Puerta del Sol

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 Ghonim’s book Revolution 2.0
• American publisher
Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt anounced
Ghonim’s book
Revolution 2.0 for
January 25th, 2012
• Was it a revolution?
• Was it a 2.0?

Wael Ghonim
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Rebellions and riots 2011

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 Causes of the riots
• demographic structural factors,
• unemployment and poverty,
• lack of perspective for youngsters
• human rights violations,
• government corruption,
• dictatorship,
• inflation,
• etc.
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 A match which set
the Arab world on fire
• The self-immolation of a street
vendor Mohammed Bouazizi (26)
in the town of Sidi Bouzid - in
protest of the confiscation of his
wares and the humiliation that
was inflicted on him by a
municipal official - led to the
downfall of the Tunisian President
Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali.
• #SidiBouzid
• Self-immolations in Algeria,
Jordan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bouazizi, suicide
by immolation in Sidi Bouzid,
Egypt, Syria, Iraq Tunisia, on December 18, 2010

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 Jasmine revolution
• My name is freedom. Born in Tunisia, raised
in Egypt, studied in Yemen, fought in Libya
and I'll grow up in the Arab world. @AliTweel,
Twitter

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 Egypt #Jan25
• Young Egyptian Khaled Said was beaten to death
by police in June 2010.
• Facebook page „We are all Khaled Said” in Arabic
was ran by Google executive Wael Ghonim, who
runs #Jan25 too
• Facebook page „We are all Khaled Said” in English
(http://www.facebook.com/elshaheeed.co.uk) has
119,744 „likes” as for May 31.
• Its main topics now are Syria and Egypt

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 Lybia #Feb17
• On 17 February 2006 security forces killed at
least a dozen protesters in Tripoli, while the
following year 14 activists were detained for
calling for action on the same day.
• The Libyan movement took a symbolic name
#Feb17
• Its main Facebook page
(http://www.facebook.com/17022011libya)
attracted 140,823 members as for May 31.
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 „Who’s afraid of Twitter?”
• “We use Facebook to
schedule the protests,
Twitter to coordinate, and
YouTube to tell the world”
(A Cairo activist, according
to: Howard, Philip N. (2011-
02-23). „The Cascading
Effects of the Arab Spring”.
Miller-McCune.com. Santa
Barbara)

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 Social media according to Wiki
• Social media are media for
social interaction, using
highly accessible and scalable
communication techniques.
• Distinct from industrial or
traditional media, print or
electronic ones.
• Social media is the use of
web-based and mobile
technologies to turn
communication into
interactive dialogue.

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 Nothing to lose but their chains
• Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define
social media as „a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and
technological foundations of Web 2.0, which
allows the creation and exchange of user-
generated content.” (Kaplan, Andreas M.;
Michael Haenlein (2010). "Users of the world,
unite! The challenges and opportunities of
Social Media". Business Horizons 53 (1): 59–68.)

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 Revolution + Web 2.0
• Lenin: Socialism = Soviets + Electrification
– (pattern: organization + new technology)
• Revolution 2.0 = Revolution + Social Media (as coined
for Iran 2009 by some witty journalist)?
• Is that a revolution (which one: social? political?
cultural? every?) through the social media?
• Or is enough to consider a social media „integral to a
revolution”? (Kirkpatrick, David D. (2011-02-09). "Wired
and Shrewd, Young Egyptians Guide Revolt". The New
York Times.)
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 Internet in the Arab world

• Internet access ranges from only 5% (Libya) to 34%

(Tunisia).
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 Egypt and Internet
• Egypt: Only 20% of
population have ever
used Internet.
• “Tunisia, Egypt and
Yemen have a combined
total of 14,642 Twitter
users”
• PC ownership remains
almost exclusively
available to the upper
and upper middle
classes. Photo: Essam Sharaf

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ANY QUESTION?
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