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The Impact of Social Media on Social Movements: A Case Study of the 2009 Iranian Green
Movement and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution

Jordan Bailly

Spring 2012
Washington State University
Advisor: Dr
...
Two
prominent examples are the so-called “Twitter Revolution” in Iran (2009) and the “Facebook
Revolution” in Egypt (2011)
...
In fact, several have gone so far as to claim that social media is opening avenues for
democracy in oppressed populations, in that one of the primary purposes behind such
technologies is large-scale social interaction
...

I felt this topic worthy of research because of three factors
...
Also, the events in Egypt and Iran are applicable
to U
...
national interest
...
Also, the resources I knew of only dealt with the issue briefly or generally,
without including much detail or variety of evidence
...

I ended up using information from books that were written on the events in general, and also
searching for scholarly sources of research
...
I also used my own
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to access information only available to subscribers in
an attempt to confirm various claims made in other sources, and also to try finding supporting
evidence that was not available elsewhere
...

What I discovered confirmed my hypothesis, and was largely in line with many of the
claims made by popular Western news media, though the media stories tended to exaggerate the
relevance of social media in these cases
...
The use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, texting, and similar services enabled
users to spread information quickly and simply, while allowing them to maintain a degree of
anonymity
...
The most important impact of social media was likely the degree
to which it allowed the average citizen to quickly gauge the number of people sharing his or her
beliefs; it is much easier to take such actions if one knows that he or she is not alone in desire or
resolve
...

To further explore the issue, it would be beneficial to perform research on the ground in
each of these countries, including personal interviews with those who took part in
demonstrations, because one is limited without the direct access to the people and culture in
which these events actually occurred
...


3

Table of Contents

I
...
5
II
...
8
III
...
8
IV
...

A
...
8
B
...
10
B1
...
12
B2
...
13
C
...
18
C1
...
19
C2
...
27
V
...
32
VI
...
37

4

I
...
Though social movements, or “groups of people with a common
ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals” (WordNet, 2003) have likely been
occurring, at least to some extent, since the advent of organized human society, modern times
have added an element to the resources of revolution (Note: The term “revolution” will be used
throughout this paper in a colloquial sense, utilizing the common vocabulary employed by both
the media and average citizens who discuss these events), the media
...
And due to this new technology, among other things, people now
have an increased ability to obtain information from the unique perspectives of fellow citizens
rather than relying solely on the existing media establishment (Selvik & Stenslie, 2011)
...
0 technology,
the Arab region in particular has experienced a recent surge in the use of social media
...
) in
the increase of Facebook penetration (the number of citizens who own a Facebook account) for
2010 (Arab Social Media Report [ASMR], 2011)
...
While
the primary idea behind websites such as Facebook and Twitter is for users to expand,

5

strengthen, and interact with social circles, this process also allows for the accessing of instantly
updated communications for events and situations which could take traditional forms of media
much longer to thoroughly cover, thereby leading to a heavier reliance on amateur reporting
conducted by the average internet user (McCarthy, 2009)
...
However, these same bodies are in danger
of no longer maintaining the equivalent level of influence over the communication, thoughts, and
opinions of their followers
...

One of the instances in which social media certainly played a role in a social movement is
the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian Presidential election and the subsequent creation and
mobilization of the opposition Green Movement
...
Though the use of social media in this specific
instance almost certainly did not make or break the success of the movement, the technology
likely impacted the course of events in one way or another
...
This social movement was eventually
suppressed by the highly-capable Iranian government, which, interestingly, used many of the
same tools as the protestors in an effort to disorganize and confuse the opposition
...

In contrast to the failed uprising in Iran, a recent revolutionary success occurred in Egypt
at the beginning of 2011
...
This system of political media control worked
relatively well until provocative events, such as the brutal June, 2010 murder of Khaled Said by
Egyptian police, were caught on camera and subsequently uploaded to social media networks
including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
...
This shift, from ordinary people following government-supplied
news to relying on the public opinion expressed through texting and the internet, seemed to
jump-start the organization and involvement processes of protests (e
...
the number of those who
“Followed” the Facebook page entitled “We are all Khaled Said” had expanded to over 500,000
by the time demonstrations began in Tahrir Square) (The Week, 2011)
...


