Last year, at the height of the protests in Tahrir Square, satellite images on CNN depicted a ring of steel surrounding the soon-to-be-deposed President Mubarak's palace and the state broadcasting corporation. The maligned president had showed himself to be out of touch with his people throughout his 30-years of rule, and now, as they protested in the streets of Cairo, he had shown himself unprepared to combat the role that social media would play in precipitating the downfall of his regime.
The tanks and soldiers that surrounded the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) in February of 2011 were there to ensure that the Information Ministry could maintain its ability to send out pro-Mubarak propaganda in the form of political adverts, state addresses and radio broadcasts. By controlling the access that Egypt's people had to information, Mubarak hoped he could cling to power. Yet he and his ministers had vastly underestimated the revolutionaries' ability to organise themselves to be at certain protest locations at a certain time, circulate information relating to governmental abuses and send messages of support to those leading the movement.
What was very clear was how social media, through Facebook and Twitter, had changed the way in which leaders could be held to account, revolutions organized, and countries governed. The pace of change was too fast for Mubarak. However, while this new form of social media galvanized a people, a BBC article I read on the issue http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16704543 states that it has also created a power vaccuum as the young revoluionaries lack a figure with the charisma and know-how to take their issues on in the new fragile emerging democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment