Fall11 Day 7- SM Revolutions

Social Media
Revolutions
Changing The Conversation

10.25.11 - Fall 2011

Instructor: Andrew Hoffman

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Revolution - Definition

A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, "a turn
around") is a fundamental change in power or
organizational structures that takes place in a
relatively short period of time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution


3 Types of Revolution

Political Revolution
Sudden & Violent Revolution
Slow but Sweeping Transformation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution

A political revolution, in the Trotskyist theory, is an upheaval in which the government is replaced, or the form of government altered, but in which property relations are predominantly left
intact. The revolutions in France in 1830 and 1848 are often cited as political revolutions.
2) sudden and violent revolutions that seek not only to establish a new political system but to transform an entire society and 3) slow but sweeping transformations of the entire society that
take several generations to bring about (ex. religion)

Dictatorship - Definition

A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic
form of government in which the
government is ruled by an individual

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship

An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state.

In contemporary usage, dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitutions, or other social and political factors within the
state.

Iran Elections - 2009

The “Twitter Revolution”
#IranElection

Protests following the 2009 Iranian presidential election against the disputed victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein
Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi occurred in major cities in Iran and around the world[34] starting June 13, 2009. The protests were given several titles by their proponents including Green
Revolution, Green Wave or Sea of Green, reﬂecting presidential candidate Mousavi's campaign color

Iran Elections - SM Timeline

Mashable Timeline
Timeline of events via multiple platforms

http://mashable.com/2009/06/21/iran-election-timeline/

The US State Dept even contacted Twitter to postpone a network update in order to not stop the ﬂow of info coming out of Iran

Why Twitter?

“So what exactly makes Twitter the medium of the moment? It's free,
highly mobile, very personal and very quick. It's also built to spread,
and fast. Twitterers like to append notes called hashtags —
#theylooklikethis — to their tweets, so that they can be grouped and
searched for by topic; especially interesting or urgent tweets tend to
get picked up and retransmitted by other Twitterers, a practice known
as retweeting, or just RT. And Twitter is promiscuous by nature: tweets
go out over two networks, the Internet and SMS, the network that cell
phones use for text messages, and they can be received and read on
practically anything with a screen and a network connection.”

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905125,00.html

The US State Dept even contacted Twitter to postpone a network update in order to not stop the ﬂow of info coming out of Iran

The Weaknesses

As is so often the case in the media
world, Twitter's strengths are also its
weaknesses. The vast body of
information about current events in Iran
that circulates on Twitter is chaotic,
subjective and totally unverifiable. It's
impossible to authenticate sources.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905125,00.html

Twitter didn't start the protests in Iran, nor did it make them possible. But there's no question that it has emboldened the protesters, reinforced their conviction that they are not alone and
engaged populations outside Iran in an emotional, immediate way that was never possible before.

Haiti earthquake

Twitter Rundown As Earthquake Was Happening

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/13/haiti-twitter-earthquake-disaster


Haiti earthquake

Dedicated Website to Coverage

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2010/haiti.quake/


Haiti earthquake

According to the Twitter-tracking service
Sysomos, 2.3 million Tweets included the
word "Haiti" or "Red Cross" between
January 12 and January 14. There were
also 189,024 tweets that included "90999,"
the number that could be used to text
message a donation to the Red Cross.

http://www.journalism.org/index_report/social_media_aid_haiti_relief_effort


Haiti earthquake

Other online entities played a role as well.
On Facebook, a number of Haiti-related
groups materialized. According to
CNN.com, the largest group-Earthquake
Haiti-had nearly 170,000 members by
Thursday.



Haiti earthquake

News organizations also used their Web sites to provide real-
time information and ways visitors could help. MSNBC, for
example, created a list of organizations that were providing aid
and encouraged donations. But many news sites made use of
information initially posted by social media.



Haiti earthquake

Ultimately, according to CNN, the use of social
media helped raise $8 million by the end of the
first week.



Haiti earthquake

Twitter
became the
megaphone


Haiti earthquake

Facebook
became the
connector


Haiti earthquake

Facebook
became the
place for
charity


How many of you texted a donation to the Red Cross during the earthquake in Haiti or another cause during?

As you can see, these advances in technology are radically changing the way we interact with each other and with the causes/crisis’ that aﬀect the people of the world.

Japan Earthquake

For the week of March 14-18, 2011, a full 64% of blog links, 32% of Twitter
news links and the top 20 YouTube news videos were about that subject,
according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's
Project for Excellence in Journalism.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1939/japan-earthquake-nuclear-reactors-blogs-twitter-you-tube


Japan Earthquake

"Events like this are no longer just
stories that happen to foreign people
in a far foreign land. They happen
right here, right now, in our own living
rooms in every place on Earth," said
Andy Mayhew at Weather & Earth
Science News.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1939/japan-earthquake-nuclear-reactors-blogs-twitter-you-tube


Japan Earthquake


Japan Earthquake

Ann Curry,
NBC, helps
make
connection
via Twitter.

