Bookmarks 09/14/2011

• Study says it found evidence for the first time confirming social media’s critical role in the Arab Spring

  Study says it found evidence for the first time confirming social media’s critical role in the Arab Spring.

  Quotes:

  – Our research has produced three key findings: First, social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. Second, a spike in online revolutionary conversations often preceded major events on the ground. Third, social media helped spread democratic ideas across international borders.

  tags: project information information technology social social media archive blog islam publishtoblog guide report guides tools tool

• The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising by Jean-Pierre Filiu: review – Telegraph

  tags: Jean-Pierre Filiu telegraph arab spring Goodread book Books publishtoblog

  • Into this maelstrom Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at   Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Sciences) has stepped. Recognising   that far-reaching conclusions about the Arab revolution would be   preposterous, he offers instead 10 lessons as a “modest contribution to the   collective appraisal of this tremendous event”.
  • The first is the fallacy that the Arab world was uniquely doomed to stagnate   under immovable autocrats
  • The second lesson introduces the most interesting theme of the book: that   Islamist influence in the Arab world has been undermined by the secular,   universalist nature of the uprising.
  • The   network is “just a parenthesis, a most dispensable one in the history of   Islam and the Arab world”, he writes. “Not a culmination but an aberration.”
  • Other lessons to be drawn include the way that anger at corruption and   extortion has empowered overwhelmingly young populations, and the use they   have made of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter in organising   dissent. Another phenomenon that complicates the shift to democratic rule   has been the leaderless nature of the protests.
  • Filiu’s sixth   lesson, that the alternative to democracy is chaos, is pertinent.

• US risks being ‘toxic’ over Palestinian veto: Saudi prince – FRANCE 24

  I don’t believe this for a second. Saudi’s best political football has always been Palestine. Their real ally in the region: Israel. So cut the crap!

  tags: publishtoblog

• Comment faire carrière en France quand on est un chiite libanais « Ibn Kafka’s obiter dicta – divagations d’un juriste marocain en liberté surveillée

  Ah la France quand elle ose enfin montrer son visage à l’approche des élections ! On aurait espéré qu’elle ne se montra jamais. Machiavel en serait tombé des nues.
  La video de l’AFP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynv4jD7810E&feature=related

  tags: LeMonde.fr françafrique publishtoblog

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.