Nothing But Nets and "The Dragonfly Effect"

So, I am not currently very actively involved in any organization other than my sorority, Sigma Kappa, and our philanthropies for Alzheimer's and Inherit the Earth. However, in the past I have always made sure to make small contributions whenever I have felt particularly compelled. But what drove this compulsion?

One organization I was immediately attracted is NothingButNets.net, a non-profit campaign dedicated to the treatment and prevention of malaria. I’m really not sure how I initially stumbled upon it, only that I was instantly intrigued and donated $10 on a complete whim. Now, looking back, I want to apply the business model from the book The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith to figure out why I felt so moved to help this cause. I will use the concepts to analyze the effectiveness of this non-profit organization as well as examine social media’s role in the overall set up of Nothing But Nets.

What exactly is Nothing But Nets?

First of all, Nothing But Nets is located at http://www.nothingbutnets.net. They are aligned with and backed by UNICEF, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Their aim is simple: “Send a net, save a life.” This slogan appears as the byline to the main headline on the site, and clearly states the intent of the organization. It is simplistic and effective. Another slogan seen around the website is “Malaria kills. Nets save lives.” The premise is obviously to help prevent and simultaneously cure those who have malaria.  For just $10, you can send a net to someone who really needs it. 

You don't even need to look past Google to get the gist.

Before you can access the site, a pop-up occurs urging to donate.

Focus: The Goal

In The Dragonfly Effect, Aaker and Smith outline main points of focus to be used as an evaluative model. The first step in establishing a good business model is having a clear, “laser-like focus” (20).  Nothing But Nets does this very effectively in their “About Us” tab on the website. Their mission is clearly established and is outlined on the website, easily conveying the simplicity of their goal in one short paragraph:

Nothing But Nets is a global, grassroots campaign to raise awareness and funding to fight malaria, a leading cause of death among children in Africa. Nothing But Nets provides everyone – students to CEOs, bishops to basketball players – the opportunity to join the fight against malaria by giving $10 to send a net and save a life. (Nothing but Nets, About Us page)

No further explanation needed. Maybe further convincing, but no explanation.

Extending the idea of  “laser-like focus” further, you can address the macro and micro goals of the organization. Aaker and Smith define a macro goal as “a long-term goal that identifies the problem you intend to close” and a micro goal as “a short term goal that is small, actionable, and measurable” (27). The macro goal is, essentially, “to cover Africa with life-saving bed nets.” However, the micro goal runs parallel, as a $10 donation to buy a net. They go hand and hand and are essentially the same. I think this is part of what makes Nothing But Nets so successful – it is not hard to articulate the goals, and the macro goal is attained directly through the micro goal. Simply spreading the word and making a small donation will help. In this world of high-speed Internet and ADHD-addled children, it is hard to hold the consumer’s attention for more than a minute. Luckily for them, Nothing But Nets is so clear and steadfast in their goal that a concise slogan is actually enough to describe the entirety of the organization.

Grabbing Attention

The next step that is necessary in forming a successful non-profit, according to The Dragonfly Effect, is to tackle is the need to grab the attention of the viewer while simultaneously keeping it. Aaker and Smith explain when “you turn and look when someone calls your name. Why? Messages that metaphorically call out your name cultivate feelings of personal relevance” (55). Businesses grab attention by getting personal. Nothing but Nets has to forge a personal connection, or play to the sympathies of the average American consumer.

The homepage of Nothing But Nets.