Curry took a photo of Purdy, 25, to her former school, where
several other teachers recognized the popular American
and directed Curry to another evacuation shelter.


Egyptian Crisis
On January 25 2011
after a successful
revolution had
occurred in Tunisia,
many Egyptians took
to the streets
protesting government
corruption,
unemployment,
poverty as well as the
country’s 30 – year
autocratic rule by
former President Hosini
Mubarak.

Emilio Morenatti/AP


Egyptian Crisis

Did social media like Facebook and
Twitter cause the revolution?

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/egypts-revolutionary-fire/


Egyptian Crisis

Did social media like Facebook and
Twitter cause the revolution?

No. But these tools did speed up the
process by helping to organize the
revolutionaries, transmit their
message to the world and galvanize
international support.



Egyptian Crisis

“In the same way that pamphlets didn’t cause
the American Revolution, social media didn’t
cause the Egyptian revolution,”

said Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative.

“Social media have become the pamphlets of
the 21st century, a way that people who are
frustrated with the status quo can organize
themselves and coordinate protest, and in the
case of Egypt, revolution.”


Egyptian Crisis

“One of the things that social media does is
transmission of hope across these countries,” Ali
added, referring to Tunisia, Egypt and other
repressed countries in the Middle East.
Rafat Ali, a social media expert and founder of PaidContent



Egyptian Crisis

Piggipedia
Collection of pictures of
accused human rights
violators, which is a Flickr
collection of pictures of
policemen, soldiers, and
other officialdom.


Egyptian Crisis-By The Numbers

• Egypt gained 632,120 new Facebook users from January-February, 2011 an
increase of 12.16%
• On February 1 (the day the Internet was turned back on) Egypt gained
100,000 new Facebook users
• Globally there were 1,317,233 Egyptian related Tweets between January
24-30
• Egypt leads African nations with ~5.2M Facebook users, despite having only
6.46% of the country’s Internet population on Facebook.
• Egyptian Twitter adoption grew 10X in January

American University in Cairo

http://jeffesposito.com/2011/02/21/egypts-social-media-revolution-by-
numbers/

Egyptian Crisis-By The Numbers

American University in Cairo

http://jeffesposito.com/2011/02/21/egypts-social-media-revolution-by-
numbers/

Egyptian Crisis

Wael Ghonim
Middle East & North Africa
Marketing Manager at
Google

It generally acknowledged that
Ghonim's Facebook page first sparked
the protests. Titled "We Are all Khaled
Said" -- it memorialized an Egyptian
businessman who had been beaten to
death by police after threatening to
expose corruption.

Ghonim's was arrested on January 28th
by Egyptian authorities and release 12
days later only added to his legend.


Has The Internet Killed Print
Journalism?


Has The Internet Killed Print
Journalism?

http://www.smartmediainnovations.com/digital-publishing-some-food-for-thought-on-traditional-journalism/

Newspaper Statistics


What’s Killing Newspapers?

Lots of Things

Google search
blogging
craigslist - monster.com - online adversiting

Citizen Journalism

TweetNadwa a gathering that combines both real and virtual worlds. Nadwa means ”forum” in Arabic.

http://spot.us/pitches/986-the-cloud-in-egypt-help-or-hype/updates/1108-tweet-nadwa-connects-egyptian-activists-on-and-
of ine

Citizen Journalism

http://theangryegyptian.wordpress.com/

twitter.com/Gsquare86

"Citizen journalism has the most impact when the stories get
picked up by the mainstream media. Citizen journalism reaches
only a tiny segment of the society,"

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/09/how-social-media-is-keeping-the-egyptian-revolution-
alive256.html

Citizen Journalism

"Transparency is a weapon against
corruption. The more information there is
about the span of the problem, the bigger
possibility there is for a change. And when
people know which police stations are
corrupted, they can be prepared for that
and, for example, hide video cameras and
shoot incidents at the station," said Kamal Sedra, a digital
activist.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/09/how-social-media-is-keeping-the-egyptian-revolution-
alive256.html

Not All Lost


Bottom Line

“We have to be realistic, though: new media isn’t
going to stop censorship, overthrow oppressive
regimes, or heal the people of Haiti alone. Social
media has transformed communication, media,
and the transmission of information, but it still takes
people on the ground to pull people out of the
rubble or to fight for freedom.”

Ben Parr - Mashable


assignments

Blog

Online Participation - Keep it up.


Fall11 Day 7- SM Revolutions

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (8)

Similar to Fall11 Day 7- SM Revolutions

Similar to Fall11 Day 7- SM Revolutions (20)

More from Andrew Hoffman

More from Andrew Hoffman (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Fall11 Day 7- SM Revolutions