Social Media Analysis

January 2011 marked the beginning of peaceful protests and movement demonstrations staged by citizens throughout Egypt. Movement actors fought for democratic advances, political freedoms and equality. The genuine commitment for change, the unity of the people and most notably the tactful manipulation of social media resulted in the disposition of the suppressive regime. Modern social media has significantly changed the traditional forms of activism and has simplified the efforts needed to provoke civic mobilization. Social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube hold the dynamic power to manipulate, control, inform and motivate. Essentially, they have become excellent tools for activists.
This paper seeks to describe and
Countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region share many common elements, thus explaining the wave of uprisings (Rane & Salem, 2012; 84). The Egyptian movement was merely a response to a lack of human rights and freedoms and its success, motivated all pro- democratic activists in the MENA region. These activists learned of the power of social media by following the Egyptian movement on Twitter and Facebook. In hoping to rid their countries from "adverse social, economic and political situation", activists look at social media platforms as the initiators for change (ibid).. Consequently, current oppressive governments in the Middle East have taken example from the failures of the Egyptian and Tunisian governments and "have been subjected to a new level of scrutiny" (Doran, 2011; 43). In Syria, the authoritative government has been behaving with great brutality in response to mobilization efforts. Assad has ruthlessly killed many of the rioting individuals all while censoring the media, in efforts of shielding 'himself from foreign audit ' (ibid). The social media tactics used by Egyptian and Tunisian activists have weakened their respective government all while strengthening other authoritarian governments in the
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