Re-Tweet to Democracy? The Social Media #Revolution in Perspective

Abstract

As the Twitter/Facebook revolution swept across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the spring of 2011, western media marveled with surprise and pride as the tools of the information superhighway liberated oppressed people from dictatorships that the west detested. Democracy and the freedom of the Internet were heroes of the day. However, roll forward to the autumn of the same year and the same tools were producing angst and fear amongst the very same western governments in their own backyards. The global Occupy movements and the determination with which they took over prominent squares in cities throughout the western world in order to make a statement against the handling of the financial crisis once again illustrated the speed of the social media word, but this time sought to challenge the wrong leaders in western eyes. Pictures of forceful evictions from Wall Street and threats of legal procedures have opened up debate around the issue of what constitutes legitimized protest in an increasingly digitised world. This paper will examine the contradictory positions by governments and media in the west and seek to present the conundrum faced by society in ensuring that we stay safe from harm, but retain the right to have free protest that should be the lifeblood of our democratic society. It will draw on examples going back to the Seattle protests of the nineties, the governmental drawing in of power and establishment of a digital watchdog as part of the war on terror and the recent efforts to harness the potential of the social media landscape. Moreover, as we adopt and embrace more digital options in our daily lives, eGovernment, eHealth, etc, it is only inevitable that eProtest is one of the ways most regularly to organize and mobilize actual physical protest. Thus, it will challenge the notion that some protest is good, while other is bad despite the fact that it uses the same means and it will present the notion that a hypocritical position will only undermine the notions of freedoms that we hold so dear and ultimately prove more costly for democracy and western society as a whole.