Measuring the Impact of Middle Eastern Social Media 

     President Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 years, more as a dictator than as a freely elected representative of the people.  Then, in February 2011, Mubarak was forced out of power, largely as a result of the power of social media.  Even though Egypt has a large population of poor and uneducated people with little access to the Internet, the influence of social media was growing.  In 2004, there were only 1.5 million people with Web access, but by 2008, there were 13.6 million people using Facebook, blogs, and Twitter.  For the young middle class, this was especially true.

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Cairo’s Tahrir Square listens to President Hosni Mubarak address                                                                       the nation on 10 February 2011. He resigned the following day. 

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      In 2010, Tunisia’s huge demonstrations resulted in the overthrow of that government.  The excitement that came out of this was part of the spark that led people to gather in Tahrir Square in the capital of Cairo in January 2011.  While the social media did not cause this uprising, access to the Internet, the ability to follow news on social media and to connect with others both inside and outside of Egypt was really important for the Egyptian uprising. Protester Fawaz Rashed said “We used Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world” (Shearlaw).

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            When Egyptian police tortured and killed a 29-year-old man, Khaled Said, the event was posted on a Facebook page – this was the actual spark for the revolution.  Three days later, as many as 100,000 people came out to protest and the page was followed more than any other page in Arab countries.   “Social media was a key driver, was a game changer in Egypt primarily because it bridged the gap between social classes, thus for the first time creating a much larger united anti-government front that included rich and poor” (Griffin).  At first there was unity in opposing the government, which had no idea how powerful the protesters’ use of social media could be.  However, after “…the heady days of revolution” (Aday et al), social media became a tool for organizing around interest groups such as democratic activists, Islamists and so on.  More and more, the overall unity fell apart, while the ability for people to come together on social media to express their shared concerns helped to separate the public once more into more different groups who identified with their own specific concerns.  One study shows that by July of 2012, it was clear that the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood party and its followers had a larger increase in its group of social media use than either the general public or the more specific democratic activist groups.  Here, social media was able to play on people’s interests, but also their fears and expectations.  With such tight clustering of interest groups, each individual cluster on social media could highlight their own goals, fears, worldviews, and so on.

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          Social media played a critical role in gathering and unifying the crowds of protesters day after day that were so successful that Mubarak stepped down.  The power of the protesters in part came from these new tools for organizing, and in part came from the ability to inform the world through the Internet, which gave the revolution the added power and support of other countries like the United States.  However, when Mubarak was forced to step down and the Egyptian people were able elect their own government moving forward, the unity that made the revolution faded away.  Instead, social media became a platform for people to express their specific interests and concerns, once more separating people into different groups with different worldviews.