Social Media Uprising
In an effort to escape the negative aspects of digital culture I recalled an episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown (https://explorepartsunknown.com). Unfortunately, I can not remember the specific episode or even the location that it was filmed in but the one clear memory I have is that social media had a major impact on the country.
At one point Bourdain is travelling through a city with a guide that played a major role in the social uprising that overthrew the local government and the attempt of the military to contain the population. Bourdain asks his guide, "how did civilians take out the military?". The guide responds with, "Twitter".
He goes onto explain that the "people" were organized enough that they could communicate with each other faster than the military could react. They could strategically place themselves and eventually take over the militaries assets and use them to their own advantage to overthrow the government. Bourdain is can't believe that twitter made the difference.
With this memory, I figured there must be some research that supports the influence social media has on political movements or the organization of social groups (more significant than the coffee club). After a quick search online you can easily find reports and studies that document the use of social media in major political events that have taken place over the last 5-10 years. Egypt, Syria, Chile, the list goes on. What I learned was that social media was never really given the credit of the success of the actions, rather "social reinforcement proved more pivotal" in the overall action itself. (Valenzuela, 2014)
It was also interesting to learn that, in Chile you were more likely to find political information on Twitter and more social reinforcement on Facebook. (Valenzuela, 2014) I was unable to find additional information that supported this finding in other countries, but it was interesting to know that in 140 characters or less you found more political information than on Facebook.
During 2011, the terms "Arab Spring", "Twitter Uprising", and "Facebook Revolution" were interchangeable, but they momentum of each movement was made possible through the use of social media. "Instead, the platforms provided opportunities for organisation and protest that traditional methods couldn’t." (Shearlaw, 2016)
I am not sure, but I would guess that the majority of social media platform use is purely based in personal entertainment and not highly educated social dialogue. So it was nice to find a positive storyline in the fog of negative subject matter.
While social media was used as a tool to help organize populations, it isn't all positives.
"Wael Ghonmin is one of those credited with kickstarting the Egyptian revolution with a “simple, anonymous” Facebook page: We are all Khaled Said, set up in homage to a 29-year-old man who had been tortured to death by the police.
It gathered 100,000 followers in three days and quickly became the most followed page in the Arab world.
But then “the euphoria faded, we failed to build consensus and the political struggle led to intense polarisation,” said Ghonmin at a recent Ted talk. Social media quickly became a battlefield of misinformation, rumours and trolls – “the same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart,” he said." (Shearlaw, 2016)
This highlights the need to teach and encourage critical thinking in our youth today. Social media can be a very powerful tool, but one must be critical of the source before acting on the information they are receiving.
Boulianne, S. (2015). Social media use and participation: A meta-analysis of current research. Information, Communication & Society, 18(5), 524-538.
Maeve Shearlaw. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/egypt-5-years-on-was-it-ever-a-social-media-revolution
Valenzuela, S. (2014). Facebook, Twitter, and youth engagement: A quasi-experimental study of social media use and protest behavior using propensity score matching.
Xenos, M., Vromen, A., & Loader, B. D. (2014). The great equalizer? Patterns of social media use and youth political engagement in three advanced democracies. Information, Communication & Society, 17(2), 151-167.