The Role and Impacts of Social Media in Social Movements: “Example of the Arab Spring”

Abstract

New communication networks provided by developments in internet technologies allow people to get more reliable and secure information or knowledge. Today people can get first hand information directly without using secondary sources. Needs of getting information from reliable sources among people have been rapidly increasing in the last years. After the increasing importance of internet and social media provide so many possibilities to people for getting reliable and secure information. According to this kind of communication style, users can show their personal interests, share photos or videos with other users by using their personal pages. With these features, social media has converted communication into dialogue by using technological devices and possibilities. These possibilities provide social media to play an important role in political spectrum. For example, social movements organized by using social media could overthrow oppressive governments or dictators in North Africa and Middle East. These examples prove that social media has gained an importance determining politics and social movements. In this study, impacts and importance of social media on “Arab Spring” going on increasing its importance in Middle East will be taken in hand and specifically the study will focus on the role of social media on “Arab Spring”. Eventually it was understood that social media is not the results of “Arab Spring”, actually it has turned into a vehicle which made huge contributions to these social movements.



Author Information
Şükrü Balci, Selcuk University, Turkey

Paper Information
Conference: ACSS2013
Stream: Social Sciences

This paper is part of the ACSS2013 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Balci �. (2013) The Role and Impacts of Social Media in Social Movements: “Example of the Arab Spring” ISSN: 2186-2303 – The Asian Conference on the Social Sciences 2013 – Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-2303.20130364
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-2303.20130364


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon