Communications of the ACM
The Evolution of the Twitter Revolution
Demonstrators in Warsaw, Poland wave tied Polish and Ukrainian flags to show support for the opposition movement in Ukraine.
Credit: Associated Press
Experts say social media is playing an evolving role in organizing and broadcasting global protest movements. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to imagine protests that don't utilize social media," says New York University professor Joshua Tucker. "If you want to understand protests moving forward — what leads to protests, the dynamics of protests — you have to get a handle on how social media impacts protesters."
For example, Tucker says protesters in Kiev are using Twitter and Facebook to organize medical care and to spread information domestically and internationally. "It's hard to imagine this is going backward, that we're going to be in a less networked world where people have less access to instant information," Tucker says.
Protesters' use of social media has evolved throughout the three-year Syrian conflict to address different audiences, according to a report released by the U.S. Institute of Peace. At first, a large proportion of tweets were in English and aimed at a Western audience. Then English-language tweets diminished, while Arabic-language tweets focused on battles and massacres on the ground. Finally, Arabic-language tweets returned to an emphasis on the conflict's international scope.
Experts say Arabic-language tweets soliciting funding and resources from other Arab states further divided Syrian factions as they competed for resources.
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