Introduction
The contemporary world has been crawling towards better socio-economic positions with numerous regional, state, and international challenges constantly influencing the socio-political paradigms. Most recently, the uprising of protestors within the Arab states is becoming a constant international political concern. What started as simple regional protests and rebellions has turned to a massive influx of interconnected political channels across the Arab states that are currently creating a looming danger to global security, especially countries neighboring these states. Sophisticated technologies and social media have been influential in generating changes in information sharing and are currently raising worries. An Arab political cartoon, dubbed “weapons of Arab revolt” emerged after the Arab Spring of 2011and since then; it has been a key instrument in sharing incitement information through Twitter and Facebook, and it was successful in Libya, Bahrain, Egypt, and Tunisia (Aday et al., 2012). Central to this observation, this study evaluates the case of Egypt to affirm the relevance of the Internet and social media technologies when it comes to these Arab protests and uprisings.
Case of Arab protests and uprisings in Egypt
Most challenging in the current days within the global political realm is the steady growth and awakening of the Arab states that have started citing manipulation from big economies or socio-religious prejudice by other states. Among the countries that have awakened to the augmentation of the Arab uprising in Egypt, which has proven politically influential towards spreading the conventional wisdom and mythologizing of the Arab Unity (Storck, 2011). A controversial growth of outlawed militia assemblages believed to be originating from the awakening of Arab states has emerged into the international political arena in which Egypt, as an Arabic state, plays a significant role. Serious Arab uprising and demonstrations started from Egypt and Tunisia, as noted by Allagui and Kuebler (2011) when the actions of protestors began simmering in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011. Even though the politics within the Arab world have been initiators of the ongoing mess within the Arab states, research now acknowledges the influence of information technology in Arab uprising.
Supposed influence of technology in Arab Uprising
In the contemporary world, technology is breaking the boundaries towards the successful growth of modernized nations governed through technologies with computer technology no longer suffering from expenditure, position, or expertise to its accessibility and operation. Nowadays, communication technologies, inclusive of cellular phones, satellite televisions, and even the Internet, are drastically influencing the channels of absorbing and disseminating information in a wide geographical range (Storck, 2011). With a large number of youths suffering from unemployment, a new wave of information sharing through social media is influencing people’s daily activities and actions as well. A continuum of studies has risen in condemnation and criticism of social networking across the world, in which they presume that it influences information sharing among the populace. In recent research, Storck (2011) “examined how Egyptian activists used social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and weblogs as tools for organizing and generating awareness of political mobilization, in the uprisings that took place in Egypt in January and February 2011″( p. 3).
Facebook and the Egyptian uprising
Among the most anticipated and rapidly growing social networking websites that channel information speedily in the modern world is Facebook, which is only seven years, managed to attract approximately 800 million active users by 2011 (Storck, 2011). Egypt ranks among the latest countries within the Arab world that have recently overthrown their president, and successive regimes have started to notice the influence of social media and Internet networking in information sharing. Facebook, which is a communication medium for many youths, affected the way information and communication took place during the Arab spring events in 2011. As noted by Aday et al. (2012), a calculation of penetration of Facebook social media in “Arab countries as of April 2011 found that the highest rates were found in the UAE (45 per cent), Bahrain (34 per cent), Qatar (34 per cent), Lebanon (23 per cent), and Kuwait (21 per cent)” (p.16). In essence, Egypt has been leading in the degree of Internet penetration with all communications among protestors revolving around social media.
Facebook can refer to the fastest growing social utility that possesses features that allow easy communication and connection with immediate and efficient feedbacks. In examining how Facebook influenced the transfer of information among protestors during the unprecedented wave of demonstrations that swept the Arab world, including Egypt, Allagui, and Kuebler (2011) note that the ‘Facebook revolution’ was the most common both in the media and within the streets. Allagui and Kuebler (2011) posit, “Neglecting the complexity of these transformations. The media first attributed the overthrow of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak to digital media, particularly social media and Facebook (p.1435). Based on findings produced by the Arab Social Media Report, approximately 88 percent of news and public information in Egypt runs through social media tools, including Facebook (Storck, 2011). Facebook allowed individuals, especially protestors, to discuss missions, mobilize, and gather multitudes for processions. On noticing the underway plans, the prevailing government arrested online activists and bloggers, which led to massive demonstrations and killings.
