Studio Session 4

I was very impressed by the mega-diagram that was produced in the session today. Admittedly, I expected the diagram to be messy and have a lot going on, but fortunately my classmates proved me wrong. They came up with a great diagram connecting the core underlying concepts of each group. The ability to condense these complex topics shows just how similar they are when you strip them down. My group began to realize this in the third studio session when we incorporated WikiLeaks, Occuy, and Gezi Park into our diagram. In addition to the mega-diagram, I also found the second portion of today's class to be very helpful. Thinking about how the Arab Spring ties into the concepts discussed in class and from the readings it really helped us to think more deeping and intellectually about the event. For instance, we spent a good chunk of time discussion the idea of Egyptians during the Arab Spring being part of an internal diaspora. They remained local, but did not identify with the governing politics of Egypt, rather they desired a more democratic policy. We also talked about the idea of the long tail short head. I think that the Arab Spring is a perfect example of this theory. The unhappy citizens of Egypt used social media to mobilze a revolution against the short head of the government.