When it comes to the
political, economic, and social impacts of social media, the example of Arab
Spring always comes to my mind. For generations, the world had undergone many
shifts in power and stability. Just about every region in the world except The
Arab Islands had experienced revolt, revolution, and stability of government.
In 2011, that all changed. Thanks to the viral spreading of positive change
through social media, lasting change has been able to start in the Arab Spring.
An advocate of change and a key player in the uprising of the Egyptian people
against their president Mubarak put it this way, “We use Facebook to
schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”
Never in the history of the world has such a quick uprising
and gathering taken place. In fact, “After analyzing more than 3 million
tweets, gigabytes of YouTube content and thousands of blog posts, a new study
finds that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in
the Arab Spring.” The topic of freedom and democracy went viral in the Middle
East and north Africa which definitely played an integral role in the up rise
of political change in those regions.
The evidence of the impact of social
media on the arab spring is in the numbers. According to Washington.edu’s article New study
quantifies use of social media in Arab Spring, “During the
week before Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, for example, the
total rate of tweets from Egypt — and around the world — about political change
in that country ballooned from 2,300 a day to 230,000 a day. Videos
featuring protest and political commentary went viral – the top 23 videos
received nearly 5.5 million views.”
It is very evident that due to social
media, political change was able to occur. The great thing about social media
as a medium for social change is it is very difficult for struggling
governments to control. For example, the topics of freedom, democracy, liberty,
and revolution were trending topics in neighboring countries of Egypt within
hrs after the resignation of the president.
Philip Howard, the project lead and an associate
professor in communication at the University of Washington put it this way;
“people throughout the region were drawn into an extended conversation about
social uprising. The success of demands for political change in Egypt and
Tunisia led individuals in other countries to pick up the conversation. It
helped create discussion across the region.”
Howard said that although social media did not cause the
upheaval in North Africa, they altered the capacity of citizens to affect
domestic politics. Online activists created a virtual ecology of civil
society, debating contentious issues that could not be discussed in public.”
The funny thing is, when the government tries to crack down on social media and
be more controlling in the sharing and spreading of sensitive topics, it leads
to more of an upheaval and revolt in those regions. Egypt very successful with
the viral spreading of information concerning gatherings and protests because
70% of the population in the Cairo uses social media. The surrounding countries
in the arab island only have an average of 10% of the population using social
media. It would be interesting to see how the spread of social media in those
countries would affect their rate of democratic change.
It is evident that in
countries such as the USA where just about everyone is constantly on social
media, viral topics such as Treyvon Martin,
Michael Brown, and others are able to penetrate every home in the country
within hrs of the incident happening. We can also see the international impact
concerning recruiting through social media certain terrorist organizations
have. For example, ISIS is using social media every day to try to bring in new
recruits by tweeting, posting videos, blogging, and using Facebook.
I
personally believe that if many of these terrorist ridden countries utilized
social media they would be more successful at stamping out these terrorist
groups. They would be able to show their people a positive path to change and
not only an extreme path. I guess after contemplating the positive and negative
affects of social media, I have come to the conclusion that if more positive
people are actively utilizing the various channels available to them, our world
would become a safer and better place for everyone.
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