Media, censorhip, and new media in the Arab Revolutions

The real enablers of change were huge numbers of people moving into the streets with camera phones. Rising Internet access, YouTube videos, satellite TV reception, and liberalization of media censorship played important roles, but ultimately it was long-standing economic and political grievances and a demonstration effect from Tunisia onwards that pushed broad masses of people to break through the threshold of fear of armed state power.

Sharat G. Lin is president of the San Jose Peace & Justice Center. He writes on global political economy, the Middle East and South Asia, labor migration, and public health. Dr. Lin spent a week in Tahrir Square at the height of the popular uprising in Egypt, and has lived in the Middle East for many years.

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