Twitter and the Middle East Revolutions of 2011

Academic Writing and Critical Thinking

The issue this paper will be discussing is the new attributes of information and, particularly, of the way the information moves around from individual to individual. It will look at different perspectives and different practical situation to argue that communication and information exchange is nowadays different. It will also seek to understand in more details the factors that have led to all these informational changes and how communication flows influenced by information technology are affected by particular elements.

One of the observations about recent events was that information moves much quicker with the use of information technology and of instruments such as Twitter. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 is one of the most used examples to show that people were able to gather quicker in a certain place and that they shared information more efficiently.

Kavanaugh et al. (2012) use innovation diffusion theory to analyze how Twitter was adopted in Egypt and what factors favored this, comparing Egypt with similar trends in Tunisia and Iran. Their research was triggered by an interesting paradox: despite the fact that social media adoption rates were low in all these countries, Twitter was highly used during these revolutions. Kavanaugh et al. conclude that this was in fact due to a multitude of concurrent factors.

Their conclusions were interested in relation to the type of users that Twitter had during the revolutions. They showed that Twitter users generally used information technology instruments much more than other groups and that this was because Twitter allowed information to move quicker. The Twitter user group was thus more avid for news and information, but they were also identified as opinion leaders who aimed to create and move information around. So, their research points out, in the context of this paper's thesis, that the more individuals are involved in creating and disseminating information, the more they are willing to try new social media instruments and are early adopters.

The work of Semaan et. al (2010), on the other hand, focuses on a different topic of interest in the context of this discussion, namely on the quality of information that is passed on through IT-related communication instruments, and, mostly, on whether individuals continue to trust information in times of disruption, such as war or natural disaster. The key thesis of the study is that trust, including trust in information, is contextual, with trust in information changing depending on the context. A consequence of this conclusion was also that, when trust declined, people turned to information technology and social networking instruments to connect with people whom they trusted, in search for "true" information.

Semaan's study has two different interesting implications for the issue discussed here, both referring to the quality of information. First, it shows not necessarily that quality decreases, but that trust in the information decreases. However, one can also imply that trust declines as a result of individual perception that the quality has declined as well. Although Semaan's study does not look at this aspect, it is a legitimate assumption to be made.

Likely, this perception would probably be due to the amount of information: the sheer volume of information may lead people to stop believing it or to look for more confirmations. In the case of Twitter, for example, the volume of information is extremely high and, one can safely assert, this volume is amplified during a revolution such as the ones in Egypt, Tunisia and Iran.

As individuals were bombarded with different information during an extremely dynamic context, it became natural that they may look to their friends and acquaintances to confirm the pieces of news they received. They used the same tools they distrusted in the first place to connect to those they trusted and who, at the same time, given the situation, often did not have the tools to confirm information.

Semaan's work is also interesting from the point-of-view of the work done by Starbird and Palen (2012). They look not at the quality of information, but at the way information moves, particularly how efficient the process is with an application like Twitter, which has a Retweet option. The connection with Semaan's work is given by the fact that the Retweet function amplifies consistently and significantly the volume of information, as well as the number of recipients that receive a certain message. As such, the chances that low quality information moves quickly rise significantly. So, tools such as Twitter are beneficial, because they move information quickly, but one can also consider the reverse effect, in that they move untrue information quickly, thus declining trust in the quality of information.