New Media Effects on Social and Political Transformation for the Life of Young people

The 2011 year of anger in Arabic countries was a turning point for the political scene of many Arabic countries, whose dictatorships were caught off guard as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in an expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo and demanded change. In other words, the recent political events in Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, and Tunisia in 2011 all confirmed the key role of social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) and online political news in supporting citizens with their self-determination and call-for-change to democratic political systems. Also, changes in the media landscape present new challenges for scholars interested in the relationship between the media and civil society and opened many research questions about the natural role of media in general and political content of online media in particular.  “The explosion of the Internet that started in advanced democracies and has spread through much of the globe provides new and unexplored pathways for communication, this inclusion of the Internet in the media raises new questions for citizens, politicians, researchers, journalists and government” (Oates, Owen & Gibson, 2006, p. 1). “Public media plays a major role in organizing the routines and rituals of everyday life and has so over the centuries in its different formats. Today, television is a central presence in domestic and family life. Inviting friends over to listen to music or play computer games has become an important cementing act for the building of friendship among teenagers. Also, reading the newspapers or listening to morning radio news is an almost universal accompaniment to people’s daily journey to work. In addition, many rituals marking important personal moments are bound up with media: going clubbing or to the cinema is central to courtship; weddings and family gatherings are increasingly captured on video” (Deacan, Golding & Graham, 1999, p. 2). In other words, we can see that public media has became an important and almost unavoidable part of everyday life.