7

Now the question exists as to whether or not protests in the modern age are at all different
from those of the past, and, if so, whether the use of social media has enabled like-minded
individuals to achieve change which may not have been possible under the same circumstances
absent these technological tools
...
Thesis Activity:
To determine the type and scope of the impact social media had on the protests in Iran
(2009) and Egypt (2011)
...
Methodology:
In order to obtain the necessary information required for this paper, I primarily conducted
archival research, searching for information within peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and
other scholarly publications, as well as news articles from well-known organizations
...


IV
...
Background/Setting the Scene
On May 25, 2009, Al Jazeera English reported that the Iranian government had blocked
access to Facebook country-wide (Al Jazeera and Agencies, 2009)
...
Mir Hossein Mousavi, one of the leading
opponents of the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was seen by many as having a good chance
of being elected as the new President of Iran
...
At the time, the
ban on Facebook was thought by some to be a preemptive strike against the organizational
powers of the website; especially in regards to Mousavi's campaign, which could have upset the
status quo and possibly played a part in the changing of Iranian leadership (OpenNet Initiative
[ONI] Iran, 2009)
...
An Iranian man named Ebrahim Mehtari, an activist and software
engineer, had the task of using Iranian cell phone networks to conduct a broad, non-scientific
survey
...
He had determined, from the nine million responses he
received, that Mousavi was ahead in terms of public opinion (Peterson, 2010)
...
After the vote, when cell phone networks had been temporarily
disabled, Mehtari turned to mass e-mailings and leaflet distribution as his choice for spreading
activist messages, and was arrested twice and tortured for his actions (Peterson, 2010)
...
Though Western media in particular

9

seems to generally conform to the view that Facebook and Twitter are potent tools which have
and will continue to act as driving forces behind the overthrow of non-democratic regimes, there
do exist arguments on both sides of the issue
...
Adding to this
argument is the example of Egypt in April 2008, when textile workers protested the extremely
low wages provided by the state
...
In the end, even though the Facebook group called “April 6” (the date
for which protests were planned) had attracted more than 64,000 members, and several thousand
more supporters in the general online community, the civil unrest soon died down and was
overall relatively ineffective (Morozov, 2011) (Al Jazeera and Agencies, 2008)
...


B
...
This report uses
a variety of sources to facilitate the creation of its numerous graphs and data sets, including the
use of a tool called Google Transparency which allows users to create and view customized
graphs pertaining to certain types of internet usage in specific regions around the world over a set
period of time
...
) it is still very interesting to see how certain segments of the internet are
and were being used at particular points in time (Google Transparency Report)
...
For example, it is noted
in the Arab Social Media Report that American technology export laws prevent Facebook from
reporting the same type of data about Iranian users as it does about users in many other countries
(ASMR, 2011)
...

As of December 2010, Iranian Facebook penetration was estimated at 0
...
However, the Digital Access Index (a measurement of the average citizen's
ability to access the internet) of Iran was estimated at 44% during the same time period,
compared to Egypt's 40%, signifying that relatively few Iranians within the much larger online
community were visiting Facebook (the number of Facebook users as a percentage of overall
internet users was thought to be around 1
...
61% in Egypt)
...
It is possible that due to the heavy filtering in Iran, the public had less access
to certain popular social media platforms in 2009 than Egyptians enjoyed in 2011
...
Iran
Comprising just over 50% of the internet users throughout the Middle East, Iran
maintains the lead in internet penetration rates throughout the region (46
...
The country has
also seen the most rapid growth in internet usage, from a mere 250,000 users in December 2000
to approximately 36
...
Though
only a small percentage of the 36
...
However, it should be kept in mind that Iranian mobile-phone usage far outpaces internet
usage, even in regards to political activities (Quirk, 2009)
...
A section of the
Iranian Constitution regarding 'Mass-Communication Media' makes it clear that a citizen's
options are limited when accessing and using traditional media, stating that “To this end, the
media should be used as a forum for healthy encounter of different ideas, but they must strictly
refrain from diffusion and propagation of destructive and anti-Islamic practices” (Tschentscher,
2010)
...

One of the key components of internet control in Iran is the severe limitations placed on
bandwidth availabilities in households
...
This seems counter-intuitive to the
direction the infrastructure was progressing in Iran, which had a rapidly expanding fiber-optic
network between 2005 and 2007 that would have been capable of supporting internet speeds
much greater than 128 kbps
...
Furthermore, internet service providers who marketed to the
public were required to route their services through the state-controlled Telecommunication
Company of Iran (TCI), providing an additional level of state monitoring over household internet
access (ONI Iran, 2009)
...
Egypt
Accurate data on exactly how many Egyptians use the internet is difficult to acquire
...
While many of these users access the internet at
home, it has been noted that a large number of the Egyptian internet-using population utilizes
internet cafes to go online rather than household connections (ONI Egypt, 2009)
...
488 million
subscribers) as of January, 2011 (Le Coq, 2011)
...