The slogan, the website name, and the pictures on the homepage satisfy organization’s goals. The front page is emblazoned with large photos of sweet, smiling, often slightly emaciated, African children that take up almost the entire web page. These large pictures are clearly meant to tug at the heartstrings of the viewer and make them feel personally connected to this child, who might look just like their own beaming toddler. It really isn’t even necessary to click on the “About Us” tab to realize what the aim of the organization is, or to feel a sense of inspiration. They outline their call to action in bright orange font, next to the main headline. There is a “LEARN” tab with the sub header “Malaria kills. Nets save lives.” Next to it, there is an “ACT” tab with the sub header “Spread the word.” Finally, and this tab is highlighted in bright orange in an obvious ruse to attract the viewer’s attention, it says “GIVE” with “Send a net. Save a life” emblazoned below it. How much more straightforward can you get? Nothing But Nets does not even require one extra click before the viewer knows exactly what is needed to contribute. There's even a "NET-O-METER" at the bottom of the page, giving a total count of nets donated thus far. Not only that, but there also interactive games meant to pique the interest of the reader and get them involved in a nonchalant manner.

Interactive map on the site.

However, many people do like to learn more before they move to take action. The “LEARN” tab effectively covers those bases in concise paragraphs littered with statistics. These facts are listed in bullet point form for quick perusal. Nothing But Nets dedicates a page each to “What is Malaria,” “How Malaria Affects Communities,” “Where We Send Nets,” “How to Help: Send a Net,” and finally, “Become a Netvocate.” Step-by-step, each page forges a connection to the cause for the viewer, from sympathizing with those plagued by malaria, to vast figures that show the widespread affect malaria has on communities, to a final call to action. By this point, the viewer feels so compelled to help that it feels very nearly impossible to ignore helping out.

Engage & Take Action

While browsing through the Nothing but Nets website, you can’t help but feel inspired to get involved. As described above, Nothing But Nets does an excellent job empowering readers by the mere aesthetics of their webpage – from the language used to the overall, picture laden, bright orange layout of the website. It becomes clear that Nothing But Nets also applies numerous techniques articulated in The Dragonfly Effect to engage and call the reader to action.

One aspect that sticks out to me the most is the convenience and selection an interested user has in taking action. Wing 4 of The Dragonfly Effect (otherwise known as “Take Action”) allots an entire design principle to this concept. In the book, Aaker and Smith claim that the best non-profits “make it easy” for people to get involved.  In particular, they believe that valuing people’s time leads to success because “when you ask for time, your product or cause can become more alluring and better liked.” (120) Nothing But Nets does this expertly, with a bright orange tab at the top of the page that takes you directly to a simple donation page. It’s like the creators of Nothing But Nets are following Aaker and Smith’s model to a T!

Nothing But Nets calling YOU to action!

In this respect, the non-profit accomplishes yet another aspect of the social media for social change business model presented in The Dragonfly Effect. Aaker and Smith advise readers “no person is too high on the social, economic, or political scale to approach for your cause.” (118) For those less ambitious viewers, Nothing But Nets merely calls on you to become a “Netvocate” and “spread the buzz.” All they ask for is to “bringing the Nothing But Nets message to new audiences, including decision-makers on Capitol Hill with NETvocacy.” Just by talking about it with others, the cause is publicized. For others, you can simply donate $10. Broke?  You can send a letter to Members of Congress today and tell them to support funding to end malaria. There is a short form – with a pre-written letter attached – to send directly to members of our Congress. Can’t get much easier than that.

Nothing but Nets is extremely savvy in their call to action. They have many options available to help out, all of which are extremely easy. If you feel immensely inspired, you can also become a NETraiser. This is described as a “fun, team-oriented fundraising tool. If you like recruiting friends, family, neighbors, or classmates to donate for a cause, NETraisers is for you.” By becoming a NETraiser you have the ability to create your own team, set a goal, and encourage your team members to reach the goal. Set up a $1,000 goal, get 10 friends to give $10 each and you send 100 nets. There is a consumer-friendly website especially for NETraisers, and you can sign up and get started in under a minute. To further motivate interested volunteers, there is also a “CHAMPIONS” page that highlights the successes of a few extraordinarily motivated NETraisers.

