Activism is going through a revolution in itself; it is arguably becoming more reliant on technology; specifically social media to publicise many social movements. Increasingly, there is a greater understanding of those who support and act for a specific cause. Of late; there have been many social movements labelled ‘The Arab Springs’, beginning in December 2010, there are still multiple ongoing social movements in these Arab nations today. These social revolutions initially begun in Tunisia; a country where the media was tightly controlled and the government heavily discouraged the usage of social media. Tunisia not only exercised a tight control online but blocked access to most social media, except Facebook; not without resistance however.
As Howard (2011) highlights, it was in Tunisia that the Arab Spring movements were initially sparked through social media. A citizen refused to pay a city fine and as a result was heavily beaten by security officers and it led to the victim’s eventual death. A video was captured by another fellow citizen and then this was then posted onto YouTube; triggering a national outrage and begun the revolution against the dictator; President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was then voted out of power on 14th January 2011. During this time the government tried to ban social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and video streaming sites such as DailyMotion and YouTube, was this so that they could control the public’s opinions? Within a few days citizens had broken through barriers and continued to organise violent street protests through SMS. It is argued that the social media involved in revolutions was the driving force behind the spread of the Tunisian revolution as it creates a community for supporters to correspond and to join together to achieve their goal. Despite efforts from governments to tame the protests by using blocks on the internet; the power of social media has dominated. If the YouTube video of the beatings wasn’t publicised, would the revolution have been triggered so early? Thus social injustice may have continued to be prominent in the Tunisian society today.
However as discussed in Singh’s (2011) article as a review of Hisham Matar’s speech on the role of Twitter and Facebook in the Arab Spring uprising; the importance of social media should not be exaggerated. Could this be because the people who have access and knowledge to use social media are the elite in the society? Societies’ uprisings did not happen on Facebook or Twitter because it could not have happened without the working classes. The working classes in the Arab nations are yet to be fully enabled to access the internet and therefore it is inevitable that for them to get involved in the revolutions other forms of communication must have been used. Thus social media is not necessarily as much of a driving force behind the revolution as initially thought. However, saying this, social networking has transformed political discourse for the masses and did in fact help increase the scale of the Tunisian revolution despite not all people being able to access it; it undoubtedly contributed to the scale of the uprising.
References:
Journal Article: Howard, P.N. 2011. The Role of Digital Media. Journal of Democracy. 22(3): 35-48.
News Article: Singh, A. 2011. Ways with words: role of Twitter and Facebook in Arab Spring uprising ‘overstated’, says Hisham Matar. The Telegraph, [online] (Monday 11th July). Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/ways-with-words/8629294/Ways-With-Words-role-of-Twitter-and-Facebook-in-Arab-Spring-uprising-overstated-says-Hisham-Matar.html [Accessed 12th March 2013].
Technology In Activism 