Blogs and social media in the MENA region between 2005 and the end of 2010 revealed deep-seated discontent with the political status quo. Both Egypt and Tunisia had an activist blogosphere that made political demands and called for their leaders to step down (unlike the other Arab states), but it was only in Egypt that they revealed a concerted effort to develop a movement that would revolutionize the political system. There was little indication that Tunisia would be the first successful uprising, but when Egyptians saw their neighbors oust President Ben Ali it provided the spark needed to set off the revolution that had been building, to offer hope and stamp out the fear that had kept people from taking to the streets on such a scale. And when the region saw that Egypt, the leader of the Arab world and in many ways identity, could overthrow Mubarak in a mere 18 days it sparked a regional wave of protests aimed at expelling authoritarian regimes, as in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, or demanding massive reforms in more accommodating ones like Jordan and Morocco.
On Thursday the Stimson Center released a new report that seeks to understand what various groups in the public sphere predicted or anticipated between 2005 and 2010. I wrote the chapter on the blogosphere and social media, and participated on the panel launch Thursday with the authors of several other chapters. As Stimson notes, the "momentous events sweeping the Arab world since late 2010 raise important questions about the art and science of analyzing political and societal events. In an age of information surplus, which creates the illusion that one can easily know what is happening anywhere in the world, big surprises still occur. Societies change, governments make choices that have consequences, and the political life of a country or a region is transformed."
And indeed the Tunisian, and to a lesser extent the Egyptian, uprisings were a surprise to most people across the Western world and arguably beyond. Given its scope and short time period for the preparation of this report, the vast majority of the data analyzed was only in English (the main exceptions were the April 6 blog and Facebook page, and the We are all Khaled Said Facebook page)
As the editors note, "the upheaval in the Middle East lends itself to reflections about how regional experts with deep knowledge of the Middle East and those who use distinct political science or other methodologies to understand processes of change, fared in their assessments of the likelihood of change.
In early 2011, the Stimson Center invited a group of experts, who represented distinct non-governmental institutional perspectives to look back on the work of these sectors and evaluate how they looked at prospects for change in the Middle East. The sectors included:
On Thursday the Stimson Center released a new report that seeks to understand what various groups in the public sphere predicted or anticipated between 2005 and 2010. I wrote the chapter on the blogosphere and social media, and participated on the panel launch Thursday with the authors of several other chapters. As Stimson notes, the "momentous events sweeping the Arab world since late 2010 raise important questions about the art and science of analyzing political and societal events. In an age of information surplus, which creates the illusion that one can easily know what is happening anywhere in the world, big surprises still occur. Societies change, governments make choices that have consequences, and the political life of a country or a region is transformed."
And indeed the Tunisian, and to a lesser extent the Egyptian, uprisings were a surprise to most people across the Western world and arguably beyond. Given its scope and short time period for the preparation of this report, the vast majority of the data analyzed was only in English (the main exceptions were the April 6 blog and Facebook page, and the We are all Khaled Said Facebook page)
As the editors note, "the upheaval in the Middle East lends itself to reflections about how regional experts with deep knowledge of the Middle East and those who use distinct political science or other methodologies to understand processes of change, fared in their assessments of the likelihood of change.
In early 2011, the Stimson Center invited a group of experts, who represented distinct non-governmental institutional perspectives to look back on the work of these sectors and evaluate how they looked at prospects for change in the Middle East. The sectors included:
- the academic community
- risk analysis firms
- think tanks
- democracy and human rights non-governmental organization (NGOs)
- media
- social media
- socioeconomic studies
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