Social media

Revolution

by nIKI CHeOng
niki@thestar.com.my

T HAS been almost two

weeks since millions of
Egyptians took to the streets
demanding for the resignation
of their President of 30 years,
Hosni Mubarak.
Whatever the outcome is for
this country in turmoil, there is
no doubt that this moment will
be forever etched in the countrys history. Scrap that, make it
global history.
Politics aside, the protests in
the Northern African country
have made social media history.
Over the last couple of years,
social media has become the de
facto communication tool to
mobilise movements of protesters. Before Egypt, the best
example was the protesting of
the presidential election in Iran
last year.
In June, when the mass
protests in Iran was gaining
momentum, there were reports
that the government was
censoring its people both on
and off the net. So the people
took to Twitter instead, and
started sending out real-time
happenings from the streets.
Naturally, Twitter being a
broadcasting tool would be
the best social media network
for this. Unlike say Facebook
and even blogs, Twitter is fast
and more public, allowing for
bite-sized information to be
disseminated and further
shared through retweets.
It is probably the acknowledgement of this amazing capability that led to the Egyptian
Government banning the
Internet at the early days of the
protest (it has since been
restored).
There are, of course, many
detractors, including New
Yorker columnist Malcolm
Gladwell who famously wrote,
The revolution will not be
tweeted. These people feel that
too much credit has been given
to social media for its role in
activism and that uprisings
are the product of more deeprooted issues.
Already, Gladwell has
responded to the fanfare social
media has been getting in
Egypt. Last week, he wrote in
an article titled, Does Egypt
Need Twitter (http://nyr.kr/
gladwellegypt):
People protested and
brought down governments
before Facebook was invented.
They did it before the Internet
came along.
Many people supported his
argument (just read the
comments on the article), but
there were just as many who
disagreed with him, including
me. The fact is, Twitter may not
have planted the idea in the
peoples mind that it was time
for a revolution (or at least time

to protest), but what it can do

as can other social media
networks is mobilise and rally
people, give them the confidence to make a difference and
be a platform to people who
never had a chance to share
their thoughts and opinions on
issue.
To put it quite simply, the
technological advances we have
had access to over the past
couple of years gives protesters
the tool to engage, support and
connect with each other like
never before.
Sure, word of mouth can be
efficient (weve seen revolutions before in the history of
the world). However there is no
doubting the efficiency and
speed in which information can
be disseminated and received
in todays world.
What other reason can there
be for the Egyptian government
(and the Iranian one before it)
to block Internet access in its
country?
Besides mobilising people,
social media has also played a
major role in keeping the world
engaged with what is happening on the streets and in some
way, changed the way journalism works.
Firstly, there were live
Tweets from the people on the
streets sharing updates on what
was happening the peaceful
protests, the clash with proMubarak protestors and military actions. Journalists turned
to Twitter to share news about
both the protests and their own
welfare when there was a
media clampdown..
Al Jazeera offered live online
feeds from Tahrir Square in
Cairo, where the main protests
were happening.
And YouTube, the social
network where many people
went to look for on-ground
footage of the protests, partnered with real-time curation
company Storyful to help curate
the videos and create playlists
linked to the protests on the
video-site. This would make it
easier for viewers to access
content, instead of sifting
through thousands of random
videos when using a search
term like. Egypt.
People also took to photosharing sites like Flickr to share
photos live from the streets.
Besides keeping the world
updated with what is happening, the photo/video images and
the live on-ground coverage via
Twitter has no doubt helped
keep the protest going. The
people of Egypt on the streets
have acknowledged this, there
are many images of people
holding up placards acknowledging social media networks
like Facebook and Twitter.
This is citizen journalism in
all its glory. And its all thanks
to social media.

STARTWO, WedneSdAy 9 FebRuARy 2011

R.Age

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