A distinctive feature of recent revolutions was the key role of social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube). In this paper, we study its role in mobilization. We assume that social media allow potential participants to observe the individual participation decisions of others, while...

This paper offers a comprehensive approach towards analyzing and explaining the role of Twitter in shaping and facilitating social movements especially during protests. It presents automatic and manual analyses of the tweet themes, usage characteristics and major Twitter users during a public...

JURIST Guest Columnist Kevin Govern of Ave Maria School of Law says that social media and networking have proven pivotal in the success of the Arab Spring protest movements in a manner that was previously unforeseen by commentators and scholars