Social Media in the Arab Spring

(Egypt influence network...click to see enlarged)

Without social media, the events of the past few months in the Middle East would likely have been very different. “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world,” one women in Cairo tweeted. University of Washington professor, Phillip N. Howard, wrote about the role of digital media in the recent uprisings in the Middle East. With so much going on (and that it was happening in a differnt time zone) made the issues especially time-sensitive and therefore a platform such as Twitter or Facebook, especially important. Another reason that such media was so useful was the limitations by the "governments" that would have prevented traditional media from being effective. The social media used during the revolts helped to organize what happened and to report it back tot those not involved.