The events that have taken place in Egypt, Tunisia and other African countries since a few weeks ago can be understood as a revolution of communications. New technologies and media like Facebook and especially Twitter have had an important role to promote the manifestations and to organize the society to change some political regimes.
Social networks have taken internet to a different level. With what has been called web 2.0, citizens have now the opportunity to participate and use their freedom of speech to express their opinions and share photos and videos. So, communities of citizens become reporters of their own issues and create contents that could be distributed around the world at a very low cost.
The use of social networks in political issues has been extensively employed in the United States, where the accessibility to new technologies and the massive use of smart phones has given the society the chance to “tweet” from everywhere and has offered the political leaders the opportunity to keep in touch with their followers. As an example, the last presidential campaign in the United States used the power of social networks. The former candidate Barack Obama had an account in almost every existent social network and this certainly helped him to become known in the young sectors of the American population.
But what about developing countries? Even if the access to new technologies is not so spread in these countries for technical, economic and political reasons, the possibility of expressing an opinion in an easy way has a revolutionary effect and a consequent political impact.
In the last elections in Iran, people around the world could understand the demands of Iranian people in the Green Revolution, the impact of the protests and the repression by the armed forces, because of the messages that citizens sent through Twitter with the hashtag #iranelection
Twitter is taking a higher relevance in countries were freedom of speech is inexistent or limited and traditional media are controlled by the State.
In Egypt and Tunisia, the influence of social networks has been crucial for the international comprehension of the events. Even if many of these populations don’t have a high penetration of Internet, the fact that the suicide of a merchant in Tunisia could lead to a revolution capable of changing the government of Ben Ali that has been there for more than 20 years, could not be possible without the diffusion of this information through non traditional media.
The situation in Egypt has been even more significant. Egyptians knew about the events in Tunisia because of the social networks and the diffusion of images from the Al Jazeera TV channel. This encouraged them to take similar actions and organize protests against the government of Hosni Mubarak, in power for 30 years. Many of the manifestations in Tahrir Square were organized through a Facebook group created by the Manager of Google in Egypt, a man that declared to CNN that he was willing to give his life if it should be necessary for the freedom of Egypt, just a few days after being imprisoned by the Egyptian government.
Mubarak’s administration was aware of the impact of these new technologies and for that reason blocked the Internet service all over the country, but in times of a communication revolution it’s not that easy to isolate a population from the rest of the world.
The fact that the manager of Google was in prison, encouraged this company to take some actions in favour of Egyptian people. So, in a gesture without precedents, they decided to make an alliance with Twitter, so that Egyptian people could send voice messages to three different numbers and these could be transcript in Twitter with the hashtag #Egypt. Also the Egyptian political leader El Baradei opened a Twitter account where he asks for international help.
The domino effect is on the way. In China, where communications are very restricted, the Government decided to block the hashtag #Egypt so that population could not make statements about what is happening in this country. But Chinese users decided to create a new hashtag to avoid censorship.
In Cuba, where the censorship is spread and the access to new technologies is limited, there is a blogger community that reunites every month in a hidden place and learns about the use of social networks and blog services. The most representative member of this group is Yoani Sanchez, recognised internationally for her blog Generacion X. When her internet connection was blocked by the Cuban government she wrote text messages to her international allies and they transcript them in her Twitter account.
With social networks, the world is living a diffusion of Western values and beliefs. Even if cultural relativism persists, African populations are asking by themselves for peace, wellbeing and democracy, and these are Western values that can’t be imposed with a war but with the self determination of the people to become free.
http://think.iulm.it/2011/03/the-role-of-social-network-in-creating-democracy/
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