SOCIAL NETWORK TURNINGPOINT Of POLITICAL ACTIVITY

SIMEGN KASSA SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF OSMANIA UNIVERSITY SIMEGN_K@HOTMAIL.COM

ABSTRACT-Social networking is most popular online, other areas being workplace, universities and high schools. It offers numerous benefits that could help you grow, personally as well as professionally. The main advantages of social networking include talking to others, building relationships and finding people who are similar to us. The call for a Day of Rage on January 25, 2011 that ignited the Egyptian revolution originated from a Facebook page. Many have since asked: Is this a Facebook Revolution? It is high time to put this question to rest and insist that political and social movements belong to people and not to communication tools and technologies. Mobile phones, blogs, YouTube, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds have become instrumental in mediating the live coverage of protests and speeches, as well as police brutality in dispersing demonstrations. spring in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Mid-East heavily relied on the Internet, social media and technologies like Twitter, TwitPic, Facebook and YouTube in the early stages to accelerate social protest. Syrian authorities are to lift a five-year ban on Facebook in a move seen as an apparent "appeasement" measure, aimed at staving off unrest in the country following recent political developments in Egypt and Tunisia. Now with the most recent upheaval in Libya, we can again look to social media for the dissemination of news and explanations on the most up to date status of this Northern African country currently controlled by Moammar Gadhafi. Through YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and more, here is the still unfolding Libyan revolution through various social media channels. Recently, many tweets and posts have been focused on the uprising in Tunisia. In fact, Saudi's social media activists spread videos and news updates at the peak of the street protests and the interest has stayed high ever since. And, now, Saudi bloggers have added the unrest in Cairo to the topics receiving much attention.

1 Introduction
Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace, Facebook, Cyworld,twetter and Bebo have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. As of this writing, there are hundreds of SNSs, with various technological affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices. While their key technological features are fairly consistent, the cultures that emerge around SNSs are varied. Most sites support the maintenance of pre-existing social networks, but others help strangers connect based on shared interests, political views, or activities. Some sites cater to diverse audiences, while others attract people based on common language or shared racial, sexual, religious, or nationality-based identities. Now a day social networks are rapidly developing field of emerging communication technologies and their increasing influence in political discourse and the way people communicate with their political leaders throughout the world. Despite the efforts of governments to censor information from leaving their borders the people of these countries have paid with their blood to successfully distribute the media out onto the World Wide Web demanding change. These have been picked up by the major news networks and kept the flame of revolution ignited. By smuggling videos and messages hidden on tiny SIM cards to relatives and news reporters and publishing media via smart phones the people of the Middle East continue to revolt against their oppressive government embracing social networks Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as their weapon of choice. As it turns out it may be the only weapon they have against these repressive regimes. Google executive Wael Ghonim (itnewsafrica.com) Egyptian and Google executive Wael Ghonim started a Facebook Fan page We are all Khaled Said in honor of a young man, Khaled Said, who was brutally attacked and eventually killed

by policemen. His page, which currently has 125,103 fans, sparked anger not only in Egyptians, but also in people all over the world. Ghonim was able to spread the news of the Egyptian revolution to anyone and everyone and is largely credited with sparking the revolution that toppled the Egyptian government. Now we see in Syria the YouTube videos of what the government is doing to its own people within its borders including the young boy who was brutally tortured and killed by the Syrian Government. With up to the minute information being published on social networks Twitter, Facebook and YouTube by the people themselves many are turning to these social networks to get the news coming out of the Middle East. recent developments have been coined the first Twitter Revolution, by commercial media outlets, as young men and women within Tunisia utilized the social network, and others, as a way to communicate with each other and the international press in the midst of the politically charged environment . The right to vote and hold public office has been at the top of Saudi womens demands for the past decade and has been widely discussed in social and traditional media. if you enter the world of social media and search for Saudi women, youll see that they are discussing politics, economics, religion, literature, television programmers and other diverse topics and not only ones concerning women. In fact, they are examining issues might have assumed they were unaware of from watching Saudi television or reading Saudi newspapers, where women's opinions are generally ignored. As tensions in the region increase and social media continues to play a significant role in the escalation, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has cautioned his citizens to hinder their Facebook use. Activist groups have been using the social network as well as Twitter to call for reform and support the efforts of Egypts own digital revolutionaries .[1][2]

To know the specific effect of social networks to the change of politics. To identify most frequently used social group regarding to social network. To know the way of using social networks regarding to poetics.