Comprising nearly one third of the entire Arabic blogging community, Egyptian blogs tend to
break down into several topical categories, ranging anywhere from poetry to political reform
...
Another interesting fact about the Muslim Brotherhood within
the Egyptian blogging community is that the members are much more likely (78%) to post using
their real names rather than under “anonymous” or an imagined pseudonym, as is the case with
most Egyptian bloggers
...
The authors of a
study examining Arabic blogging claim that Egypt is one of the few countries with large-scale
political clustering similar to the blog environment of the United States and a few other
politically active “blogospheres,” such as Iran’s
...
, 2009)
...

Overall, the Egyptian blogging environment serves as a useful forum for discussion
between both members within a particular group and non-affiliated users who stop by to
comment, debate, or read the blogs for personal reasons
...
These online networks can also
contribute to interaction between similar communities, creating an online source of opinion
formation, debate, knowledge acquisition, and goal setting (Etling et al
...

Facebook penetration in Egypt, as of May 2011, was approximately 5
...
While this
number seems quite low, especially when compared to the much higher penetration rates in
countries such as the United States, this 5
...
5 million users country-wide
(ASMR, 2011)
...
5 million in a country of
approximately 82 million had Facebook accounts, the personal networking capabilities of each
person with an account had the potential to dramatically increase the number of those with
second or third-hand access to the information (Dabashi, 2010)
...
While this
data does not make clear the reason behind the increase, it is interesting to note the correlation
(ASMR, 2011)
...
Out of 126 Egyptian respondents, only 15
...
93%; “Spread information to
the world about the movement and related events” = 24
...
55%) (ASMR, 2011)
...

As for the use of Twitter in Egypt, the data shows a similar story
...
Twitter is shown in the Arab Social Media Report to
have been used widely before, during, and after the 2011 revolution (ASMR, 2011)
...
The data set begins at January 1, with about 13,500 daily
Tweets originating in Egypt
...


16

Once internet access was restored the number of daily Tweets rose dramatically, peaking at
around 34,000 per day on February 11th, the day Hosni Mubarak stepped down from office
...
Furthermore, the
top trending “hashtags,” or topics Twitter users used to categorize messages and enable others to
search for common themes, showed a strong relationship to Egyptian events during the first
quarter of 2011; two of the top five hashtags in the first three months of 2011 were directly
related to Egypt: #Egypt (mentioned 1
...
2 million times), while number five of the top five, #protest (620,000 mentions), could have in
part related to events in Egypt (ASMR, 2011)
...
Part of this is
likely due to the fact that at the time, Twitter had no option for an Arabic interface, so users were
forced to navigate the site in English or another of the supported languages
...

Though Egyptians had readily-available access to the internet and mobile phone
networks, this does not mean that the Egyptian government ignored the usage of such modes of
communication
...
In regards to internet-specific regulation, the government proposed legislation in
the same year requiring those Egyptians who accessed the internet via internet cafes to submit
personally-identifiable information such as a name, email address, and phone number before
internet access was to be allowed
...
Furthermore, the Egyptian government was not averse to taking actions to severely
limit internet access within the country, as seen during the shutdown of virtually all internet
connections in Egypt for a period of five days starting on January 27, 2011 (Google
Transparency Report)
...


C
...
Each
event had its own unique underlying causes, each group of protesters had a distinct set of goals,
and each outcome was different by the time the movements were recognized as having run their
course
...
” Examining how each set of would-be and
actual revolutionaries used social media resources to influence the momentum and formation of