Further, Nothing But Nets does an excellent job of fulfilling Wing 3 (“Engage”), design principle 4 – “Match the Media” (97). When you scroll down on the very homepage, there is a section called "Nothing But Nets on the Net" that aggregates all of Nothing But Nets social media outlets in one spot. On the “Get Involved” page, each method of involvement has it’s own little blurb, outlined with concise headlines. This is especially important and probably the easiest of all – with three large icons, they have clickable links to their Facebook page, Twitter page, and YouTube page. These are also easily accessible on the homepage on the bottom left. By imploring readers to simply “Like,” “Share,” “Follow,” or “Watch” they are effectively “spreading the buzz” with just two clicks of a mouse. Lastly, Nothing But Nets even corners the merchandise market, with a Nothing But Nets apparel page. Here to, the organization applies a call to action by not only spreading the buzz via the walking advertisement of the shirt-wearer, but also by guaranteeing that $10 of each purchase “will send a net and save a life of a child in Africa. Some people wear their heart on their sleeves. Why not wear your cause on yours?” How can you not buy a t-shirt after that?!

Overall

No wonder I donated to this organization way back when! I strongly believe that Nothing But Nets is an exemplary model for applying social media for social change. They do everything they can to implement the most effective strategies to reach out to all audiences in every way they can, as well as making sure to have numerous “Take Action” options available to viewers. It’s very hard to go to their web page and leave without having done something to help out when the action is so very simple. Perhaps simplicity is indeed the key to social change. 

How television and social media planted the seeds of a revolution in Egypt

BY KYLIE BLABER

Protesters holding candles walked around an Egyptian Army tank parked in Cairo.
Source: Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Researching the Arab Spring turned out to be a little more difficult than I had expected. I sat there, sifting through the surprisingly vast annals of data on the recent uprising in the Middle East and it’s connections to social media, inundated with news articles and opinion pieces on the Arab Spring. Social commentary on the use of social media ran rampant, but the peer-reviewed scholarly articles were few and far between. It was numbers, facts, and proof I was looking for – not conjecture. I wanted to know the precise role social media played in this sudden wave of political movements in the Middle East. With the help of a research librarian at UC Berkeley, I was able to pinpoint my search and find some solid facts. And here’s what I uncovered: social media definitely contributed, but it appears that television, that 20^th century ‘traditional’ media, reigned supreme. For the Arab Spring, television proved to be a powerful medium, and yet most analysts have downplayed its importance. I believe, from my research, that it is more an amalgamation of several platforms that deserve credit: It is traditional media’s abundant use of the recent proliferation of social media, thanks to the fervor of the people, as a news source that helped light the spark of the Arab Spring.

“What brought Hosni Mubarak down was not Facebook and it was not Twitter. It was a million people in the streets, ready to die for what they believed in,” –Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist 

What is the Arab Spring? How did it start?

In a piece published in The Washington Quarterly called “The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” Jon B. Alterman writes:
“Part of the problem of comprehending what has happened in the Middle East is that so much of it is new.”¹ 

This is how I felt in the beginning of my search – it was hard to find a beginning and an end, because everything about this movement is in flux. Things can happen today that could radically alter the available material on the subject, and the novelty of the matter makes it hard to find any reliable, fact-based sources that are less likely to be swayed by money and politics. Mr. Alterman also mentions:
“My own work on Arab media 13 years ago barely talked about domestic politics at all, so hard was it to imagine then that the gathering winds of regional unity would lead to sweeping calls for political change.”¹

The fact that a scholar who has extensively studied Arab media for years prior to this was something I found particularly exciting, because this made the Arab Spring feel like something truly revolutionary.

It cannot be contested that it was in Tunisia where the spark that spread like wildfire through the Middle East was (literally) lit. For more than 20 years, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was considered an undemocratic and authoritarian leader. In The Economist's 2010 Democracy Index, Tunisian was classified as an authoritarian regime, ranking a dismal 144th out of 167 countries. ⁹

