23 February 2011
Social Media and Revolution
Events in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 lead one to believe that social media like Facebook, Twitter and other Internet channels are making revolution against despotic political regimes easier to foment. Not only do they make the communication of discontent and the organization of civic action widely and inexpensively achievable; they can also generate instant excitement among a greatly impressionable segment of the public. This is particularly effective in societies in which the youthful generation (those under 30 years of age) outnumbers the older more jaundiced group of citizens.
It still takes discipline for a revolt to succeed against an oppressive government. Moreover, despite portrayals like that on Frontline on February 22, 2011, such a revolution must take place more widely than in one square of a country’s capital city. What that Frontline report did correctly point out, though, was that important lessons were learned by the leaders of the Egyptian revolution from the experience of the leaders of the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. Modern information technology tools clearly facilitated that software exchange.
Will social media play an important role in the establishment of new governments in Egypt and Tunisia? And will they be integral to the governance of those societies under their reformed political systems? It’s hard to believe that as informal and impromptu a structure as social media can effectively bring order among a collection of ten million Tunisians, not to mention eighty million Egyptians. That structure, however, will forever limit the arbitrary disregard of the interests of the “powerless” by governments in the future.
Events in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 lead one to believe that social media like Facebook, Twitter and other Internet channels are making revolution against despotic political regimes easier to foment. Not only do they make the communication of discontent and the organization of civic action widely and inexpensively achievable; they can also generate instant excitement among a greatly impressionable segment of the public. This is particularly effective in societies in which the youthful generation (those under 30 years of age) outnumbers the older more jaundiced group of citizens.
It still takes discipline for a revolt to succeed against an oppressive government. Moreover, despite portrayals like that on Frontline on February 22, 2011, such a revolution must take place more widely than in one square of a country’s capital city. What that Frontline report did correctly point out, though, was that important lessons were learned by the leaders of the Egyptian revolution from the experience of the leaders of the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. Modern information technology tools clearly facilitated that software exchange.
Will social media play an important role in the establishment of new governments in Egypt and Tunisia? And will they be integral to the governance of those societies under their reformed political systems? It’s hard to believe that as informal and impromptu a structure as social media can effectively bring order among a collection of ten million Tunisians, not to mention eighty million Egyptians. That structure, however, will forever limit the arbitrary disregard of the interests of the “powerless” by governments in the future.
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