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War of words: Social media’s role in inciting revolutionary change

Note: This article was published in the April 2011 issue of Public Relations Tactics. It is posted here with permission. Assessing the impact of social technologies on the winter uprisings is complicated. In the midst of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern autocracies, pundits attributed the spreading demands for democracy to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This seriously over-simplified the highly complex web of economic, cultural and political factors that contributed to the demands for change. Revolutionaries are using text messages, blogs and social networks to communicate and collaborate with each other and the rest of the world. However, social technologies weren’t necessary for the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the People Power Revolution in the Philippines or the fall of the Iron Curtain. It is tempting to suggest that social technologies are causing revolutionary change, but that …