In my presentation last week I briefly mentioned that Twitter has been influential in the goings on in Egypt. Above is a link from a few weeks ago about an article that better details how it is that social media is “amplifying” and “accelerating” the revolution in Egypt. When it comes to news coverage, there is a lot going on in the world, so naturally, sources can only talk about so much at once. This often means that the big time stories get media coverage, and other events aren’t looked at until they get to be of substantial size. Through social media, however, what was happening in Egypt (and Tunisia before them), had the ability to be announced to the world via Facebook and Twitter. Because Egypt is a fairly poor country, many of its citizens were not able to contribute to the social media impact. Interestingly enough, what it did do was allow outsiders to obtain real-time information and “ensured the international eye would not stray from Egypt.”
This got me thinking about the ways in which Twitter and Facebook have been influential in the protests here in Madison. While I know that on Facebook, has been proactive in trying to recruit people from all over to join in the protests as the Capitol through events titles “The Biggest Rally in WI History!!!” I wasn’t sure what was happening in Twitter. When I searched Wisconsin on Twitter I was bombarded with tweets from people all over the globe, reaching out to news sources and Anderson Cooper for more coverage. There were links to petition sites seeking out signatures, links to news stories, and various tweets and pictures chronicling what is happening at the Capitol in real time. Although not every tweet that I came across in the search was related to the protests, the majority were and they continued to come in by the dozens.
The picture posted was tweeted and retweeted numerous times by people supporting the protesters in Egypt and Wisconsin. Although some tweeters seemed to think it may be a fabrication, I still thought it was worth sharing.
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