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Technology and the Arab Spring: A Digital Revolution –

The Arab Spring, kick-started by fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in front of a Government building in Ben Arous, Tunisia, after being publicly humiliated by a police officer. In Tahla and Sulong’s research into the Arab Spring, they state ‘In December 2010, the Arab Spring Revolts were a series of protests which sprung up in the Middle East and focused on the cruel and unfair regimes which were available in those countries, and the people's denial to continue with these regimes.’ (Tahla, M. & Sulong, G. 2012.) People of several Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain grouped together in an aim to ‘bring in new governments that would deliver political reform and social justice.’ (Amnesty International, 2016.)

What role did social media play in the Arab Spring?

Without social media, the governments overthrown by the actions of the protesters would likely still be operating an oppressive, authoritarian regime today. Natana De-Long Bas stated in her research on the Arab Spring that ‘Pivotal to the revolutions that quietly overthrew regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and pushed for change and reform in other countries throughout the region has been the role of the new social media in transforming ideas shared in cyberspace into real-life action on the ground.’ (NJ. DeLong-Bas, 2011). The idea that social media influenced the Arab Spring is unquestionable in my view. There were organised marches and shared their views on how the revolutions could be best implemented, and as quoted in ‘The Role of Modern Technology in the Arab Spring.’, it is stated that ‘The role of Facebook cannot be forgotten in Arab revolution as people share their views and do future planning for gathering against the Zain Ulla bidden in Tunisia and the same regarding the Egypt President Hosni Mubarak's regime. (Tahla & Sulong, 2012.)

Furthermore, The BBC documentary, ‘How Facebook Changed The Arab Spring’ shows an investigative piece of work which speaks to people directly involved in the Arab Spring, including protesters. Some of the protesters involved gave reasons why Facebook and other social media was such a crucial tool in order for the Arab Spring to be a success. They gave reasons such as it being the safest way to spread messages, as Arab countries have been notoriously opposed to Freedom of Speech. Yet despite the success in part of the Arab Spring, with the overthrowing of three dictatorial regimes, things are not resolved in a large part of the Arab world. Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi was arrested in 2012 for ‘Insulting Islam through electronic channels.’ (McKernam, B. 2017.) Andrew Brown of The Guardian tells us that ‘arrest of the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, whose supposed crime was to argue for secularism, democracy and human rights. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes – a punishment that amounts to death by torture – although only 50 lashes were inflicted on him in the one session. Medical opinion was that he would not survive the remainder of that part of his sentence.’ (Brown, A. 2017.) So despite the success of the digital revolution through the Arab Spring, many Arab countries still restrict any form of free speech, and more needs to be done to counteract the oppression from above.

(Peter Pismestrovic, 2015.)

References - 

Amnesty International (2016). The 'Arab Spring': Five years on. [online] Amnesty.org. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/01/arab-spring-five-years-on/ 

Brown, A. (2017). Ten years in jail and 1,000 lashes: why we must defend Saudi blogger Raif Badawi | Andrew Brown. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/18/raif-badawi-saudi-arabia-blogger 

Chadwick, A. (2013). The Hybrid Media System. 2nd ed. New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, USA.

De-Long Bas, N. (2011). The New Social Media and The Arab Spring. [online] Oxfordislamicstudies.com. Available at: http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/focus/essay0611_social_media.html

How Facebook Changed The Arab Spring. (2018). [video] Directed by BBC.

McKernan, B. (2017). Man 'sentenced to death' for being an atheist by Saudi Arabia. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-atheism-ahmad-al-shamri-hafar-al-batin-appeal-denied-a7703161.html 

NPR (2011). The Arab Spring : A Year of Revolution. [online] Npr.org. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2011/12/17/143897126/the-arab-spring-a-year-of-revolution

Tahla, M. and Sulong, G. (2012). The Role of Modern Technology in The Arab Spring. 1(1), pp.1-12.

