Social media’s role in promoting revolutions has been highlighted in recent months as observers connect it to uprisings in the Middle East and riots in the United Kingdom. A number of governments have wavered between calling for openness in communication and shutting down networks to maintain order.
A study conducted by a Yale graduate student - Navin Hassanpour - suggests that shutting down digital communications in the midst of an uprising only accelerates civil unrest. He suggests – and I think this is a very interesting point – that social media provides people with a forum to vent their frustration. Because people have access to social networking sites they know about the situation and this makes physical presence unnecessary.
The Egyptian revolution proved a fertile case study for this idea. President Mubarak unplugged all communication at the local level. With internet and mobile phone services cut off more than 71 million Egyptians were unable to function in their daily lives. What had once been a minor political issue centered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square ballooned into thousands of riots across Egypt.
Maybe we can include some thing on this in our feature??
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