube to tell the world"
So I do believe that Social networking is an essential tool to the arabsprings; however, Morozov argues "that these digital tools are simply, well, tools, and social change continues to involve many painstaking, longer-term efforts to engage with political institutions and reform movements." I do agree with that as well.
Social Networking is just a tool albeit an amazing one. Without the people, social networking would be nothing. Without somebody actually having the courage to post a video on youtube calling for people to act, there would be no revolution. However, I think that social networking is very useful for getting a mass reaction. One person by themselves protesting can't achieve a lot usually. However, if they post something on Facebook about why they are protesting, and people like it and spread it - that can spread like wildfire. The more people are talking about it, the more people want to get involved. The more people want to get involved, the more people hear about it and in the end - EVERYONE IS ACTING when before - without social networking - people wouldn't have known about it and people wouldn't have been pushed to act. It really is quite infectious and I'm sure that while many of the people in the middle east would have felt a want to stand up for themselves, it could only have happened when they KNEW they had the full support of so many others that they can rise up together.
Power by Numbers. Thanks to Social Networking.
