Arab World: New Media and the Egyptian Demonstrations · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.
The Arab World is looking in awe at the developments unfolding in Egypt. Today, mainstream media is taking  a back seat, while citizen media triumphs.
While new media plays an important role in shaping people's opinions, new means of communication play an important role on the ground where they also help in organizing the masses in protests and demonstrations. Arab bloggers here are discussing the role of all these means in the ongoing protests in Egypt, where thousands of people are taking to the streets to call of political and economic reforms.
Moroccan blogger Hisham wrote here about the role of media in the demonstrations in Egypt. He focused how the new social media tools have been used in Egypt, like they have been used in Tunisia earlier this month.
Hisham made a reference to the Tunisian uprising that preceded the Egyptian one, and shed more light on the role of Twitter and Facebook there.
In fact, social media tools aren't only used as a way for communication between the protesters. But many traditional media outlets in the region as well as outside the region are either ignoring the protests or giving them minimal and inappropriate coverage.
Jordanian blogger, Osama Romoh, who hated how the traditional media all over the region dealt with the events in Egypt, decided to help in spreading the news by sharing links of whatever related news he could get his hands on, on his own blog.
The Egyptian government also resorted to censoring the Internet in order to disable the people from using such social media tools. However, Jordanian blogger, Roba Al-Assi, was still able to get the news from Egypt. She wrote here how new media has changed the way she, and many of her generation, consumes the news now.
She then continued.
Photo taken from the profile of @abanidrees on yfrog
And finally, Youssef wrote here about his anticipation for change in the whole region soon.
This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.