http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/01/09/arab-spring-twitter-facebook_n_1194999.html
This article is comparing an Egyptian Bread Riot in 1977 and riots in the Egyptian Spring that have happened recently. The Bread Riot was to end food subsidies and according to the article, attracted hundreds more people then and demonstrations that have gone on recently. I have to agree with what the article is saying and that is that social media does not always have as big of an influence as people may believe. Social media was pretty non-existent in the 70s and yet the 1977 riot had such a large turn out of people. Back then people didn't have computers, cell phones and many may not have even had a televisions to watch to be "influenced" by what others thought and said they should be doing.
Going with the idea about people not having technology to persuade them in the 70s, many people in the Middle East STILL do not have access to these things today. Yes, they have the TV station Al-Jazeera but is that enough to be making a difference in whether people will show up to a demonstration or riot. The last three lines of the article says this, "So I think a degree of caution is required in believing that social media is at the root of everything that's happening. I don't think that's the case at all. I think it's a factor amongst other factors.". In my mind, this is so true. As we have talked about in class, it doesn't just take movie clips, Twitter posts and Facebook statuses to ruin a government. It takes years of hostility, disagreement, poor leaders and many more factors to cause a situation to turn into an uproar.
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