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‘Going Viral’

Going Viral’ is now an all too common occurrence with the amount of people who share, retweet and repost information increasing every day, according to Facebook’s official statistics, ‘4.75 Billion pieces of content’ were shared daily in May 2013, an increase of ‘94% since August 2012’ (Facebook, 2013.) Yet ‘Going Viral’ can go one of either two ways, it can plummet a person or company into the limelight for positive reasons, yet conversely, it can also ruin people’s legacies or careers.

Positive Examples of ‘Going Viral’ –

A recent, and perhaps best well known example of somebody going viral is the ‘Yodelling Kid’, Mason Ramsey. TIME, the U.S. media corporation, stated that ‘The Internet has fallen hard for this boy yodelling at Walmart.’ (Hoffman, A. 2018.) Going viral for Ramsey has undoubtedly changed his life in way which could not be foreseen before the video of his yodelling in his local Walmart was placed online. The video is difficult to source to an exact profile, but his interview on ‘The Ellen Show’ has been viewed over 21 million times on YouTube, showing the mass traffic which is interested in Ramsey’s story. The video has changed Ramsey’s life, with performances on Ellen, at Coachella and a college scholarship among the accolades Ramsey has collected. Throw this in with a #1 country single ‘Famous’ (Fitzmaurice, L. 2018.) The internet and going viral has certainly been kind to Ramsey. This shows the sheer power of the new age of digital media. Samantha Goodyear of The Huffington Post states that ‘The thing is, the Internet gives youth so much freedom. We now have a relevant voice because of social media.’ (Goodyear, S. 2014.) This quote shows that social media now gives young people an opportunity to spread their views through the sharing of content on social media, as shown perfectly through the ‘Yodelling Kid.’

Negative Examples of ‘Going Viral –

For every positive example of a new viral, there is a negative. A popular example of a disastrous case of going viral is the controversial Pepsi advert starring Kendall Jenner. In the advert starring the Kardashian star, she is seen to hand a police officer a can of Pepsi during riots, and then suddenly everything becomes fine. According to the BBC, ‘She was accused of undermining the Black Lives Matter movement after handing a can of the soft drink to a police officer during a protest.’ (BBC, 2017.) Jenner was highly criticised following the commercial, and Pepsi pulled the advert within 24 hours of its release. Olivia Solon of The Guardian states that ‘going viral for all the wrong reasons.’ (Solon, O. 2017.) It wasn’t just Jenner who fekl the negative aspects of the terribly thought through advertising campaign. Pepsi had to face the repercussions of the advert, with John Fugelsang tweeting that ‘Pepsi just made the commercial of the year for Coke.’ Before the advert was taken down after just 24 hours it had amassed ‘1 million views on YouTube, the ad has already garnered 18,000 dislikes compared to just 3,000 likes.’ (Siegal, J. 2017.) Not the best marketing technique from Pepsi. Ultimately due to the now ever more important aspects of social and digital media, brands cannot afford to make mistakes like Pepsi did in this incident.

References - 

Chadwick, A. (2013). The Hybrid Media System. 2nd ed. New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, USA.

Fitzmaurice, L. (2018). The Viral Success of the Yodeling Kid Seems Awfully Familiar. [online] Vulture.com. Available at: http://www.vulture.com/2018/05/the-viral-success-of-the-yodeling-kid-seems-awfully-familiar.html 

Goodyear, S. (2014). What Adults Get Wrong About Social Media. [online] HuffPost. Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-goodyear/the-power-of-social-media_3_b_5161138.html?guccounter=1 

Hoffman, A. (2018). The Internet Has Fallen Hard For This Boy Yodeling at Walmart. [online] Time. Available at: http://time.com/5225039/walmart-yodeling-boy-video-goes-viral/ 

Solon, O. (2017). Kendall Jenner's Pepsi ad criticized for co-opting protest movements for profit. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/apr/04/kendall-jenner-pepsi-ad-protest-black-lives-matter 

Wehner, M. and Smith, C. (2017). Watch the Pepsi commercial that has the entire internet going crazy. [online] BGR. Available at: http://bgr.com/2017/04/05/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner-tone-deaf-commercial/ 

YouTube. (2018). Kid Yodeler Mason Ramsey Performs. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XKSo2mFC6c

Zephoria.com. (2018). The Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics – Updated April 2018. [online] Available at: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ 

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The Impact of Digital Media on Modern Day Politics.

