I took a poly-sci class with Dr. Maloyed, as I'm sure many of you have, and we talked about the Arab Spring and the uprising caused in part due to social media. I liked talking about it then, and was impressed with how much of a difference it made. This article looks back to that time period and attempts to quantify social media's role. The article shows just how many tweets and posts were sent out about political issues during the time period. It stated that the average posts per day concerning political issues increased 100 fold from 2,300 to 230,000 posts a day. The article also explains how people outside the countries in revolt could influence citizens through social media by sending out 2,000+ tweets per day. The most interesting fact the article noted though, in my opinion, was that the governments involved in the Arab Spring actually helped spark riots by shutting off the Internet. People who had previously kept up on the news through social media accounts were forced to go out in the streets and see what was going on for themselves. The Arab spring is an excellent example of how powerful social media can be.
Colby Wurst
Link:
http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/09/12/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring/
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