IB History IA on the Role of Social Media during the Arab Spring
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Course
IB History HL
Institution
Sixth Year / 12th Grade
This investigation discusses the question: “What was the role of social media in the Arab Spring uprising of 2011 in Egypt”. It received full marks for History IA in 2021.
What role did social media play in the Arab Spring
uprising of 2011 in Egypt?
Exam 2021
Total Word Count: 2177
,Table of Content
Title page.................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Table of Content .................................................................................... 2
Section A................................................................................................ 3
Section B ................................................................................................ 5
Section C .............................................................................................. 11
Bibliography ........................................................................................ 13
2
,Section A
This investigation will discuss the question :“What was the role of social media in the Arab
Spring uprising of 2011 in Egypt”.
The two sources I will be looking at are: the book “Tweets from Tahrir”, it is relevant to this
investigation as it provides real-time account of events during the Egyptian Revolution
through tweets by protestors and demonstrates the role social media played in those events;
the second source is research study “Democracy’s Fourth Wave?”- it is relevant as it
discusses importance of digital media as “cause” of Arab Spring in the Middle East.
The first source is a book by Alex Nunns and Nadia Idle “Tweets from Tahrir: Egypt's
Revolution as it Unfolded, in the Words of the People who Made it” written in 2011 and
published by a New-York company BookMobile. The origin of this source is valuable
because Nadia Idle is an Egyptian activist that was on Tahrir square during the Revolution,
indicating that she has eye-witness account and insight-knowledge into what has shaped the
uprising, as well as Alex Nunns, who is a political activist and author, thus is knowledgeable
regarding political uprisings. As stated in the source, it is a value for a historian discussing
the role of social media as its purpose is to show on an example of Twitter how protestors
used it as a medium to organize protests, spread ideas and for civic journalism. The content of
the book is real-time accounts of the events through tweets and introduction by the authors to
every day of the uprising. The content is valuable as it uses primary accounts of protestors
who have been at the time and place of the uprising. However, tweets that were used in the
source are only in English, written by mostly wealthy educated population, thus being a
limitation to this investigation as it excludes middle-class Arabs who made the majority of
protestors.
3
, The second source evaluated is a research study conducted by Philip Howard and Muzammil
Hussain “Democracy’s fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring” and published by
Oxford University Press in 2013. The origin of the source can be seen as a limitation for a
historian as it was written only 2 years after the revolution, thus the topic could be only
briefly researched due-to limited timespan to collect information. The purpose of the source
can also be seen as limitation to a historian studying Egyptian Revolution, as its main purpose
is to present and compare use of digital media across the entire Middle Eastern region.
Therefore, its key subject is too wide and can miss important points and events that are
crucial specifically to social media in Egypt. The content of the paper discusses social media
as one of the factors of success of social movements and fragility of regimes, but also
includes other factors such as economics, culture and politics. The writing style is formal
with use of statistics and graphs such as “Use of Digital Media in the Middle East” to support
the main message, therefore the content is reliable as evidence are used to support arguments
and range of various opinions on the topic are presented.
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