Democracy Middle East
Feb 17, 2011
David
5 Comments

How not to talk about the impact of social media

I’m an agnostic on the role of social media.  I think that while such technology doesn’t overthrow governments by itself, it does change basic interaction between humans, which is worth studying.  I respect arguments for or against the causal impact of such tools, as long as they are not made based on anecdotal evidence.  Here is an example of a phenomenon I see a lot in this debate, I call it the faux-realist tactic.  It involves trying to be the edgy, cynical one, without actually developing an argument, or badly misinterpreting what other people are saying.  From Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times.

The commentary about the role of social media in Egypt has become so breathless that it is easy to forget that the French managed to storm the Bastille without the help of Twitter – and the Bolsheviks took the Winter Palace without pausing to post photos of each other on Facebook.

Got it?  Revolutions have happened before social media, therefore we can assume social media played no role in this uprising.  Also, I think we can safely say that tanks, the atomic bomb, aircraft carriers, and airplanes played no role in winning World War II.  After all, people had been winning wars for thousands of years without such tools!

5 Comments

  • Barak February 20, 2011 at 10:11 pm

    Right. I think we need to approach the role of social media in a more systematic way. Instead of asking “Did Twitter overthrow Mubarak?,” I think we need to ask questions like “Do we have evidence that social media made recent protests in Egypt more effective than those in the past?”

  • Democracy and Society » A better way to talk about social media? February 21, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    [...] of David’s recent post, I think that Mark Sedra offers a reasonable analysis of the role of social media in Egypt’s [...]

  • Imara February 22, 2011 at 1:43 pm

    I definitely think that would be a much more valuable question on the subject Barak. Unfortunately I don’t think many are typically interested in asking valuable questions publicly when dramatic and absurd ones seem to sell better. I think another valuable question is what role social media has played as rulers have grown more and more competent at subverting other forms of social interaction?

    Certainly political change happened before social media existed, thats a pretty inane observation being tossed around in political discussions at the moment. However we aren’t the only ones who have learned a thing or two about how revolutions occur and it seems all too easy to overlook how some of the more traditional means of social mobilization and organization have been prevented lately.

  • sam February 24, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    Agreed. I do think social media has played a significant role in Tunisia and Egypt, and it’s quite important to ask how.

    This is my take: http://ndn.org/blog/2011/02/social-media-egypt-second-public-sphere

  • Imara March 1, 2011 at 1:14 am

    Well put Sam, and your analysis on the subject with NDN was a solid read. I’m not sure we agree on the role of social media as a news source, but that might be in part due to my lower opinion of mainstream media. Frankly I’ve been pleasantly amazed by Al Jazeera’s work throughout these movements.

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