Ben Ali carefully monitored Internet use, blocked sites and punished anyone who attempted to bypass them. The Tunisian government was well known for its over-the-top online censorship. In fact, in 2005 Tunisia was the host country for the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005.¹ The U.S. government even expressed it’s disappointment in the Tunisian government, issuing a statement that read: “We are therefore obliged to express our disappointment that the government of Tunisia did not take advantage of this important opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of expression and assembly in Tunisia.”²   In Freedom House’s “Freedom on the Net 2011: Global Scores” chart, both Tunisia and Egypt rank remarkably poor. With the lower the points the better, the USA comes in at #2 with 13 points and a “Free” status. Egypt received a “Partly Free” status with a score of 54, and Tunisia is in the bottom six with a score of 81 – “Not Free.” ³

The Arab Spring began as a sort of domino effect. A young college man named Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit-seller in a small farming town set himself on fire in December 2010 after being humiliated by the local police force. They confiscated his fruits and vegetables, and Bouazizi lit himself on fire to demonstrate his frustration with the Tunisian government.


In the weeks that followed, thousand of protestors took to the streets all over Tunisia is response to Bouazizi's self-immolation. This led to a chain of events that would lead to the removal of Ben Ali as corrupt leader of Tunisia. On January 14, 2011, after a month of violent protests against his rule, Ben Ali was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia, along with his despised wife, Leila. ⁹

Tunisian President visits Mohamed Bouazizi, the man who set himself on fire.

Photo credit: 

Hassene Dridi / ho Tunisian Presidency

Not only was Internet usage already heavily monitored in Tunisia but the protests also began in Sidi Bouzid, a small farm town with little Internet access, except to small pockets of techno-savvy citizens. Both of these details highlight the importance of the utilization of both traditional media and social media access in the beginnings of the Arab Spring.

“Tunis is the force that pushed Egypt, but what Egypt did will be the force that will push the world,” -Walid Rachid, member of the April 6 Youth Movement.⁷

Why did it continue in Egypt?

The movement towards the Egyptian revolt didn’t happen overnight. The following data from Mr. Alterman’s article will help formulate an idea of what fueled the tides of change in Egypt, the country I focused on my social media research on.

•    “In the last few years, the Egyptian economy had seen impressive growth, with seven percent in normal years, and approximately five percent during the 2009-2010 global recession. Even so, tens of millions of Egyptians struggled with tight labor markets and rising prices. ¹
•    By January 2011, Egypt’s youth unemployment rate was 25 percent, and many young Egyptians waited years between when they finished their education and got their first job. ¹
• Annual inflation in 2010 was running at approximately 10 percent, with food inflation almost twice that amount—the highest of any country in the world. ¹
• Tomatoes, long a staple of the Egyptian diet became unaffordable luxury for many and the price of meat climbed out of reach. ¹
• Labor strikes became increasingly common in Egypt, with more than 600 labor actions reported nationwide in 2010. ¹
• Other protests in 2010 rippled throughout the country, on issues ranging from foreign policy to domestic detentions to the management of state-run corporations.” ¹

Besides this tide of protests in 2010, Egyptians were also becoming increasingly unhappy with their nation’s politics. The November 2010 parliamentary elections saw a landslide for the ruling party, the National Democratic Party (NDP.) After two separate elections, taking place November 28 and December 5, the NDP secured an overwhelming 83 percent majority of seats in Parliament, winning 420 seats. The largest opposition to the NDP is the Muslim Brotherhood, whose seats in parliament dropped for 88 to a mere one representative.⁴ The elections were also fraught with violence and allegations of fraud. Many saw it as a mere power play by Hosni Mubarak, the reigning president of Egypt for 30 years.

January 25, 2011

“Taghir, hurriyah, ‘adalah ijitima’iyah!”
“Hosni, Hosni bey, kilo lahma bi-mit ginay!”
Chants of protestors in Tahrir Square, respectively: “Change, Freedom, Social Justice,” and “Hosni, Your Excellency, a hundred pounds for a kilo of meat.”¹

Several demonstrations had attempted to take flight prior to the events in Tunisia, although none gained ground quite like the Arab Spring. The Kefaya movement was active from 2004-2007 but never gained much support, online or on the ground. Social media did come more directly into play with The April 6 Youth Movement. Utilizing mobile devices and the Internet, the movement was able to successfully organize a strike in March 2008 in Mahalla, Egypt. Following this, one of the co-founders and an activist since nearly 2005, Ahmed Maher created an April 6 Youth Movement Facebook page. Though they were unsuccessful in forming another wide-scale protest until after the Tunisian uprisings, the Facebook page continued to act as a significant forum for social change.

