We read the news and the analysis pieces concerning the recent unrest in Egypt, and on the other end of the spectrum-the role of the social media in it. Social media can help organize protestors and report what is happening on the street.
The operative word here is street. Throngs of people were on it, protesting, demanding change. Tweeting won't change much, and a million people on Facebook doesn't constitute as much of a force for change as thousands of people manning the barricades ready to be battered by tear gas in order to make their point. Tweeting and Facebooking may have spread the news, but the point is the people didn't stop there and personally reacted to what they felt was an unjust government.
Perhaps after the Wall Street meltdown and the mortgage crisis, if Americans turned out and besieged their Congressional representative offices, demanding campaign reform and better oversight of the financial companies, we'd see better and bipartisan results. If 50,000 parents of school-age children took a couple of