[Air-L] Arab spring & social media evidence

[Deen Freelon]

Folks who are interested in social media and the Arab Spring might want to check out a relevant event that will be livecast tomorrow morning. It's called Sifting Fact from Fiction: The Role of Social Media in Conflict and is sponsored by the US Institute of Peace. The webcast begins at 9am EST at http://www.usip.org/webcast . More info on presenters etc is available here: http://www.usip.org/events/sifting-fact-fiction-the-role-social-media-in-conflict

Best, ~DEEN

nativebuddha <nativebuddha at gmail.com> wrote:
sure. reporters do need to condense. and policymakers will readily grab news
stories if there isn't a lot of reserach out there.

the point is less about what popular discourse does, and more about how to
at least get a better picture of events to policymakers, so thet don't set
up thousands of twitter kiosks in a repressive countries, hoping that that
will spark a revolution.

-robert



On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Dave Karpf <davekarpf at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think Alex H's point was that many more empirical studies aren't going to
> affect that element of the popular discourse.
>
> Or put another way, when a journalist calls you up and asks a question like
> this (the one I get are usually along the lines of "is clicktivism good or
> bad?"), they want a simple answer.  If you give them a complex/nuanced
> answer, they're either going to (a) misquote you or (b) not quote you at
> all.  And if they *do* delve into the complexity as you explained it, their
> editor will surely tell them to cut it down and simplify it.
>
> As far as I can tell, egypt-as-twitter-revolution is basically a zombie
> lie.  Far more people debunk the claim than actually hold the claim.  It
> remains propped up solely for the debunking.
>
> ...All that said, David Faris gave an excellent presentation at the
> American Political Science Association Annual Meeting a few weeks ago,
> titled "Yes Malcolm, there really are social media revolutions."  His
> argument, as I understand it, is that if Tahrir (and the years of organizing
> the preceded Tahrir) doesn't count as a social media-enabled revolution,
> then that just means we need to rethink the term.
>
> -DK
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 2:52 PM, nativebuddha <nativebuddha at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Thanks one and all for these suggestions.
>>
>> In response to Alex H's comments below, I completely agree. Unfortunately,
>> there's a lot of policymaking going on right now that's picking up the
>> cause-effect model and runnin' with it. In fact, popular discourse pretty
>> much asserts that Twitter caused the revolution!
>>
>> This simplification is why there needs to be many more empirical studies.
>>
>> -robert
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >  On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Alex Halavais <alex at halavais.net
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >> I think any "cause-effect model" for any large-scale social phenomenon
>> >> is sketchy, and I also think popular discourse loves such
>> >> simplification. That is to say, I don't think "This Caused That" is
>> >> something that evidence could directly demonstrate or refute (or even
>> >> "refudiate" ;).
>> >>
>> >> That said, I've been reading Philip Howard's new book, "The Digital
>> >> Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," which is quite good, and
>> >> provides something of a discussion of this question in its
>> >> conclusions, and suggests that ICTs can play an important part in a
>> >> "causal recipe" for democratization of Muslim states.
>> >>
>> >> - Alex
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 1:52 PM, nativebuddha <nativebuddha at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > Does anyone have evidence (or links to studies) that show the impact,
>> or
>> >> > lack thereof, of social media on the Arab spring? This cause-effect
>> >> model
>> >> > still circulates in the mediasphere, but what is the evidence show?
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks.
>> >> >
>> >> > -Robert
>> >> >

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>> >>
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>> >> // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur
>> >> // http://alex.halavais.net
>> >> //
>> >>
>> >>

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>
>
> --
> Dave Karpf, PhD
>
> Assistant Professor
> Journalism and Media Studies Department
> School of Communication and Information
> Rutgers University, New Brunswick
>
> www.davidkarpf.com
> davekarpf at gmail.com
>

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