Digital and Social media is ever changing and now has a more powerful impact on politics than ever before. The best examples we can give are the most recent elections both in the U.K. and the USA. Politicians now have Facebook accounts, Twitter profiles among many other forms of social media.

2017 UK General Election –

2017 saw a snap election called by Conservative Party leader, Theresa May in order to gain as much momentum as possible from other parties. The BBC quoted that ‘Mrs May claimed Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems would try to destabilise and frustrate the process in Parliament.’ (BBC, 2017.) Yet this was not how it panned out, Labour used digital media, specifically social media, to a much more vocal level than the Tories. Giles Cunningham, a former press advisor to David Cameron, applauded Labour’s techniques, stating that they held a ‘very polished social media presence” (Cunningham,G. 2017.) High profile individuals also undoubtedly had a say on this election as well. Rapper Stormzy stated that ‘Jeremy Corbyn gets what the ethnic minorities are going through.’ (The Guardian, 2017.) With a social media following of over 700 thousand, high profile celebrities such as Stormzy can provide a platform for politicians whereby they can connect with groups who have traditionally been difficult to connect with. Corbyn’s friendship with Stormzy arguably swung the pendulum towards him during election campaigning, and the high profile voice of Labour’s ‘For the many, not the few’ on digital media made a politician seem human, for the first time in a long while.

2016 US Presidential Election –

A campaign that will live long in the memory, ultimately culminating in the most unlikely conclusions, with the most bullish candidate of all time, Donald Trump, becoming President. Trump however, showed his knowledge of digital and social media throughout the campaign and his Twitter feed was probably one of the most important factors in his successful campaign. His #MAGA hashtag on Twitter received almost 6,000,000 tweets in the last four months of the US election, compared to under 3,000,000 for Hillary Clinton’s #ImWithHer hashtag. Trump also received 89.5 million Retweets and Likes, compared to 41.6 Million for Clinton. Granted, many of them may have been ‘Bots’ with Bloomberg telling us that 470,000 of his Retweets coming from ‘Russian Bots (Wang, S. For Bloomberg. 2018)

Yet the age old phrase that ‘No publicity is bad publicity’ comes into relevance here. Trump has himself stated that without social media, he would have unlikely become President. He stated ‘When somebody says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing and I take care of it. The other way, I would never get the word out’ (Baynes, C. 2017) Trump gained so much exposure through Twitter during the election, and the momentum that he gained through the vicious insults of Clinton and her past not only improved the media exposure he was receiving, but depreciated Clinton’s underfire campaign.

Digital media has certainly revolutionised political campaigning, and it will be interesting to see what impact social and digital media has on the next elections.

References - 

Baynes, C. (2017). Trump says he would not be President without Twitter. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-tweets-twitter-social-media-facebook-instagram-fox-business-network-would-not-be-a8013491.html 

BBC (2018). Why did Theresa May call an election?. [online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40210957

Chadwick, A. (2013). The Hybrid Media System. 2nd ed. New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, USA.

Jennings, W. and Stoker, G. (2017). The new economy, social change, and polarised places: A changed terrain for British politics.