18

their cause may bring a deeper understanding of the potential for such resources to drive change
in all societies, not just those seen to be under particularly authoritative rule
...
Iran
In the days and weeks leading up to the 2009 Iranian Presidential election, there was little
talk or action that would suggest the emergence of an opposition social movement
...
However, most Iranians were not expecting the level of
election fraud that was thought to have occurred when the votes were finally tallied
...
It should not have come as a
surprise that Iranians would protest, because according to some, “Street protests are as Iranian as
apple pie is American” (Peterson, 2010)
...
Mousavi, the lead opponent to the
incumbent regime in the election, was very active in building a strong social media platform for
his campaign
...
facebook
...
com/#!/mousavi1388 ) in
order to gain support and advertise his points of view, while his supporters used these same
resources as well as SMS messaging to “spread the word
...
Those who either supported Mousavi or
merely desired a closer look/recall of the votes texted, Tweeted, and posted online to advertise
their views of the supposedly-rigged election and to call for Iranians to protest in the streets of
Tehran (Quirk, 2009)
...
Sazegara's site was partially a source where citizens could gain
access to the works of Gene Sharp, a former researcher at Harvard University who wrote on the
means for success in non-violent political change, but also a spot where Sazegara would post
videos of himself encouraging the use of nonviolence during the protests in Iran
...
Internet
resources such as Sazegara’s website embodied one of the emerging aspects of social media, the
creation of a sense of solidarity among those who sought to bring about social and/or political
change
...
One Twitter user, Arik Fraimovich, started a campaign called “Help Iran Election,”
asking other users to modify their profile pictures on the website to have a green tint in order to
show support for the adopted color of the burgeoning movement; within two weeks, 160,000

20

users were following Fraimovich's campaign, though it is unclear how many were Iranian
citizens and how many were foreigners
...
Less notable but similar ideas also spread around the
internet, such as organizations calling themselves “Anonymous Iran” and “Haystack” attempting
to open up access to censored international news coverage, and a campaign called Sea of Green's
attempt to elicit support from United Way (Burns et al, 2009)
...
Whereas at one time
activists printed pamphlets or made signs to express their support or lack thereof for a particular
cause, the process had become immeasurably faster in a world where one person’s Tweet could
instantly appear on the cell phones or computers of tens of thousands of people within the city or
around the world
...
Before the elections, the
government had taken several actions that seemed to target social media and political opposition
in particular
...
yaarinews
...
Prior to that, a popular
website supporting reformist political ideas was blocked in March 2008
...

A study conducted in order to determine the extent of blog censorship found that out of a
subset comprising the most-connected blogs, 9% were officially blocked by the Iranian

21

government, and a majority of those blocked contained subject matter such as reformism and
secular politics (it is important to note that many blogs seemingly in line with the government’s
ideals were also blocked, and the study concluded that while there seemed to be a systematic
targeting of dissident blogs, the results also showed a noticeable degree of randomness)
...
com and xanga
...
com, Orkut
...
com, bebo
...
com, photobucket
...
com (blocked from approximately Fall 2008 to February 2009), and YouTube
...
Various sources have
claimed that Iran has anywhere from five to ten million websites blocked at any one time, but it
is likely that a large number of these are websites that provide access to material considered
immoral by the Iranian government, such as pornography (ONI Iran, 2009)
...
However, perhaps because Ahmadinejad’s
government knew of the potential power of a such a force, there was no tolerance for a
recurrence of past events
...

The initial protests, which drew large numbers of supporters and occurred frequently,
began to diminish in the face of a trained and weapon-bearing body whose job it was to quell any
new uprisings
...
Furthermore, the online presence
of news-based and political sources encountered resistance within Iran following the election
...
In addition, online
users who had previously been able to bypass censorship through the use of proxy servers found
their work more difficult after government entities had noticed the loophole and began to focus
on preventing this method of circumvention (Schachtman, 2009)
...

However, the cutting off of several media services left a void which could be filled by the
readily-available technologies waiting in the pockets of the protesters
...

It is difficult to determine whether the primary purpose behind the sharing of this media was for
domestic circulation or to spread information outside of the country, but either way, the citizens
of Iran, along with the rest of the world, began to pick up on these new and very localized
streams of information (Dabashi, 2010)
...
This event caused a strong reaction among Iranian citizens who had yet
another tangible example of the lack of personal security in their country (Buxton, 2009)
...
Another such
video, entitled “Deadly Iran Protest on Camera,” also gained a significant amount of attention as
it depicted large crowds of protestors and a clash between citizens and authorities which resulted
in up to seven deaths
...
Once they hit the internet, the pictures, videos, and messages posted by these
average citizens were seen within Iran and around the world, as one analyst claimed, “from
Isfahan to Indianapolis” (Quirk, 2009)
...
Rubin was also of the opinion that “The
real story of this election is being told by the citizen,” and commented on YouTube’s role in
circumventing Iranian content-filtering systems
...
This resource enabled, probably inadvertently, many citizens at all levels of technological

