Arab Spring

As this article shows, the Political Change in the Arab World was reported in Jan. 2011. However, over the past several years, the entire region has exploded!!!! Read this article and then use your researching skills to find articles on the topic of "The Arab Spring and Social Media."

Answer the following questions and be prepared to discuss your answers during our next class.

1. Is there a difference between the region known as the Middle East and the region known as the Arab World? Are they the same geographic region? If there is a difference what is it?

2. In the handout article, What is meant by the comment "...a revolution that uses social media, but is not a revolution caused by social media..."?

3. When a revolt or social unrest is apparent in an area, should that country's government have the ability to shut down their access to the Internet? Should other countries provide the original country's citizens this access?

4. Why was the uprising successful in several countries of the region and then not in others? What factors influenced the outcomes?

5. Today, countries are concerned with terrorists groups using the Internet for recruiting and spreading their beliefs. Should the service providers filter or shut down the access to the Internet for such groups?

Article: Internet technology a tool for political change in Arab world by John Boudreau