Similarly, 2010, Wael Ghonim, Internet activist and interestingly, the Head of Marketing of Google Middle East and North Africa, started a Facebook group called “We Are All Khaled Said,”  in support of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian who was tortured to death by Alexandrian police. According to Wikipedia, Wael made an announcement on the page on January 14^, 2011 “asking members if they were going to plan on taking to the streets January 25^t and do what Tunisia did?” The same day he published an event called “25 يناير على التعذيب والفساد والظلم والبطالة [January 25: Revolution against Torture, Corruption, Unemployment and Injustice].” ⁵ It was partially anonymous activists like Ghonim who helped incite and escalate the rapid events that led to the events that would bring down Hosni Mubarak on February 11^th, 2011.

“I have never seen a revolution that was preannounced before,” Mr. Ghonim said.⁷

Inspired by the overthrow of Tunisia’s Ben Ali, the protests spread to Egypt on January 25, 2011, a day declared a “Day of Rage.” Opposition leaders called for protesters to take to the streeta against Mubarak. While exact numbers of protesters could not be estimated, a flood of Internet photographs and YouTube videos showed a massive presence in Cairo, Alexandria, and other Egyptian cities, which helped fuel the fire.  These protests lasted 18 days and Internet-savvy protesters used TwitPic, Facebook and YouTube to compile videos and photographs, calling on Egyptians to protest.  Protesters provided minute-by-minute tweets concerning where to assemble in an effort to outwit police. The following quote from the New York Times highlights the prominence of social media from the very beginning of Egypt’s protests:

“More than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook page for the Tuesday [January 25] protests, framed by the organizers as a stand against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment.” –Kareem Fahim, New York Times 

Interestingly, the Muslim Brotherhood sat out on the first day. But by the second day they issued an order for “all able-bodied men to join the occupation of Tahrir Square. The group’s members helped the protesters divide into teams to organize their defense, several organizers said.”⁷ Initially, the Egyptian government rebuked with episodic censorship. On January 28^th, nearly 88 percent of the country Internet access had been shut down, according to networking firm BGPMon. The Mubarak regime also ordered the withdrawal of more than 3,500 Border Gateway Protocol routes by Egyptian service providers.⁶ This meant that cell phone connections would be restricted, potentially cutting off protestors access to social media websites and outside communication. For example, Yara Adel El Siwi (@YaraElSiwi) tweeted on January 26, 2011: “You who have Twitter and Facebook workin on ur phone, use ‘em to spread words of hope. We won’t let this end here #jan25 was just the start.” ⁸ That same day, representative from the ruling party, the NDP, was on Al-Jazeera that remarking that the revolt was “unprecedented” and voiced the need for change, stating: “the government needs a nontraditional way of dealing with this,” including “action against corruption, against poverty … [giving] more freedoms.”⁶

Figure 3 illustrates the Internet blackouts in several Arab countries during first quarter of 2011.
Egypt’s blackout lasted for five days, from January 28 – February 2. Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

“Protesters continued to defy a nationwide curfew in the early hours of Saturday, as Mr. Mubarak, 82, breaking days of silence, appeared on national television, promising to replace the ministers in his government, but calling popular protests 'part of bigger plot to shake the stability”'of Egypt. He refused calls, shouted by huge, angry crowds in the central squares of Cairo, the northern port of Alexandria and the canal city of Suez, for him to resign.