24

skill to participate in the increasingly-common use of proxy servers in bypassing censorship by
hosting How-To videos posted by users on configuring these systems
...
A 25 year old IT Director out of San Francisco saw an enormous increase
in the traffic to his website after posting step-by-step instructions on the configuration of proxy
servers; user visits to Austin Heap’s website exploded from ~30-50 users per day to over
100,000 in a 24-hour period
...
In addition to using proxy servers to avoid the
Iranian government’s active role in censorship, many protestors also became more active online
fighting back in a manner similar to the methods being used by government entities
...
Protestors used mediums such as Twitter and Facebook
to post encouragement for participation in the effort and directions on how to use the internet as
a tool for disabling government servers
...
Following the reintroduction of service, sources such as
Facebook and the website for BBC news were blocked from public access
...

Even though sites such as Facebook were sometimes blocked in Iran, effectively
restricting the methods of mass-communication previously available to activists, Twitter turned

25

out to be a form of social media which was more difficult to suppress due to its versatility in
functioning both on internet and SMS networks
...
mousavi's supporters are
already there
...
Though these very emotional appeals
surely caused a sympathetic reaction among readers, they exhibit one of the primary drawbacks
of social media, that the system provides mostly unverifiable information in the form of opinions
and un-sourced claims, such as the examples above
...

Along with the challenge of verifying the truth of “news” spread through social media
networks comes the problem of identity verification
...
This lack of clear and distinguishable identities throughout the online community
swings two ways, in that it also opens the door for those who do not support current activist
activities to infiltrate and disrupt processes (such as organization and the spread of accurate
information) for their own purposes
...

As noted, many have supported the idea that Iranian government forces used social media
to disrupt and disorient the protests, while several even claim that authorities such as the Basij
paramilitary troops used Twitter to determine the locations of dissidents in order to detain or
harm them
...
During the same period in which these two entities would supposedly create the
contradictory blogs they explicitly warned citizens, in a manner that suggested threats of
violence, to avoid contributing to blogs that were deemed to “create tension” (Schachtman,
2009) (Burns et al, 2009)
...
Egypt
As was seen in the example of the April 6, 2008 attempt at a movement for social change,
Egyptians in general (and youth in particular) were primed for mobilization, needing only
enough of a push to gather momentum
...
It is probable that the Mubarak
administration's previous attempt to reform the Egyptian economic model, partially in an effort
to secure access to IMF and World Bank funds, caused the public to seek further improvements

27

after experiencing the benefits of an expanding economy; as Alexis de Tocqueville noted, “the
most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform itself” (Zakaria,
2011)
...

By the time the revolution officially started in January, 2011, the internet had been used
extensively as a medium to describe and condemn government actions such as police and
security force brutality
...
In one instance, a university student
posted to his blog that he had been beaten by police after tripping on a train platform (Ghosh,
2011)
...

More recently, the editor of the blog “Matabbat” was arrested and charged with “offending the
state institutions, destabilizing public security, and inciting others to demonstrate and strike via
the Internet” in August, 2008 (ONI Egypt, 2009)
...
In
the video, Mahfouz (who happens to be one of the former leaders of the April 6 Youth
Movement) stated that she and others had previously wanted to protest in Tahrir Square,
following the self-immolation of four Egyptians protesting the Mubarak regime, but only a few
people joined her
...
Following the posting of this video, many
viewers posted their own responses, holding signs similar to the one held by Mahfouz, and a
large flyer distribution campaign soon emerged in support of the January 25th protest
...

Though Mahfouz certainly did not build the support for the protests by herself, it is
possible that she was one of the few “sparks” that caused the waiting cascade of discontent to
emerge
...
This is how we managed to convey to people what we were going
through and reveal to them the reality of Mubarak's regime
...
Social media was key to reaching critical mass” (European
Parliament News “Sakharov winner…,” 2011)
...
com/#!/AsmaaMahfouz)
...
While the Egyptian revolution was an entirely different experience,
many of these bloggers had gained direct exposure to using online media to discuss and analyze
political events, as well as spreading news and opinions to the larger online community
...

