Studio Session I - Laura Adjei

When the Arab Spring was occuring in Egypt back in 2011, I paid some attention to it but did not fully understand the extent to which social media played a role in the revolution. Social media with respects to Facebook and Twitter allowed for the protestors to mobilize and as a result this also helped to inform people abroad about the events that were taking place. As a group we looked at articles relating to how the protests started and focused primarily on the role social media played. I watched some videos on Youtube that showed the violence that occurred between the police and protestors. The visual aspect of the revolution was very eye opening as it helped me get a better understanding of the movement. I also looked at a video in which the protestors were singing and chanting how much they wanted the former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak out of office. He had ruled Egypt for over 30 years and the Egyptians were fed up with his dictatorial and oppressive rule. As a result, Hosni Mubarak getting ousted proved to demonstrate that the Arab Spring in Egypt had been a success. I saw footage of the Egyptians celebrating once they heard that Mubarak had stepped down. From this session, I was able to get a brief timeline of how the protest started and also how it ended with Egypt attemping to adopt a more democratic regime.