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<BODY style="FONT: 10pt Segoe UI; MARGIN: 4px 4px 1px"><A href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bd4c8476faf6931c55a21ce67ce651d28e1adfe7055fb971d3"><FONT size=6>Blogs & Bullets III: Syria's Socially Mediated Civil War </FONT></A><BR><FONT size=3>January 2014 | Marc Lynch, Deen Freelon, and Sean Aday <BR></FONT><BR>Much of what the outside world thinks it knows about Syria has come from videos, analysis, and commentary circulated through social media. In this report, leading social media researchers assess the sources of this content, its credibility, and how it travels. Their examination of English-language and Arabic-language Twitter feeds on Syria reveal insular networks with vastly different content, calling into question Western reliance on English-only sources of information on the conflict. <BR><BR><A title="Read more and download the full report >>>" href="http://www.usip.org/publications/syria-s-socially-mediated-civil-war" alias="Read more and download the full report >>>" conversion="false">Read more and download the full report >>></A><BR>
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<P style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" align=left><A title="Blogs & Bullets II" href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bd77112ddb6621e02edae30f2e009bf7f5ba535f583b9e7385"><IMG id=image-placeholder title="Blogs & Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics" style="HEIGHT: 247px; BORDER-TOP-COLOR: #000000; WIDTH: 188px; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: #000000; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: #000000; MARGIN: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: #000000" border=0 alt="Blogs & Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics" src="cid:RSEMOCVFDZZG.PW80+Cover.jpg" width=188 align=right height=247 thid="e7b6c39f-d11e-413a-ac24-3233a4acaf76" st="L"></A><FONT size=6> <A href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bde4b280f8eada03881c817cb267437620f5a8ea0892be9bde">Blogs & Bullets II: New Media and Conflict after the Arab Spring</A></FONT><BR><FONT size=3>July 2012 | Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, and Deen Freelon <BR></FONT><BR>In this report, the authors analyze the role of social media in the Arab Spring protests of 2011-12 using a unique dataset from bit.ly, the URL shortener commonly associated with Twitter and used by other digital media such as Facebook. With these data, the authors are able to test empirically the claims of "cyberoptimists" and "cyberskeptics" about the role of new media in bringing down autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya and in spurring protests in other parts of the Arab World, such as Bahrain. <BR><BR><A title="Read more and download the full report >>>" href="http://www.usip.org/publications/blogs-and-bullets-ii-new-media-and-conflict-after-the-arab-spring" alias="Read more and download the full report >>>" conversion="false">Read more and download the full report >>></A><BR></P>
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<P style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; TEXT-ALIGN: left" align=left><A href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bdaf81ec7f13ac250a72488f4e40955ba3e3c6151c9905cac1"><IMG id=image-placeholder title="Blogs & Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics" style="HEIGHT: 247px; BORDER-TOP-COLOR: #000000; WIDTH: 188px; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: #000000; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: #000000; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 5px; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: #000000" border=0 alt="Blogs & Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics" src="cid:DZZZEJLJODVL.0d83a623-b.JPG" width=188 align=right height=247 thid="300174" st="L"></A><FONT size=6> <A title="Blogs & Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics" href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bd4e9355111c0d2373aef5207ce701448f2d7a7593b2119499">Blogs & Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics</A></FONT><BR><FONT size=3>September 2010 | Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, John Kelly, and Ethan Zuckerman<BR></FONT><BR>In this report, a team of experts from The George Washington University, in cooperation with scholars from Harvard University and Morningside Analytics, critically assesses both the "cyberutopian" and "cyberskeptic" perspectives on the impact of new media on political movements. The authors propose a more complex approach that looks at the role of new media in contentious politics from five interlocking levels of analysis: individual transformation, intergroup relations, collective action, regime policies, and external attention. <BR><BR><A title="Read more and download the full report" href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bd0b52d6555dde4551e5d238e0ab8d2c29d363ca88570b5792">Read more and download the full report >>><BR></A><BR></P>
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<P style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" align=left><A title="More Resources and Tools from USIP" href="http://click.newsletters.usip.org/?qs=9aee5a97878143bd76eb301ec0f7a473affbf7782e40719447be753914f9c7a4">More Publications and Tools from USIP >>></A><BR><BR></P>
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