THE REVOLUTIONARY IMPACTS OF IT

ITM Case: The Revolutionary Impacts of IT

ITM Case: The Revolutionary Impacts of IT

Introduction

The full potential of internet as a political tool and political space remains an undetermined issue which is gradually shaping itself what different political superstitions attribute to the IT or internet after witnessing political revolution in the Middle East recently. The exercise for unlocking the potential of this political implication of the internet is attractive accurately because it holds the position of a new landscape in human interaction which is not completely real and not quite detached from us. It is the perfect simulacrum of a newly discovered land; anarchic and idealistic while at the same time at the mercy of the ploys of foreign empires. The danger inherent in wandering too far into this landscape is that one might forget that while it certainly is there, a man-made hyper-reality: it is not real; you cannot throw an Apple at it.

Discussion

What the phenomenon of technological convergence underlines is the fact that such a unifying pattern exhibited by modern advanced technology is not just a mere option or contingent eventuality, but an inevitable outcome of the nature of modern science and technology. Egypt was heralded as the perfect narrative example of the Arab Spring with its spectacle, its pathos and its seeming success as a Democratic Revolution. A year on we can see that while the instability created by the use of social media resulted in a crisis of legitimacy for the Egyptian Military acute enough to necessitate an internal coup, there is a realization on the part of the young revolutionaries who were flung against a brutal police state by their belief in positive change that in fact nothing has changed (Ghonim, 2012a).

The young Egyptian men and women who remain on the streets to this ...