Social Media and the Arab Spring: How Facebook, Twitter, and Camera Phones Changed the Egyptian Army's Response to Revolution

How should militaries think about social media as a factor in military operations? In this study I examine recent Arab Spring scholarship, with a particular focus on the significant impact of social media on events in Egypt in early 2011. Existing literature in this area centers on the ability of various social media platforms to unite and inspire population masses, yet does not address the important effect of social media on military forces responding to the revolution. This gap is exempli...