2 Methodologies
Case study- it is an intensive in detail study of specific individual, group or community regarding to social, economic or political phenomenon or any social activities. of specific individual, group or community regarding to social, economic or political phenomenon or any social activities. In this paper case study has been used to infer and analyze the political effect of social networks in particular in those mentioned countries. Tools of data collection Tools of data collection are the very most mechanisms to collect and gather relevant information related to specific topic. Here in this paper the researcher employed both primary and secondary data from different medias , books and research paper.

3 Ghonim Revolutions 2.0

The date of January 25 was initially suggested on a Facebook page called "We are all Khaled Said." The page drew its inspiration from the case of a young man by that name, Wael Ghonim who had apparently committed no crime, yet was pulled out of a cybercaf by Mubarak's police force and viciously beaten to death. The images of his beaten face sparked outrage among Egyptians at the level of political repression and corruption within the government. Although the moderator of that fateful Facebook page was anonymous at the time, the world soon learned that it was the work of Wael Ghonim, a 30-year-old Egyptian-born marketing executive for Google, who was based out of Dubai. he had been the anonymous administrator of the Face book page We Are All Khaled Said, dedicated to the memory of a 28-year-old Egyptian man beaten to death by the police in Alexandria on June 6, 2010, which helped spark the protests. The protests that led to the

Objectives
General objective: To understand the general impacts of social networks on societys political attitude. To analyze the power of social networks for political activities. Specific objectives:

Egyptian revolution last year were organized in part by an anonymous Face book page administrator.

3.1 How Facebook supported the Egyptian Revolution

Without Facebook, people would have not had to find another a way to broadcast the initiation call. That is basically what Facebook and social media did. People initiated the call and promoted it online before it went offline. It even went offline before the 25th of January. Many youth were worried that the government would close down Facebook. In discussions with a group of students from the Political Science department at Cairo University, they explained that the government feared the flurry of critical political activity that would invariably precede an election. Though many expressed that turning off Facebook would be akin to suffocating them, as one young man put it, it would be like blocking the air to my lungs, they insisted they would not ease up on their pre-election Facebook activities. These included mocking the president, his son, the system, and the whole electoral process. They stood defiant. A 21 year old female student proclaimed, We dont care! Were not afraid of them. What are they going to do, arrest millions of us?

These Facebook users carry traits of being politically savvy, bold, creative, outward looking, group regulating, and ethical. And their numbers are fast growing. In March 2008 there were some 822,560 users. After the Arabic version of Facebook was launched in March of 2009 users hip jumped. By July 1, 2010 there were some 3,581,460 Face book members, making for an increase of 357.2% in a two year period. The site has become increasingly Arabized, though many users show dexterity in using both English and Arabic.[3][4] Friday, March 23, 2012 (the New York Times interviewed with wael Gohinm) I want to meet Mark Zuckerberg ( is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook.)one day and thank him [...] I'm talking on behalf of Egypt. [...] This revolution started online. This revolution started on Facebook. This revolution started [...] in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaborating content. We would post a video on Facebook that would be shared by 60,000 people on their walls within a few hours. I've always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet. [...]. Facebook Statistics by country
Recent List of countries on Facebook # 1. 2. 20. 30. 47. Country Users

United States 155892160 India Egypt 45019840 10477860

Saudi Arabia 5148240 Tunisia 2953600

User age distribution on Facebook in Egypt

Egypt Facebook demographics is other social media statistics we monitor. The largest age group is currently 18 - 24 with total of 4 086 365 users, followed by the users in the age of 25 - 34.

