Social media is no longer new. Nor are claims that it brings massive change.
Even though there is chatter about it playing a key role in the Arab spring uprisings, it was already back in 2008 that it was seen as a major game changer.
The election of Barack Obama that year was attributed in no small part to the massive organisation which went into increasing votes and support. Social media played a key part.
Social media is no longer new. Nor are claims that it brings massive change.
Even though there is chatter about it playing a key role in the Arab spring uprisings, it was already back in 2008 that it was seen as a major game changer.
The election of Barack Obama that year was attributed in no small part to the massive organisation which went into increasing votes and support. Social media played a key part. His campaign built a vast network of online supporters who organised getting out the vote, helped raise a record-breaking $600 million, and created media clips that were viewed millions of times online.
2009 was the year that saw micro-blog Twitter take off in a massive way. And later that year, Iran’s uprising (following what protesters argued was a rigged election) was declared by some to be Twitter-driven. Twitter even claimed that it had delayed scheduled downtime for maintenance because of Iranian protesters’ need for its service.
Social media clearly played a role in Iran. For example, the catching on mobile phone camera of the shooting (and death) of the young protester ‘Neda’ was circulated widely and gave the protests added impetus. The video has several million views on YouTube. Despite this, attributing social media such a key role is hard to substantiate. As Will Heaven states in an article in this edition, the low percentage of Twitter accounts presents a different picture.
This year, 2011, several mainstream media sources have asked if we are witnessing Facebook revolutions in the Middle East. NATO Review asked several experts whether this stands up to scrutiny. And the clear answer was that a brake needs to be put on the rush to give a communication technology (albeit an innovative, empowering one) such a causal effect in world changing events.
On more than one occasion while interviewing, I was reminded that there had been no social media at the end of the 1980s during the uprising in Tiannamen Square, in Central and Eastern Europe over the next couple of years and in numerous other uprisings. These revolutions had varying levels of success. But there is little evidence that their cause, or success or failure, was directly linked to communication technologies.
I’ll leave the last word to one of the interviewees, who simply said: ‘Only one thing makes revolutions: people’.