'I will not shy away from taking any decision that maintains the security of every Egyptian,' [Mubarak] vowed, as gunfire rang out around Cairo.” –David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times 

Egyptian anti-riot policemen clash with protesters in Cairo. Source: TaraTodras-Whitehill/AP

The majority of Facebook users believed that, ironically, the main impact of the blocking the Internet was in fact a positive one, pushing people to become more active and mobilizing creative endeavors to organize and communicate outside of the realm of the Internet, which also opened up greater access to those in smaller farming communities. Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹

Eventually, unable to break the resolve of the protestors, the Mubarak regime resorted to violence, shooting 45 and killing 2. This finally caused soldiers of the Egyptian military, who had previously been ordered to stay neutral, to react. They shot off their firearms into the air in order to successfully scatter Mubarak’s violent troops.⁷ Due to the limitations imposed on Internet and mobile device usage, traditional protest tactics had to be used to mobilize some one million protestors for the February 1, 2011 protest in Tahrir Square. Mubarak’s crackdown on social media mediums not only imposed great cost on the economy, but also had the ironic consequence of actually angering many rural Egyptians into joining the opposition. On February 11, amidst unrelenting protests, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had ceded power. 

According to a public opinion poll conducted April 14-27, 2011 by the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI), an overwhelming 84% of  Egyptians approve of Mubarak's resignation. [10]

Social Media’s Role: The Facts

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/244665/THANK-YOU-FACEBOOK-TWEET.jpg

“Analysts have not placed enough emphasis on the importance of social media’s enabling people to send content, rather than receive content, transforming them from observers of activism to activists themselves.” –Jon B. Alterman¹

The toppling of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt suggested that tools such as Facebook and Twitter were as effective for organizing protests as they were for organizing frat parties. The movements throughout the Arab world appeared to have imbued social media with a sense of legitimacy as a tool for creating change. Social media has clearly helped create an undeniable sense of community, allowing for rapid exchange of information, whether to announce protest sites online or use Facebook to mobilize widespread demonstration efforts, much like the April 6^th Youth Movement and “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook page. It also allowed for access to external help. This was especially important in globalizing the problem, as social media’s swiftness and international reach can help amplify local conflicts to a global level. In order to accomplish this, many protestors made an effort to tweet in English or translate Arabic posts, so that the information would be easily accessible to all.

Social media also aided in the problem of state-controlled media and the imposed restrictions on freedom of speech rampant in many of the countries that were prominent in the Arab Spring, allowing young Egyptians like Karim Marold to enter their voice into the political blogosphere without fear of repercussions. ⁸

“boycott: do nt buy the national newspapers for the nxt 3 days, since they r nt covering the whole truth (al ahram, al akhbar, al gomhooria)” – Karim Marold (@karimmarold), January 27, 2011

“The parliament should be able to remove a president and not be removed by one. The president should not be able to change the constitution at all. Governors and mayors should be elected by the people in each circle instead of them being assigned by the president.”  -Karim Marold, (@karimmarold), February 21, 2011

Global mobilization also became extremely important for activists in Egypt. Some, like Farah Wael, an Egyptian living in Paris, send out tweets aimed at aiding the protestors with external advice. Wael tweeted the following on January 26, 2011: “In case of arrest call those numbers for legal help : 0123112420 0106574724 0122222672 25310027 Retweet please #25jan #jan25.” ⁸

Egyptian activists also used social media to form extremely important linkages with organizations online and in person. They communicated with the April 6 Youth Movement, the Progressive Youth of Tunisia, Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), and Otpor, a group from Serbia.

"There was even live broadcasts from the square with people using 3G modems with laptops."http://technosociology.org/?p=448

“We shared our experience with strikes and blogging,” said Maher, a leader in the April 6 Youth Movement. ⁷

Many of these groups even traveled to Egypt to help train protest organizers, as well as aiding in giving practical advice throughout the protests, such as the following from the New York Times: “Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas.” ⁷

“Social media enabled citizen journalists to circumvent the monopoly of state media, resist state censorship, broadcast personal experiences worldwide, and access alternative news sources.” –Barry Wellman, University of Toronto

However, many statistics seem to refute social media’s impact, despite its undeniable prevalence. I have compiled statistics from several reliable outlets to fully analyze the impact of social media on social change. 


