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The Role of Twitter in the Arab Spring

Jason Wagner

Arab Spring

Final Paper

4/7/2014

The Role of Twitter in the Arab Spring

 

"The most popular Twitter hashtags in the Arab region in the first three months of the year 2011 were “#Egypt”, “#Jan25”, “#Libya”, “#Bahrain” and “#protest”." (Huang, Carol) Since 2011 Twitter has transformed communication in the Arab Spring countries of Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria. The role of social media in Arab countries has been closely related to the ongoing revolutions. Twitter has allowed citizens to spread their causes and beliefs with others of similar beliefs. Egypt and Tunisia have effectively used Twitter as a way to communicate throughout the revolutions, but Syria is just beginning. Twitter has not only transformed communication, but has allowed ordinary Arabs to network, share stories, and call for street action.

 

            The Tunisian Revolution also known as the Jasmine Revolution took place from December 18, 2013 to January 14, 2014. This revolution was completely different from any other revolution prior years. Tunisian citizens discovered a weapon much greater than any other weapon for protest. That weapon was Social Media and one of its main websites Twitter. With the use of Twitter and other Social Media sites, Tunisians took to the internet to tell the world of all the problems that exist in the Arab World. “Not surprisingly the hashtag peaked at 28 tweets per second at 21:27:56 Tunisian time.” (Tsotis, Alexia)

 

Twitter allowed Tunisian citizens to protest anonymously which fueled people to participate because it removed the fear of being personally targeted. The truth about what was actually happening inside of Tunisia was now hitting the world, instead of being filtered out by corrupted news and radio broadcasts. “Under the former regime, press and broadcasters were tightly controlled.” (“Tunisia Profile”) There was no more hiding the corruption from the world and the Tunisian Government was under immense pressure to try and hide the truth. There was no help for the Government, the news had spread so rapidly that it could not be stopped. The only thing left to do was step down to the Tunisian citizens.

            Egypt being inspired by the Revolution that had just recently occurred in Tunisia set out to become the second country to join the Arab Spring movement. Egyptians gathered on January 25, 2011 protesting that the corruption need to come to an end and that President Mubarak and his regime be removed. In February of 2011 Mubarak finally stepped down from office and tears of happiness filled the street, Egyptian citizens believed that they had won. Even after Mubarak resigned Egypt remained politically unhappy for a few more years because the government remained in control of the old Egyptian Military. “Beginning around midnight on 28 January, the Egyptian government attempted, somewhat successfully, to eliminate the nation's Internet access, in order to inhibit the protesters' ability use media activism to organize through social media.” (Wikipedia)

Egypt like Tunisia made excellent use of Twitter during its Arab Spring revolution. "We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world." (Miller-McCune) Twitter was being used every day in Egypt to coordinate with ordinary Egyptian Arabs about upcoming protests and ideas. Although the Regime fought back blocking Twitter from being used in Egypt multiple times over the course of the revolution. This was a sign of fear shown by the Regime and that progress was being made in the Arab Spring Revolution. It was only a matter of time until the Egyptian citizens won the battle.

 

Syria is in a state of turmoil, they are not only part of the Arab Spring movement but are in the midst of a Civil War at the same time. The revolution in Syria is a completely different situation than the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. “In March 2011, violence broke out in Daraa, Syria, after a group of children and teenagers were arrested for writing political graffiti. Dozens of people were killed when security forces cracked down on protesters.” (Almond) As Syrian rebels battle back against the al-Assad regime the revolution seems to continue to make little progress. Bashar al-Assad is fighting back much harder than Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine el Abidine Ben Ali which is why the revolution cannot seem to come to an end.

Twitter in Syria did not catch on like it did in Tunisia and Egypt and there are a few reasons why. “Mainstream media have had very limited access to Syria, and some of the journalists brave enough to tread there have paid with their lives.” (Parker)

“It doesn't help that Syrian authorities have attempted to rein in the limited online activity that exists.” (Parker)There is more to the situation than just limited internet access. Syrian citizens also tend not to use their real names when tweeting so they just look like anonymous activists that do not have a personal connection to followers from around the world so tweets are not hitting a broad audience. Another reason is that it’s unclear what Syrians actually want out of the revolution.

            The availability of major Social Media websites played a huge role in the Arab Spring revolutions. They are tools capable of breaking some of the most corrupt regimes in the Arab Spring. With the use of Twitter Tunisians, Egyptians, and Syrians are able to spread real-time information to the world. The revolutions quickly opened up to global opinions, allowing anyone to weigh in on the situation. “Social media – its rise and its new activist uses – have played a critical role in mobilization, empowerment, shaping opinions and influencing change.” (Huang, Carol)

Bibliography

1.     Almond, Kyle, David Ariosto, Rima Maktabi, Ivan Watson, and Fareed Zakaria. "Syria Explained: What You Need to Know." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/24/world/meast/syria-101/>.

2.    "Arab Spring." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Apr. 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring>.

3.    Huang, Carol. "Facebook and Twitter Key to Arab Spring Uprisings: Report | The National." The National. Abu Dhabi Media, 06 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. <http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/facebook-and-twitter-key-to-arab-spring-uprisings-report>.

4.    Parker, Emily. "Why Aren’t Social Media Users Paying More Attention to Syria?" Slate Magazine. The Slate Group, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/02/syria_uprising_twitter_and_social_media_revolution_fatigue_.html>.

5.    "The Arab Uprising's Cascading Effects". Miller-McCune. 23 February 2011. Archived from the original on 1 March 2011. Retrieved 8 April 2014.

6.    "Tunisia Profile." BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation, 10 July 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14107557>.

7.    Tsotis, Alexia. "A Twitter Snapshot Of The Tunisian Revolution: Over 196K Mentions Of Tunisia, Reaching Over 26M Users | TechCrunch." TechCrunch. AOL Inc., 16 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. <http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/16/tunisia-2/>.