Communication and Revolution

Social media has received considerable attention amid the overthrow of Middle East autocrats. CBS News says it has tipped the regional balance and reports the State Department’s multimillion-dollar program to support dissident bloggers. Mashable examines YouTube dispatches from Morocco and Libya. A Facebook page memorializing Khaled Said, who died at the hands of Egyptian police after collecting evidence of police corruption, became an early rallying point in Mubarak’s usurption. And on the lighter side, an Egyptian named his baby daughter “Facebook” to celebrate the social media site’s role in his country’s transformation.

Social media may be a new catalyst in global affairs, but communication itself is a traditional component of revolution and conflict. In my article “Adams, Paine and Jefferson: a PR Firm,” I analyze the use of modern public relations during the American Revolution. Among the tactics discussed, Samuel Adams’ Committees of Correspondence were the most similar to today’s social media.

Fast forward to the 20th century. President Wilson formed the Committee on Public Information (the Creel Committee) during World War I to build support for the war; many notable communicators worked with the committee including Edward Bernays, Walter Lippmann and Arthur W. Page.  Twenty years later, the Allies and Axis intensified mass communication and propaganda in World War II, exemplified by Britain’s “V for Victory” campaign, a pre-Internet example of viral marketing. During the Cold War, the West directed anti-communist communications into the Soviet Bloc. The documentary “How The Beatles Rocked the Kremlin” places the Fab Four alongside Lech Walesa and Ronald Reagan as architects of the USSR’s demise for their defiant yet optimistic message that spurred change in young Soviets.

There are differences between these past communication models and the current one in the Middle East. Thomas Paine’s pamphlets, the BBC’s broadcasts, Ronald Reagan’s speeches, The Beatles’ bootlegs: these were unidirectional, created by a few main influencers and usually emanating some distance from the lines of intellectual and physical confrontation. The mass communication driving the Middle East revolts claims mass authorship and onsite origin. Anyone with a social media account and a smartphone becomes a mashup of Alexis de Tocqueville and Robert Capa. There are no core strategists, gatekeepers or figureheads.

Last summer, Egyptian-born columnist Mona Eltahawy gave a prophetic interview to the Voice of America about social media’s role in bringing democracy to the Middle East. Historic change is now underway, but democracy has yet to prevail in the region’s governments and society. The democratization of its communication, however, is firmly in place.