YouTube in the Egyptian uprising
Among the modern social networking zones, YouTube was the first Internet website that enabled sharing and uploading personal video information with approximately 3 million videos watched daily through this social medium (Storck, 2011). YouTube was among the Internet base social networking frameworks that played a crucial role in propelling efforts to pressure the deposition of President Mubarak from his authoritarian leadership. According to suppositions made by Storck (2011), as the events of protesting against certain political forces across the Arab world from 2009 heated up, the number of YouTube video uploads increased to about 700 billion playbacks in 2010. If marked the occasions of Arab Springs of 2011, users, especially activists and protestors, used the YouTube video simulations from their phones and computers to show situations from the background happenings. As postulated by Cottle (2011), evidence videos posted through YouTube communicated, coordinated, and channeled certain aspects of connecting opposition groups into protesting against the Mubarak regime.
YouTube has a large number of users across the Middle East and North Africa, where the majority of the populace consists of young ages. Thus this Google-supported Internet website influenced the events of Egyptian uprising greatly. According to Aday et al. (2012), many of the protest organizers, who were responsible for organizing the Egyptian Tahrir Square processions of January 25, possessed online YouTube links. Google’s YouTube was the center of international attention as video footage produced and disseminated by civilians attracted and received an extraordinary number of follow-ups and page reviews comparative to videos generated by conventional media outlets (Aday et al., 2012). Followers of procession activities that were commencing in Egypt used the YouTube video streaming to collect views from other followers to persuade recruits to join the protest assemblages. Through the Global YouTube News Bureau, akin to Libya, where civilians expressed their reasons behind joining protest groups and witnesses of human rights abuses, similar events occasioned the Egyptian uprisings.
Twitter and personal online Blogs
Twitter, characterized by a common action term tweeting and personal online blogs, has become among the most effective means of gathering and sharing data across populations worldwide (Cottle, 2011). Just like Facebook, ‘Twitter Revolutions’ has also attracted millions of users with over 200 million tweets globally as users feel attracted by its unique features and tools used on this website. Twitter was among the main source of information acquisition and sharing throughout most Arabic nations that engaged in the Arab Spring of 2011. Twitter is a catchy website that allows easy flow of information within the shortest time possible. New media, viz. Twitter, combined with Facebook, spiced up old media. Aday et al. (2012) assert, “New media was a conduit for old media, increasingly providing the material for old media” (p.9). Using data from bit.ly, which is a popular Uniform Resource Locator (URL) shortening service, to examine the way web user’s accessed and disseminated information pertinent to protests, Aday et al. (2012) realized the influence of social media in the Arab uprisings. See figure 1
Telephony and short message service (SMS)
Perhaps the most easily accessible gadget in the contemporary times is the mobile phones, which have become effective, reliable, and convenient channels of communicating and sharing information among individuals and groups regardless of geographical positioning (Cottle, 2011; Storck, 2011). Short message services have become one of the cheapest and easiest ways that mobile phones have availed in the current days. During the Egyptian uprising in the year 2011, which led to the deposition of Mubarak, phones that enabled distance calls and SMS services were quite significant to enhancing assemblages of protestors across the Egyptian streets. Cottle (2011) argues that mobile telephony enhanced the distribution of messages that spurred uprisings from different transformations. On noticing this phenomenon, On January 28, the Egyptian government attempted to shut down short message services and the Internet and by then, the majority of protestors composed of people who had no Facebook and Twitter accounts. This move indicated that the telephony SMS was actively contributing to information sharing among protestors.
Conclusion
Since the advent of the extraordinary emergence of a large wave of the procession that flounced the Arab world in 2011, many arguments have protracted on the major causes and propellers of the events that happened in several Arab countries. Throughout the international media, Egypt was renowned as one of the countries where protests started during the Arab springs of 2011. At this time, it was clear that technology within these nations was on explosive uptake with civilians actively engaging in social media and networking services to acquire and disseminate information concerning the uprisings. Drawing empirical evidence and arguments accumulated from studies undertaken immediately after the aftermath of the revolutions, this study concluded that social media, telephony communication, the Internet, networking, and other computer-supported programs fueled the protests. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media networking platforms played a significant role in connecting protestors who engaged in assemblages that undertook the processions.
Reference List
Aday, S., Farrell, H., Lynch, M., Sides, J., & Freelon, D. (2012). New media and conflict after the Arab spring. Web.
Allagui, I., & Kuebler, J. (2011). The Arab Spring and the Role of ICTs Editorial Introduction. International Journal of Communication, 5(1), 1435–1442.
Cottle, S. (2011). Media and the Arab uprisings of 2011: Research notes. Journalism 12(5), 647–659.
Storck, M. (2011). The Role of Social Media in Political Mobilization: A Case Study of the January 2011 Egyptian Uprising. Web.