Social media is commonly considered a "revolutionary" experience or a "revolutionary" tool, but is it actually revolutionary? Just how much has participatory culture changed our world? Has it brought positive or negative change? Come examine and debate these questions in a lively discussion of the rapidly evolving participatory media landscape.
"agency is the capacity of an agent (a person or other entity) to act in a world."
"Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values."
"social constructivists -- argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology."
Timeline and description of the "Arab Spring" uprisings from Tunisia 2010 to present.
Timeline of Arab Spring and social media's influence on it.
Wael Abbas (a prominent Egyptian blogger), when questioned on the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution, said: "Social media is a tool. But revolution is the decision of many people. Once we decided to have a revolution, once people decided to stay in the square, social media was a helpful tool to call for support, ask lawyers for help. I will not give social media all the credit, nor will I take away all the credit from social media."
"As the communications landscape gets denser, more complex, and more participatory, the networked population is gaining greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action."
"In the 21st century, the revolution may not be televised – but it likely will be tweeted, blogged, texted and organized on Facebook, recent experience suggests."
Blogger on social media topics. His story "The Gay Girl in Damascus that Wasn't," about tracking down the identity of an anonymous blogger in Syria, is fascinating.
"Blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 accoutrements are revolutionizing the social order, a development that's cause for more excitement than alarm, argues interactive telecommunications professor Shirky. He contextualizes the digital networking age with philosophical, sociological, economic and statistical theories and points to its major successes and failures."
"Legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein makes the case for a more robust information diet from a slightly left of center point of view in Republic.com."
"McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate."
"They had managed to take down the telephone system opposition supporters used for texting but for some reason were slow to eliminate other social media. As open defiance of the election results broke out, citizen journalists used new media to spread the word. And the whole Web was watching."
"This paper details the networked production and dissemination of news on Twitter during snapshots of the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions as seen through information flows—sets of near-duplicate tweets—across activists, bloggers, journalists, mainstream media outlets, and other engaged participants."