Many wonder if social media has or can create a change in society. My reply would be YES!! Within the last 4 years we have witnessed the power of social media in society and have witnessed a lot just this year.
Without social media, Honsi Mubarak (Egypt), Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Mohamed Ghannouchi (Tunisia) would still be in power; Muammar Gaddafi (Libya) wouldn't have been killed in the civil war between his followers and the Libyians that opposed him; and Bahar al-Assad / Abdullah al-Ahmar (leaders of Syria), Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen), King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa would not be fighting to stay in power, and listening to the people. The Arab Spring is the largest form of organization by social media, this was extremely visible in the Egyptian Revolution, as it was the most successful. The Arab Spring has now continued and is still spreading across the Arab World, but now the leaders have realized how they can stop...well at least slow down the protest and uprisings; which is by shutting down the entire internet grid in the countries when too much traffic is viewing the "Uprising" social pages.
Now we see in the North America, mostly in the United States, people getting fed up with the way the economic structure has been taken advantage by people with power, and ultimately creating the greatest recession or economic downturn since "The Great Depression". Occupy Wall Street was first organized on social media sites, mainly Facebook and Twitter months before September 17th, the day the 99% took to the streets of New York City. Now you see Occupy Toronto, Madrid, Montreal, London(UK), Sydney, and many other cities around the world joining in, as everyone starts to realize that we are all the 99%. The mainstream media says its just a bunch of kids out on the streets because they don't have a job, but when you go through Social Media you quickly realize that is not the case; it's students, parents, grandparents, veterans, really anyone who is not the 1%. The social media aspect of the Occupy Movement is unlike anything I have ever seen in media, you have Facebook groups for each encampment, then each city has a twitter account, to quickly update the mass', especially when each city follows each other, then you have Occupy Together sites where all Occupies can go and talk and share their thoughts.
So do I think that social media has the potential to bring out real social change? Yes I do! It is evident that has already started to and will only grow as more people realize what they can do with the 5 year old form of media.
