Revolution 2.0?

Facebook baby A young Egyptian man has named his firstborn Facebook Jamal Ibrahim

Rebellions and riots 2011

Causes of the riots demographic structural factors, unemployment and poverty, lack of perspective for youngsters human rights violations, government corruption, dictatorship, inflation, etc.

Youth presence

Modern conservatives The new technologies have been used sometimes for a propagation of very conservative or even reactionary positions: Khomeini’s audiocassettes Osama’s video messages Vatican’s multimedia etc

Social media according to Wiki Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Distinct from industrial or traditional media, print or electronic ones. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

„Who’s afraid of Twitter?” “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world” (A Cairo activist)

Egypt #Jan25 Young Egyptian Khaled Said was beaten to death by police in June 2010. Facebook page „We are all Khaled Said” in Arabic was ran by Google executive Wael Ghonim, who runs #Jan25 too Facebook page „We are all Khaled Said” in English (http://www.facebook.com/elshaheeed.co.uk)

Internet in the Arab world Internet access ranges from only 5% (Libya) to 34% (Tunisia).

Egypt and Internet Photo: Essam Sharaf Egypt: Only 20% of population have ever used Internet. “Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen have a combined total of 14,642 Twitter users” PC ownership remains almost exclusively available to the upper and upper middle classes. Photo: Essam Sharaf

Synergy with the industrial media 24-hour news channel Al Jazeera reaches 40 million viewers in the Arab world. Its willingness to broadcast both original citizen journalism and diverse views allowed Arab citizens without computers to see the digital content.

Flip the Media hypothesis The question is not if but how could digital and social media possibly become the conduit for tens of thousands of protesters? Social media alone did not facilitate the Arab Revolution, but was a successful catalyst when combined with myriad methods of digital and traditional media. Technological advances like cell phones, video cameras, blog posts and Facebook, in conjunction with more traditional media outlets like Al Jazeera, created the circumstances for such effective information dissemination.

Egyptian blocking tried to enhance a new strategy: not more blocking the communication of the own country towards the abroad, isolating foreign media, filtering their correspondence, but blocking the communications in the own country: ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet blocked Al Jazeera on cable TV

Egypt’s innovation It was a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in Tunisia, where specific routes were blocked, or Iran, where the Internet stayed up in a rate-limited form designed to make Internet connectivity painfully slow.

Wiped from the global map The Egyptian government's actions from January 27th to February 2nd have essentially wiped their country from the global map. So it is possible. But it has a price.

The result of blackout During the Internet blackout Mubarak was forced to resign, and Suleiman failed to take the power.

Just a signal Libya stopped its Internet providers only for seven hours on February 19th. Business is business, and the politics is a business too. In the same period the Al Jazeera’s TV signal was blocked. On the same day Bahrain Internet service started to slow.

Similis simili gaudet China immediately blocked any coverage of ‘Jasmine Revolution’ protests in Tunisia, as reported by the Bloombergs Business Week (2011/02/20). Even a jasmine flowers are banned from China’s shops, as reported by la Repubblica. A jasmine tea persists.

Protest and communication No single Tweet or Facebook group compelled the thousands of people to march, neither in Egypt, nor in Spain. Digital and social media facilitated communication between and within protesters. Protesters need to spread the word in every possible way. Every new communication technology offers a new possible way.

Limits of a “Revolution 2.0” Needs, frustrations, and ideas kindle the fire of revolution, not the Internet alone. Social media can: spread ideas, spread information, ease recruitment and coordination, attract industrial media attention