Stromer-Galley, J., Hemsley, J., Tanupabrungsun, S., Zhang, F., Rossini, P., Bryant, L., McCracken, N., Hegde, Y., Semaan, B., Jackson, S., Boichak, O., Li, Y., Harandi, M., Robinson, J. (2016). Illuminating 2016 Project. http://illuminating.ischool.syr.edu)

Wang, S. (2018). Russian Bots Retweeted Trump's Twitter 470,000 Times. [online] Bloomberg.com. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/twitter-says-russian-linked-bots-retweeted-trump-470-000-times 

Wolfson, S. (2016). Stormzy: ‘My man Jeremy Corbyn! I dig what he says'. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/21/stormzy-grime-skepta-kanye-drake 

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Donald Trump and the Rise of Fake News –

‘Fake news’ is defined as ‘An inaccurate, sometimes sensationalistic report that is created to gain attention, mislead, deceive or damage a reputation.’ (Whatis.com, 2018.) Yet the ‘Fake news’ phenomenon really came into prominence during the 2016 presidential election and the ‘King of fake news, Donald Trump.’ (Acosta, J. 2018.) Yet we do have to appreciate that fabricated stories are part of news, as eluded to in ‘The Hybrid Media System’ (Chadwick, A. 2017.) We are told that ‘Satirical news sites have emerged, like the Daily Currant, whose business model is based on generating ad revenues by running humorous articles’ (Rensin, 2014.)

Trump and Fake News –

Trump, undoubtedly has delivered some outlandish statements which qualify as ‘Fake News’. According to CNN, ‘The Washington Post's Fact-Checker blog has been keeping a strict count of President Donald Trump's many misstatements, untruths and outright lies. And, over the weekend at a rally in Michigan, Trump hit a(nother) milestone: He topped 3,000 untrue or misleading statements in 466 days in office.’ (Cilizza, C. 2018.)

Fake news also had an undoubted influence on Trump actually becoming President in the first place. Fake news was spread vastly on Facebook in the lead up to the vote in November 2016. A study by professors including Princeton University’s Andrew Guess found that 1 in 4 American’s were exposed to Fake News on Facebook between 7 October – 14 November 2016. (Guess et. Al, 2017.) The study seems to suggest that Trump voters were the most influenced by fake news. It made up 6%  of articles viewed by Trump supporters, compared to only 0.8% for Clinton voters. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has exposed the blueprints of how the election was influenced by the company, and they would implement what Trump wanted people to see. The below leaked document from Cambridge Analytica showed the technique used by the corporation to support Donald Trump, and as we can see, when trying to ‘Go Negative on Hillary’s positions and expose scandals.’ (Lewis, P. and P.Hilder. 2017.) A fake news website, entitled LyingCrookedHillary.com was placed by Cambridge Analytica at the top of search bars when people were looking for information about the election. Trump travelled around sporting a campaign whereby he insulted fellow campaigners, celebrities and journalists, and he was a constant source of publicity. He was ‘Priming the news’, a technique described in his 1987 book, ‘Trump: The Art of the Deal.’

Despite the facts that Trump has had his fair share of creating ‘Fake News’, such as saying that he was ‘Wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (Trump, 2016.) Even though at the time he was for it. (New York Times, 2018.) Despite these lies, Trump claims various outlets, such as CNN and NBC as ‘Fake News’ and ‘Sad’. As quoted by the Financial Times Journalist, Andrew Edgecliff Johnson ‘According to the Trump Twitter Archive, the president of the United States has tweeted about fake news more than 200 times since his inauguration.’ (Edgecliff Johnson, A. 2017.) The double standard shown by Trump in accusing news outlets of Trump is remarkable considering the statistics which tell us the numbers of Trump’s dishonest statements since his inauguration.

References - 

Acosta, J. (2018). CNN’s Jim Acosta: Trump is the ‘king of fake news’. [online] The Washington Times. Available at: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/18/cnns-jim-acosta-trump-king-fake-news/ 

Anapol, A. (2018). Edward Snowden: Russian collusion is too ‘complicated’ for Trump. [online] Thehill.com. Available at: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/389594-edward-snowden-suggests-trump-couldnt-have-colluded-with-russia 

Chadwick, A. (2013). The Hybrid Media System. 2nd ed. New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, USA.

