With the ghost of a smile on his face

This post was largely inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s recent New Yorker article – Small Change: why the revolution will not be tweeted. In this article Gladwell comprehensively undermines the notion that new mediums in themselves – twitter, facebook, blogs, or other are able to drive, to initiate meaningful societal change. The resultant ‘weak ties’ diminish barriers to activism yet do not promote the forms of activism that permit the overthrow of government.

Interestingly the disabling of the Internet on January 28^th, three days after the initial day of rage in Egypt, is argued to have ha a greater impact on Mubarak’s eventual fate than the social media tools he so feared. Shutting down the Internet further enraged much of the younger generation and forced individuals on to the street in order to have an idea of what was going on, to know if a loved one was safe, and to vent their frustrations.

So when this protest was initiated by Egyptians – even if influenced by Tunisians, largely through traditional communication channels, and the influence of the outside world likely had little impact. What role did social media play: my intuition, although undoubtedly inadequately founded, is little at all. This is not a situation paralleling the Rwandan Genocide or Darfur conflict in which outside support was being asked and increased western consciousness regarding the issue could have prevented significant bloodshed. Within Egypt itself Arab news outlets such as Al Jezeera appear to have had greater impact than the predominantly English-language tweets hash-tagged #egyptrevolution.

Thus social media appears to have significantly altered the manner in which conflicts are portrayed to third parties, but not how they are undertaken on the ground.

It has not, however, altered the basic organizing structure of revolution, and has played a limited role in the overthrow of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and likely overthrow of Qaddafi.

Sources:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz1Ev5Kawbw