The digital revolution
revolutionary movements. 49 Social media also has an impact on the course of events - what will one day become history - in democratic societies too: video of Ian Tomlinson being knocked to the ground by a police officer at the G20 London protests caused outrage, while similar anger was felt across the Atlantic after police infamously pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters who were part of the Occupy movement. Indeed the Occupy movement is yet another in recent history which was based on and organized through social media and the world wide web. Twitter has taken comments that would previously have been confined to private conversations and made them public, landing politicians and ordinary citizens alike in trouble; Twitter recently also saw popular opinion undermine the rule of law, when it effectively broke super-injunctions in the UK. 50 The 2011 UK Riots were a historical event that may well have been impossible without the Digital Age - a technological revolution that, like almost every other in history, is not solely used for good. London was rocked by some of the worst violence and destruction it had seen in a generation. The Digital Age brings a new dimension for crime and disorder, from online fraud and identity theft to organized violence. Without instant messaging, rioters would not have been able to coordinate or communicate on the scale they did. Without social media it is likely
comparison to be made with any previous period in history when such a large mass of individuals had such great power to record and broadcast what they experienced. Thus, any history which is to unfold in the Digital Age will occur in a radically different way to that which it might have done just a century earlier. From Iranian protests 47 to the most dramatic and recent example of all: the Arab Spring, social media and citizen journalism have proved instrumental in shaping history. What is crucially significant about digital age technologies is that they are in widespread use across the globe, thanks to their accessibility and pricing, 48 and that they are instant, or near-instant. Social media thus creates a popular platform to vent and concentrate varying kinds of frustration. This is evident in the Arab Spring: it was social media that allowed a coming together of anger and outrage to unite, first, masses in Tunisia, and then all across the Arab world. Social media continued to play a similar role throughout the whole of the Arab Spring: it not only instigated revolution but continued to fan the flames by organizing resistance, ultimately leading to the success of many widespread anti-war sentiment are possibly some of the most obvious examples. From Paris 1968 to London 2012 and the UK Uncut movement, students and young people have been at the forefront of protest and demands for social change. Youth-led revolutions are not new, and even the failed June Revolution of 1832 in France is a relatively recent example. 47 The Iranian Protests of 2011 and 12 - which saw four deaths, 91 injuries and, reportedly, over 1500 arrests - were inflamed after a video of apparent police brutality against a female protester went viral online. Further ‘internet activism’ sustained the protests. 48 In fact, some of the most powerful of Digital Age technologies are free at the point of use: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, for example. Maybe, then, it is the power of modern advertising that should be credited with the scale of social-media-inspired history, such as the Arab Spring?
49 This digital dimension of the Arab Spring was evidenced vividly in the imagery that dominated headlines across the world at the conclusion of one of its bloodiest conflicts, the Libyan Civil War: the mobile phone footage of a bloody Gadaffi captured by rebels. 50 Super-injunctions placed on several trials involving the rich and famous, Ryan Giggs infamously amongst their ranks, were broken on the website.
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