Cillizza, C. (2018). President Trump lied more than 3,000 times in 466 days. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/01/politics/donald-trump-3000/index.html

Edgecliff - Johnson, A. (2018). Trump, fake news and the seeds of doubt. [online] Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/213fecde-5896-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0 

Kan, M. (2018). Study Finds Facebook was the Biggest Distributor of Fake News. [online] PCMag UK. Available at: http://uk.pcmag.com/news/92666/study-finds-facebook-was-the-biggest-distributor-of-fake-news

Leonhardt, D. and Thompson, S. (2017). Opinion | President Trump’s Lies, the Definitive List. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html 

Lewis, P. and Hilder, P. (2018). Leaked: Cambridge Analytica's blueprint for Trump victory. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/23/leaked-cambridge-analyticas-blueprint-for-trump-victory 

WhatIs.com. (2018). What is fake news? - Definition from WhatIs.com. [online] Available at: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/fake-news

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Privacy Online..?

How we are viewed online and how people are able to access our data is now an ever more common curiosity. Yet are we too fickle in sharing our data? Do we care more for convenience than privacy? As Hayley Tsukayama of the Washington Post states when looking at a survey on online privacy ‘The survey, which polled 4,000 respondents in the United States and Britain on their thoughts about data privacy, found that 60 percent of Internet users opt to use their Facebook, Twitter or Google account credentials to log in to other sites.’ (Tsukayama, H. 2014.) 

When looking at the role played by the internet in citizen surveillance, we must state that the internet has made surveillance of the general public easier, with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. allowing anyone to view what they want regarding your likes, interests and what you did last summer. Yet the theories of surveillance have differing views on whether or not this is a positive or negative thing for the society we live in. Looking at it from a synopticsm perspective, it is claimed that it is not exploitation of citizens, but liberating, and we all take parts in acts of surveillance ourselves, by wanting to see the private lives of others, including colleagues, friends and even celebrities. When we take into consideration the ‘Panopticon’ approach, coined firstly by Jeremy Bentham in the late 1700’s, we are able to link this to the way people behave online. The panopticon view was the so called ‘perfect prison’ where guards could see into any of the rooms at any given times, with the prisoners knowing that they were under constant surveillance. Mathias Klang compares this to the current state of internet surveillance, bringing in Michel Foucalts’ view, stating that ‘. Foucault used Bentham’s prison as a metaphor. Those under the eye of the Panopticon internalized their own regulation and behaved accordingly. The theory is that the knowledge, suspicion or fear of being watched changes the behaviour of the person being watched. This change is non-voluntary and therefore it is an exercise of power on the part of the watcher.’ (Klang, M. 2003.) Essentially, Klang is bringing these other theories of panopticsm to the theory of internet surveillance, implying that people could, and perhaps would act in another way were they not being watched.

We can link this to the Westminster terror attack, where the attacker communicated on an encrypted service in Whatsapp, where he couldn’t be watched. Gordon Rayner of The Telegraph stated that ‘Ajao, 52, sent a final message via WhatsApp – which enables users to send text messages and pictures over the internet – just three minutes before he began Wednesday’s slaughter.’ (Rayner, G. 2017.) In regard to the suggestion ‘“Surveillance is both a weapon of the powerful and of the powerless.” It is difficult to deliver an exact stance. But if you had to lean to a side it would be to agree. Surveillance does allow the government to monitor people, yet it also allows anybody to see what they want of the powerful, through various social media sites.

References -

Bentham, J., Christie, I. and Burns, J. (2017). The correspondence of Jeremy Bentham. London: UCL Press.

Chadwick, A. (2013). The Hybrid Media System. 2nd ed. New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, USA.

Kay, J. (2006). Panopticism - Michel Foucault. [online] Libcom.org. Available at: https://libcom.org/library/panopticism-michel-foucault 

Kollseska, H. (2003). Surveillance & Society. 1(3), pp.292-313.

Rayner, G. (2017). WhatsApp accused of giving terrorists 'a secret place to hide' as it refuses to hand over London attacker's messages. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/26/home-secretary-amber-rudd-whatsapp-gives-terrorists-place-hide/ 

Tsukayama, H. (2014). Online Privacy. Washington Post.