Structured Response- Jared

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, or "new media", as Habibul Haque Khondker calls it,  played a crucial role in the Arab Spring- they allowed for a quick spread of word about uprisings against Sultan authoritarians like Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali.  As more and more people started to log on to social networks, the faster the idea of revolution jumped from country to country. A large factor in this spread of ideas was that "the images of Bouazizi", the man who lit himself on fire to protest the government,  "were put on Facebook and everyone saw it" (Khondker). In response to these outrageous photos, as Khondker stated, there were about "2 million users of Facebook" were logged on before the revolution in Tunisia. Furthermore, new media in Egypt was used to the advantage of citizens, who "[told] stories of police brutality, violence, and blatant injustice" (Khondker).

However, I do not believe that new media was necessary in starting the revolution. Rather I have concluded that the internet and other new forms of communication were helpful tools in speeding up the revolution process. In the Serbian revolutions against Slobodan Milosevic, "Otpor!" protestors against the government did not have the same access to new media as the Arab Springers did. Yet, Serbian citizens still managed to bring down their dictator and succeed in a change of government. Instead of using the internet or cell phones, Otpor relied on traditional protests, satirization of the government, dress, mobilization of both dissatisfied rural and city Serbian folk, the handing out of flyers, peaceful protest (until they burned a few government buildings down), and attempts at convincing the military to back down. Egypt and Tunisia, if new media were not present, would have still had the revolutions, but they would have been slower and possibly more violent. A key perk of new media was rapid global intelligence on the revolutions; the international community seemed to know right away about the massive protests, allowing for eventual global support of the revolutionaries. If relying on old media (newspapers, cable television, radio etc.), the news of revolution would have travelled to the global stage more gradually, allowing for possible violence by the Tunisian/Egyptian militaries without immediate condemnation by the international community.