This document discusses how Twitter has been used in social movements to organize, raise awareness, and spread information. Key aspects covered include common Twitter terminology like hashtags and retweets, examples of social movements that utilized Twitter like the Arab Spring and Iran's 2009 election protests, and how censorship and mobile access have impacted Twitter's role in social activism. The power of viral hashtags to trend topics and spread messages globally is also examined.

1. Twitter 201: Twitter & Social Movements
Washington University in St. Louis Libraries, April 26, 2012
Jaleh Fazelian &
Makiba Foster

2. Twitter and Social Movements
• Twitter Lingo
• History
• Being mobile
• Censorship
• Using #hashtags
• Power of the RT
• Questions

3. Twitter Lingo
• ReTweeting
• Hashtag

4. #IranElection
Green Protest / Javad Saharban/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

5. #IranElection

7. A Match Made in Heaven
Twitter for Android / yum9me / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Twitter Meeting @ Lowlands / Anne Helmond / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

8. What do these countries have in
common?
• China
– Full Twitter Ban
• Britain
– Riots in 2011
• Iran
– #IranElection
• Egypt
– #Jan25
• South Korea
– North Korean Twitter Account

9. Censorship
Twitter Pack / Carrot Creative / CC BY 2.0

10. Sina Weibo

11. Harnessing the Power of Twitter with
# Hashtags #
Photo Credit: Christopher Lazo

12. Variations of #

13. #SocialMovements on Twitter
• Community
• Awareness
• Organization

14. Revolution & ReTweets (RT)
# × RT = Trending Topic

15. Twitter Year In Review
Hashtags of 2011
Most ReTweeted 2010 • #egypt
• #tigerblood
1. Gulf Oil Spill • #threewordstoliveby
2. Haiti Earthquake • #idontunderstandwhy
3. Pakistan Floods • #japan
4. Koreas Conflict • #improudtosay
• #superbowl
5. Chilean Miners Rescue
• #jan25
6. Chavez Tas Ponchao Trending World News 2011
7. Wikileaks Cablegate • Mubarak’s resignation
8. Hurricane Earl • Raid on Osama bin Laden
9. Prince Williams Engagement • Japanese earthquake and Fukushima
nuclear disaster
10. World Aids Day • Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
• Gaddafi’s death
• Swine Flu outbreak

16. Questions / Tim O'Brien / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

17. Works Cited
• Al-Rasheed, Madawi. “Sectarianism as Counter-Revolution: Saudi Arabian Responses to the Arab Spring.”
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, v. 11, no. 3, 2011.
• Ding, Ling. “Micro-blogging in network society.” Journal of Digital and Research Publishing.
http://6pmjournal.blogspot.com/2011/02/micro-blogging-in-network-society.html Accessed 3/30/2012.
• Furman, Henry “The Hashtag: A Case Study”. http://wirescrossedblog.tumblr.com/post/15567326293/the-
hashtag-acasestudy Accessed April 10, 2012
• Golkar, Saeid. “Liberation or Suppression Technologies? The Internet, the Green Movement, and the
Regime in Iran.” International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society, v. 9, no. 1, 2011.
• Key Global Telecom Indicators for the World Telecommunication Service Sector in 2011
(http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats#subscribers). Accessed April 10,
2012.
• Mobile Statistics, Stats and Facts 2011. (http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/2011-mobile-statistics-stats-
facts-marketing-infographic/). Accessed April 10, 2012.
• Parr, Ben. “Mindblowing #IranElection stats: 221,744 Tweets per Hour at Peak.” Mashable.
http://mashable.com/2009/06/17/iranelection-crisis-numbers/ Accessed April 19, 2012.
• Starbird, Kate K. "(how) Will the Revolution be Retweeted? Information Diffusion and the 2011 Egyptian
Uprising.” Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - CSCW
'12. http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~palen/StarbirdPalen_RevolutionRetweeted.pdf Accessed April 23, 2012
• Wasserman, Todd. “The Architect of #OccupyWallStreet Praises the Power of ‘Magical Hashtags’.”
Mashable. http://mashable.com/2011/10/27/occupy-wall-street-adbusters/. Accessed April 10, 2012

18. Contact
• Jaleh Fazelian
– @jalehf
– jfazelia@wustl.edu
• Makiba Foster
– @makibaj
– mfoster@wustl.edu
• http://libguides.wustl.edu/twitter201
• @WUSTLlibraries