[Air-L] Egypt: Assessing Facebook, Twitter, social networks

[Barry Wellman]

It's clear to all readers of Twitter and the MSM that Facebook and Twitter 
played a role in the Egyptian movement that toppled Mubarak.

But how much of a role? More generally, how much were social networks 
involved?

There's so much speculation, that I really don't want more.
BUT
I would appreciate systematic evidence -- be it ethnographic, online 
analyses, or survey based -- even though it may be early for that to 
appear. I am thinking of the work that Joe Feagin did on 1968's ghetto 
riots; the ongoing work of Doug McAdam over the years.

I wonder if anyone interviewed the folks in Tahrir Square (besides the 
secret police), just as Feagin interviewed folks in Detroit jails, and 
would love to read some personal accounts.

In hope that things turn out well in Egypt!

  Barry Wellman
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   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
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