The Mubarak regime had already showed its willingness and ability to disrupt social
networking capabilities in May of 2008, when mobile phone providers were requested to block
service to anonymous subscribers
...
Overall, the regime seemed to struggle
with the methods for limiting media access as they resorted to several distinct tactics in a
“shotgun effect” of attempted censorship: Egyptian state television employees who were
sympathetic to protestors were dismissed on indefinite leave; attempts at blocking sites such as
Facebook and Twitter largely failed as activists were able to assist each other in spreading the
idea of using proxy servers to access the internet and thereby skirt the government’s roadblocks;
state television would broadcast, in turn, video of the protests followed by wide panoramas of the
city which expressed a more peaceful atmosphere (Pintak, 2011, January 31); and the failure to
shut off Al Jazeera’s streaming into Egypt when the company responded by using an alternate
route of communication to continue broadcasting (Al Jazeera’s actions were amplified when
several other satellite broadcasters replaced their own coverage with Al Jazeera's) (Pintak, 2011,
February 02)
...
But somehow the world is watching us and it feels great
...

When the Mubarak administration eventually cut off a larger portion of access to internet
services and cell phone networks, they severely limited public access to these forms of media
...
This option was possible in part due to the introduction of Al Jazeera into
Egypt in 1996, which provided an alternative to the limited Arab-language news options
...
Lawrence Pintak notes that this new option of satellite news coverage as an alternative to
state-sponsored media allowed the Egyptian public to be more aware of events taking place
within their own country, regardless of the government’s desire to censor, “As recently as the
mid-1990s, they might not have even known the protests were taking place” (Pintak, 2011,
January 31)
...
” Whatever the

31

motivation of these new Arab journalists, their opinions and bias in covering the news
throughout the world translates into an altered worldview of those watching at home (Pintak,
2011, January 31)
...


V
...
It is also apparent that the
governments of both countries considered social media-related activities important, considering
the actions they took to limit citizens’ access to these mediums
...
It
is likely that many of those who eventually stood up in protest against their government were
originally relatively inactive in the fight for change (Morozov, 2011)
...
Many factors must align in
order for a resistance movement to emerge that is capable of realizing its goals, with broad-based

32

support across many diverse socio-economic sectors being one of the critical components to
overall success (Goldstone, 2011)
...
Those who say that Facebook, Twitter, etc
...
But those who argue that people too often ignore the more complex
factors at the root of discontent, and instead focus on the possibility that social media played the
decisive factor in overthrowing corrupt governments, are also correct; Iranians would probably
not have protested in June 2009 if they did not feel as though their freedom to choose was
abolished through government tampering in the elections, and Egyptians likely would not have
protested in early 2011 had the Mubarak regime not been so openly repressive and corrupt
...

Furthermore, each revolution had different outcomes
...
The
reasons for these stark contrasts likely involve a myriad of factors, including the actions of armed
forces within each country (Egyptian military refused to get involved and in fact ended up
supporting the citizens, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Basij quickly and ruthlessly
did what they saw necessary to put an end to the protests), as well as more nuanced conditions

33

that can only be understood by the Iranians and Egyptians themselves
...

As present-day social movements take form and actively challenge the status quo, it is
apparent that the new movements are at the same time similar to and different from those of the
past
...
As these forums for discussion become more
prevalent in societies around the world, it is possible that the citizens of countries such as Egypt
and Iran will increasingly rely on them to assist their efforts in the pursuit of change
...
Because social media is entirely based on peer to peer communication and
information-sharing, if oppressive governments are toppled in part due to the increased
cooperation among average citizens, this consensus-based approach for change may lead to a
desire for a stronger consensus-based approach to government
...


34

However, this paper was only meant to examine the prevalence of the use of social
media, and from there attempt to add further evidence as to whether the medium had an effect on
the revolutions in Egypt and Iran
...

Also, it would be useful to gain a wide range of local perspectives regarding social media in the
Iranian and Egyptian revolutions (and a knowledge of Arabic and/or Farsi would have been very
helpful in accomplishing this), because researching this information from thousands of miles
away from the perspective of an entirely different culture may change the way in which
information is gathered and analyzed due to pre-conceived opinions and social differences
...

Thomas Paine could only distribute Common Sense to fire up the revolutionaries in America’s
early history at a very limited rate; but there is virtually no limit to the speed at which the
average citizen can gain a sense of the opinions of the general online community through reading
posts on a blog, Facebook, or Twitter, or watching a video uploaded to YouTube
...
But Tweets and texts alone cannot confront the Basij
...


36

Reference List
Al Jazeera and Agencies
...
Egypt issues strike warning
...
aljazeera
...
html
...
(2009, May 25)
...
Retrieved from
http://www
...
com/news/middleeast/2009/05/200952404650472225
...

Al Jazeera and Agencies
...
Timeline: Egypt's revolution
...
aljazeera
...
html
Alfoneh, A
...
The situation of post election Iran
...
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