4 Tunisias Twitter revolution

The dictator of Tunisia was overthrown in less than one month after being in power for 23 years. There is no question about how opponents of his regime were able to topple it. Two words describe it: Facebook, Twitter. These two social networking sites enabled protesters to take to the streets, organize the opposition, recruit new protesters, and overcome the police force and the military. The latest example of the next so-called Twitter revolution is happening in the north African nation of Tunisia, where thousands of people are demonstrating against their governments corruption of excess while the people are struggling with hunger, joblessness and despair. It all started with the bloggers sharing information about the corruption and further heightened when a young unemployed man poured gasoline over himself and light himself on fire on Dec. 17.He was protesting the harsh economic realities of the nation. He died Friday morning from his injuries. Despite a government black-out of the Internet, the people of Tunisia were using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to share information about where to protest and where to avoid the military while documenting this tumult by tweets, posts and video for the world to witness.[5][6]

Reporters across the globe have been left without facts and information because of Gaddafis censorship, making the Libyan revolution appear to be a hazy subject including a lot of he said, she said. But activists in Libya have created Twitter accounts to correct the false information that is circulating, despite Gaddafis orders. Theyve found social media as a way to provide their own news feeds and footage of the protests, and to stand against the government in support of the revolution. Despite the restrictions of the protest on television, Libyans used social media to publish the first video footage of the revolution. The video was posted on YouTube by a Libyan protestor and shows images of people, young and old, fighting verbally and physically.[1][3]

6 Syria and ongoing social revolution

As thousands of Syrian protesters have poured into the streets to call for the end to autocratic rule, some Syrians have been tasked with a more specific work: to topple the government of President Bashar alAssad. Using mobile phones and small cameras every day, a group of Syrians have risked their lives to film crackdowns on protesters by the governments armed and security forces. The images have been uploaded on websites such as Facebook and YouTube to keep the world informed of events during this difficult time in many parts of the country. As the government continues to bar foreign reporters from entering Syria, the role of social media users -- who are often referred to as citizen journalists -- have proven highly effective. One of their goals seems to have already been achieved: The government is exercising restraint by not killing as many people as it might have in the absence of the social networking websites.

5 Libyan Revolutionary situations

Social media is the new tool in rallying for revolutions and igniting fire within Middle Eastern countries. After the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions used social media platforms as effective means to stir up dissent, Libya quickly caught on to the trending strategy. Utilizing social media as an aid for protests, Libya uses the hash tag #Feb17 to sprout conversation and provide information across the world. Muammar Gaddafi instructed Libya to refrain from using social media sites after Facebook and Twitter were being used to call for reform. Gaddafi understands the threat of social medias power and the influence it has in revolutions. He has arrested activists using Facebook and Twitter as means to rustle up the community and encourage dissent of the regime.

Earlier this year, a group called the Syrian Electronic Army group launched what appeared to be a government-managed Facebook page that published detailed instructions on how to attack opponents online. The page had 60,000 fans, but was shut down by Facebook for violating the companys terms. [7]

7 Countries against social network

In what has become known as the internet black hole the governments of Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam have effectively blocked targeted internet access to information and often shut off access to any internet completely. The government of Iran is actually aggressively planning its own Muslim Internet to censor all information accessed within its own territory and plans to spread it across the Middle East eventually replacing the World Wide Web.

8 Can social media help Saudi Arabian women to drive a car?

The growing presence, relevance and consequence of digital media and social networking have been further recognized within religious power circles. In an attempt to pre-empt further uprisings in response to censorship, Saudi Arabian clerics looked to use social media as a medium for influence and coercion. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been used, attracting thousands of fans, dousing the fire of revolution. The active and dynamic use of Twitter has been utilized to disseminate the perspective of a conservatives Saudi majority and religious scholars, in this case with reference to the permissibility of women driving cars. Egotistical and extreme religious-orthodox scholars such as Al-Ahmad maintain their own Facebook fan pages and use their online presence to revile any call for open discussion on reforming the role of female rights in the country. Nevertheless, internet-based initiatives continue to serve as a useful instrument for political pressure. A simple campaign was created, calling for the human rights of Saudi Arabian women to be upheld. As a result, 17 June 2011 saw more than29 Saudi Arabian women drive their cars in pro-test against the kingdoms de facto ban on female driving. While not a reflection of the general publics perspective, there has been vocal

