The spread of information through Facebook during the Tunisian revolution

Zelda Lehmann
(will not be taking the second module)

Background:

Tunisia was the igniter of the Arabs Springs and the “Facebook Revolution”. The Tunisian people used Facebook as the primary way to rally citizens and change the political regime.

The revolution was fast and relatively peaceful: it took a little over a month for the population to oust their dictator. Indeed, the movement started when a small town vegetable vendor self-immolated himself in early December 2010, and by January 14 2011, the government had left office. The popular movements gained momentum fast. At first (mid December), protests were only led by students, and they were repressed by the strong-handed regime. Then workers’ unions called for demonstrations in late December, followed by the lawyers association in early January. Finally, in mid January 2011 the Tunisian people declared a general strike. Giving in to the overwhelming pressure, the dictator Ben Ali fled the country on January 14. 

It is broadly accepted that Facebook enabled the success of this popular movement by allowing citizens to communicate and organize countrywide events. Considering that the traditional media channels were controlled by the regime, people resorted to the – until then – apolitical social media to organize political protests.

Question and objective:

The objective of such an analysis would be to understand how the information spread through Tunisia. Indeed, we know that the information spread fast through Facebook, but a question remains: how did the information manage to reach all the social classes and all the regions of the country?

In hindsight, one can see that there was some sort of contagion effect within social (students, the working class) and geographical sectors, which was broad enough to spread to the entire population regardless of their belonging to a subgroup.

So, more specifically, the analysis would look at how information about the revolution spread beyond geographical and social subgroups in Tunisia, especially considering that the Tunisian society is socially stratified.

Hypothesis:

Having spent the summer working in Tunisia, I witnessed that Tunisians are friends on Facebook with a very broad range of people they know: neighbors, co-workers, extended family, etc.

Therefore the hypothesis is that the use of Facebook and its “tools” (groups, events) brought together people who didn’t communicate on political questions, thus bridging the gap between geographical and social sub groups.  

Data needed:

In order to answer the research question, I would need data from Facebook in Tunisia from early December 2010 to mid-January 2011. I would look at groups and events and identify the number of people in them and the rate of growth. I would also need a basic attribute dataset on those group members and event attendees, such as the place of residence, professional occupation, or family name. Additionally these attributes are somewhat accurate determinants of social class in Tunisia.

Network measures:

In this context, betweenness, eigenvector and distance would be the focus of the analysis. Examining the network wide betweenness would allow to see who were the middlemen between subgroups. And in order to paint a more accurate picture, it would be interesting to look at betweenness at the beginning and towards the end of the period to see if the connectors remained the same.

I would also look at eigenvector measures. In this context it might overlap with the betweenness, but even if it does it will add a layer of depth to the network analysis.

Finally I would look at distance to see the average number of steps it takes for different actors to connect. Here, distance could give key information about social interaction through social media. Indeed, the general assumption is that fast paced spread of information correlates with shorter distances. However, it is possible that the use of Facebook allows a high number of steps to not hinder speediness of the process; and looking at distance in this network may show whether or not this is true.

Looking at the social media aspect of this revolution, one could also analyze whether the strength of ties plays a role. This would imply looking at how strong of an interaction is needed to mobilize efficiently before social media, and at whether weaker ties were sufficient to mobilize people in Tunisia.

Limitations:

Looking at responses on Facebook may not be an accurate depiction of how many people showed up to the demonstration because it is a statement of intent rather than an action. And in the Tunisian context, a cultural consideration should also be taken into account: it is common for Facebook users to say they are attending, or to “like” something, without actually taking action, because the social norms governing politeness encourage people to give positive responses regardless of intent.