Arab Spring was one of the most crucial and historic events that took place in some Middle Eastern countries from 2010 to 2011. This event was a revolution by the people to overthrow their dictators who had been ruling their countries for several decades. To root out the apathy and corruption that came with these regimes, people came together in the form of protests and peaceful demonstrations and this eventually forced these dictators to resign.
One distinguishing aspect of Arab Spring is the extensive use of technology, especially social media, to mobilize people towards this cause. Messages and videos posted on different social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is believed to have inspired people to join the revolution.
To get a deeper insight into the role played by social media, this study will send out questionnaire to 40 respondents, 20 in Egypt and Tunisia and will also conduct interviews through Skype. The interview will be with six respondents, two from Tunisia and four from Egypt. The idea behind using these qualitative and quantitative methods is to answer the following three questions:
1. Did social media have an impact on the Arab Spring?
2. What is the nature of its impact?
3. Would the revolutions happen even without social media?
This paper will gather data from the respondents and will analyze them in depth to get answers to the above questions. Lastly, the paper will end with a discussion about the future role in social media in these countries and how they are likely to impact the social and olitical aspects in these two countries.