opposition to the protests by conservative groups. An anti-driving group on Face book has called for real men to physically attack those women choosing to drive. Female activists were dubbed Westernized whores on Twitter. It is clear that the far-reaching immediacy of social media is now recognized by both the orthodox conservatives and revolutionary activists. Those in defense of the right of women to drive argue that widespread support of the issue is immaterial; instead it should be considered an issue of constitutional morality, a matter of individual rights. Protests that endanger the well-being of women should not be considered an event rather a means to an end. The campaign should remain active and ongoing supporters should build momentum in order to galvanize change. Social media have given voice to the masses, and inspired young, forwardthinking progressive Saudi Arabians to ambitiously chase their aspirations. Women are deprived and suppressed some of their civil rights by their government. They dont have equal rights to participate in some social activities including politics. Recently (16 tune 2011) a woman was arrested who was driving a car. She stayed in jail for ten days because of she drove a car. There remains a new sense of hope for constitutional reform in Saudi Arabia. The relative conservatism and diplomacy of the kingdoms media have been circumvented through access to the internet. People from all over the world have contributed to the Honk for Saudi Women viral campaign. It has become apparent that times are changing, that the rules of engagement are now relevant to the 21st century, but that the question still remains as to whether social media can help change legislation in practice.[8][10]

9 Conclusion
Social media alone did not facilitate the Arab Revolution, but was a successful catalyst when combined with myriad methods of digital and traditional media. Technological advances like cell phones, video cameras, blog posts and Facebook, , created the circumstances for such effective information dissemination. Digital media has provided the outlet for free expression that government monitored traditional media did not. The content shared between Arab nations and the rest of the world featured videos and images of people from all classes, not just the wealthy, and was captured by cellular phones and point and shoot cameras. Social media helped large groups to gather in a short amount of time. It also provided a platform for

people to express their solidarity, both within the country and with others in the region and beyond. Egyptians heard about Tunisia from Tunisian citizens instead of the national news media. Instead of planning and creating a group of dissidents to follow, the word was spread quickly enough that enormous numbers were able to congregate in just days, and even hoursbecause someone knew someone who knew someone on Facebook, and word spread from there. Unlike traditional media, digital media allowed for a non-hierarchical, collective communication. Digital technology, because it is price competitive, penetrates the broad masses of individuals in the West. It is price competitive, and therefore is inherently decentralized. Everyone can have his own printing press in the new system. The ability of governments to control the spread of ideas is not keeping pace with the ability of the Internet to enable people to communicate ideas. The competitive system is asymmetric. This time, it is not asymmetric in favor of the government; it is asymmetric in favor of the citizens. They hold the hammer. From the data it can be concluded that majority of active user and participants of those different social media are youths who the most powerful to bring effect in not only in politics but also in any social activities.[9]

References
1.Maksim Tsvestovat and Alexander kouznetsou; Social network Analysis For Startups; Oreilly; 2011. 2.Hans Schattle; Globalization and Citizenship; Rowman and Littlefield; 2012. 3.William Mark Habeeb; The Middle East In Turmoil; Isbn 978-0313-08314-6(ebook); 2012;. 4.Ana M.martinez Aleman and Kathrike Lynk Wartman; Online Social Network On Campus; Routledge; 2009. 5.Ahdaf Soueif; Tweets From Sahris; Orbook; 2011. 6.Firoze Manji And Sokari Ekine; African Awakenin; Tambazuka Press; 2010. 7.Namo Abdulla; Social Media And Syrias Revolution; www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/4244.html ; 2012. 8.Deborah Amos; Social Media Revolution Hits Saudi Arabia; www.ner.org/2011/01/26/33217623/social-media-revolution-hitssaudi-arabia ; 2011. 9.Socilacapital; Tweeter,facebook and Youtubes Role In Arab Spring; socialcapital.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/twitter-facebookyoutube-role-in-tunisia-uprising ; 2012. 10.Simegn kassa; impact of justice on woman social development; http://www.scribd.com/doc/76457488/Impact-of-Justice-onWomen-Full-Paper; 2011.