Harvard Project Cites USIP’s 'Blogs and Bullets' in Top Social Media Research
Allow us a little crowing (sorry dove, nothing personal). A project at Harvard’s Kennedy School recently sifted through piles of social media research and placed USIP’s report “Blogs and Bullets II: New Media and Conflict after the Arab Spring” among the top reads of 2012.
The report, authored by scholars from George Washington University and American University, analyzes the role of social media in the Arab Spring protests of 2011-12. The research was conducted for the Institute’s Centers of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding, and for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding, and follows up on a previous report, published in 2010 by USIP Press and entitled “Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics.”
Journalist’s Resource, a project of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, cited the USIP report in its top 10 picks for academic research on media, social science and related fields. John Wihbey, the managing editor of Journalist’s Resource, wrote about his list on the website of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab. He also linked to their good description of the USIP report when it came out last year.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the USIP report found that, at least in terms of media (especially Twitter) that use links that have been shortened to fit by the bit.ly service, the evidence didn’t really support claims of significant new media impact on Arab Spring political protests, despite the widespread use. The researchers said that didn’t mean new media weren’t important or that other forms didn’t have an impact. They also concluded that new media and old media reinforced each other in the Arab Spring. And perhaps not surprisingly, the results showed that events in Egypt and Libya generated far more clicks on a larger number of URL’s than the developments in Tunisia and Bahrain.
Intrigued? Check out the report, which is still fascinating, and tell us what you think about the findings.