Introduction:
Online Social networking (OSN) has changed the approach to how society is able to communicate amongst one another with ease. Online Social Networking allows members to share each and every detail happening within their life; such as personal information, photos, status updates and events (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Online Social Networking sites have recently played a role in revolutions across several Arab and African countries (M. Attia, Aziz, Friedman and F. Elhusseiny 2011). One illustration of an up rise caused by OSN took place in Tunisia. This essay will examine the positive and negative effects of involving an Online Social Networking site called Facebook, in the Tunisian revolution and will then show that online social networking sites had a positive effect on the Tunisian revolution as it allowed the Tunisian people to communicate with one another at ease.
Body:
The Tunisian revolution began when a fruit seller, Muhammad Al Bouazizi; set himself alight in front of a government building, after being mistreated at the hand of local authorities for selling fruits on the street without the legal permit (The New Republic, 2011). The mistreatment of Al Bouazizi sparked outrage at the corrupted government. As a result; protests commenced, which swiftly turned into riots; some of which were violent .The people of Tunisia began to feel their effort to get noticed had been done in vain, as the media ignored the growing up rise (Ryan, 2011). Despite the lack of media; The Tunisian people managed to find another way to get acknowledged.
The Tunisians began using Online Social Networking sites such as Facebook; to record their events, which would allow others to follow their updates (Zuckerman, 2011). This move begun to attract more and more people to Facebook as it also allowed the Tunisians to view photos and videos of the revolution. According to Lewis (2011) “More than 34% of Tunisia's 10 million people are