New media platforms played a significant role in organizing and mobilizing protesters. This paper below in particular proved how important the new digital communication field was in encouraging ordinary citizens to engage in politics. Social media enabled people to self-organize and work within flexible grassroots networks. The Arab Spring was a collection of pro-democratic protests in countries with high Arab populations that began in 2010, a significant time in which social media was just beginning to be utilized for wide-spread activism across borders. All social movements are shaped by the technology available at the time and influence the tactics that social movement actors pursue, how they distribute information, and how they mobilize support. New media platforms emerging around the time of the Arab Spring provided activists with new resources and capabilities to communicate under oppressive regimes. This paper specifically focused on Tunisia and Egypt in the Arab Spring and how they managed to sustain political power in large despite censorship and limited access to information due to the state running media. Digital media and social networking were crucial in bringing decades-old grievances to fruition through virtual and public displays of collective behavior. Distributing information through grassroots means enhanced public discussion, debate, and communicative action that otherwise wouldn’t be possible through state-owned media. What contemporary activists can learn from this is that new means of communication can allow protesters to alter power structures through interconnectivity in micro-level dynamics. Despite repression from authorities, protesters continued their activism using new media to build community and decentralized forms of organizing, which resulted in revolutions in the streets.
Read the original paper below:
https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=sociology_articles
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