First of all, the results of public opinion poll conducted April 14-27, 2011 by the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI) dispute any suggested causal effects social media may have had on the events of January 25th.  An extremely vast 84% of respondents acquired their information from the television, with word of mouth runner-up. Facebook garnered about 6%, Internet news site about 2% and Twitter barely registered as important at all.

IRI April 14-27 public opinion poll. Source: http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2011%20June%205%20Survey%20of%20Egyptian%20Public%20Opinion,%20April%2014-27,%202011_0.pdf

This is particularly interesting and seems to go hand in hand with reports that it was Al-Jazeera's heavy influence that helped to frame and validate the protests before they gained global attention. By heavily utilizing social media -- compiling tweets, finding suitable TwitPics and Facebook photos, reading on the ground reports, and searching for quality YouTube videos -- Al-Jazeera was successfully able to cast a positive image of the movement that reached the majority of Egypt through their televisions. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, nearly 70 percent if Egyptians have Al-Jazeera even more accessible. On January 30, the Egyptian-owned satellite company Nilesat shut down it's Al-Jazeera channel, but they were able to successfully publicize alternative access to the feeds and were able to successfully circumvent the government themselves, which also inspired viewers into action.[1] Though it appears traditional media and it's sensational headlines prevailed in Egypt, it is rather the influence of traditional media into encouraging viewers to become activists, to let them know how easy it is to just go outside and record what they see, which in turn allowed them to become an important member of the movement as well. 

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

In support of the idea that social media actually drove the traditional media, the above infographic taken from the Dubai School of Government (DSG) Arab Social Media Report illustrates that a whopping 84.53% of Egyptians were of the opinion that Facebook was being used solely for activism purposes, with only 15.37% claiming otherwise. This seems to me extremely sensational, as I cannot imagine such an overwhelming amount of Americans abandoning Facebook for it's social purposes to use as a tool for activism and change. However, on the global stage, Facebook and social media played an important role in making the movement known throughout the entire world, which effectively constrained Mubarak's regime from using undue force.


The following infographic, also taken from the DSG Arab Social Media report, reflects the growth and prevalence of Facebook in Arab society.

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

The influence of Facebook as a tool primarily used for activism, especially in Egypt, is apparent -- Facebook users in the Arab world increased by an incredible 30% in the first quarter of 2011, or during the epoch of the movement. Not only that, but it is Egyptian's who account for a quarter of the total Facebook users in the Arab region, with 2 million new users being added between January 5th and April 5th 2011 -- more than any other Arab country. Clearly, if social media did not have a direct impact, perhaps the reverse occurred -- perhaps traditional media spawned a social media revolution for the Egyptian people, allowing them greater connectivity and a sense of empowerment through the forming of close, personal, online ties, rather than social media birthing the revolution.

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

Contrary to ISI's polls, DSG found in it's survey that nearly 88% percent of Egyptians received their data from social media. However, this is slightly disproportionate to the rest of the population, as the survey was conducted among Facebook users, which primarily constitutes the youth and the techno-savvy. However, 36% reported primarily receiving information from state-sponsored media, which I imagine the coverage of the Arab Spring was not as radical as the global coverage available via social media platforms.


Next, we examine the usage of Twitter in the Arab region during this movement.

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

The above information box sheds some solid light on the prevalence of Twitter during the Arab Spring. However, DSG makes a note that "only 30-40 million of the 200 million Twitter users are actually 'active,' meaning that most information on Twitter is generated by a minority, while the majority use Twitter to consume news as more of a newsfeed than a microblog."11


Regardless, Twitter clearly made an impact. Over 60% of tweets within the first quarter of 2011 were generated by Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the Arab region.[11]  As an occasional Twitter user myself, I can relate to this. It appears to me that Twitter has definitely become more of a newsfeed for me and many of my peers, a way to connect with celebrities, peers, and international and national news on an extremely personal level. I rarely tweet -- rather, I read trending topics, that tend to coincide with current events, as illustrated in the infographic below.

