Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest

A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements’ greatest strengths and frequent challenges

To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.
 
Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture—and offer essential insights into the future of governance.

• Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
• Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
• Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age
• Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
• (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work
• The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Chicago Studies in American Politics)
• The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics)
• Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution
• Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements In Nondemocracies (Social Movements, Protest and Contention)