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

The above two graphs attempt to show the fluctuations of daily Tweet volume as they occur alongside current events. Though DSG warns that it is important to consider that though "we can see that some of the fluctuations or 'spikes' seem to coincide with current events at the time. This does not conclusively indicate that the events directly contributed to the fluctuations in tweet volume, but their concurrence provides a high degree of circumstantial evidence for linking current events to a higher tweet volume." [11]


Though perhaps you cannot directly link the current events as the cause for an overall higher tweet volume, Figure 30 illustrates the connection between #jan25 hashtags and actual daily Tweet volume, and I believe the effect is quite clear. In the first quarter of 2011,there were approximately 1,400,000 mention of #egypt and 1,200,000 of #jan25. Any avid or even infrequent Twitter user knows that current events are the absolute crux of Twitter. Twitter is like a real-time current events updater -- if something big happens in the world, and particularly in your own nation, that stuff gets posted! 


Overall, I don't think that it is necessarily the importance of how citizens received their content, but rather it was the social media's ability to "enable people to send content, transforming them from observers of activism to activists themselves with a greater stake as leaders, not just followers, of unfolding events." [1] 
It isn't numbers or how many people received their content through television or Facebook, but rather the vigor of the Egyptian people to get involved, to make a change. Television took social media and made it accessible to many who may not have been previously aware of it's ability to foment change and create a forum free of oppression in any form -- it was rather the empowering the people to realize that they had a way to get involved, too.


What now?

“As we look ahead into the post-protest period, however, the limitations of social media are becoming even more apparent. Social media are not evidently helpful in facilitating political bargaining in constitution-writing processes, and social media have only played a limited role in helping form new political parties.” –Jon B. Alterman

Egyptians have now voted meaningfully for the first time ever. Things in the Arab world are still in a state of flux, as these events are fairly recent. Kamal Ganzouri currently serves as the Prime Minister, and he appears to have a solid following in his country.

Source: DSG Arab Social Media Report.¹¹

Apparently, social media had quite the impact on the Egyptian people - even now. An overwhelming 71.4% of Egyptians surveyed remark that a political candidate's usage and optimal utilization of social media would have a positive effect on influencing their choice on political candidates, proving that social media is more than just a platform for change, but has now garnered it's own reputation as a source of independent news and analysis, and as a symbol of continued freedom for the people

According to IRI’s Egypt survey results analysis, “the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution survey found that the people of Egypt are extremely positive about the direction of their country and overwhelmingly pleased with the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. However, the state of the Egyptian economy, and security and crime are foremost in the minds of Egyptians. As a result, the legitimacy of any post-Mubarak government will rest on the ability of its decision makers to address these issues.”

Let's hope that things continue to stay on the right track for Egypt.

SOURCES:

1: “The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” Jon B. Alterman, Washington Quarterly, Fall 2011

2: “U.S. Delegation Urges Progress in Tunisian Reform, Human Rights,” November 18, 2005

3: Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2011: Global Scores, http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/MainScoreTable.pdf

4: Ashraf Swelam, “Egypt 2010 Parliamentary Elections: The Landslide,” Egypt’s International Economic Forum, January 2011, http://www.yale.edu/worldfellows/fellows/documents/OccassionalPaper2-Egypt2010ParliamentaryElectionsTheLandslide.pdf

5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wael_Ghonim

6: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/egypts-internet-shutdown-cant-stop-mass-protests/

7: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/world/middleeast/14egypt-tunisia-protests.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&adxnnlx=1333652598-D9FceyGmlIJDwrcBxKXVuA

8: http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v27n3p06.htm#fn21260358754e0dd1a6d5ed8


9: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine_El_Abidine_Ben_Ali

10: http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2011%20June%205%20Survey%20of%20Egyptian%20Public%20Opinion,%20April%2014-27,%202011_0.pdf

11: http://www.dsg.ae/en/Publication/Pdf_En/DSG_Arab_Social_Media_Report_No_2.pdf