IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/33496.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why do Facebook and Twitter facilitate revolutions more than TV and radio?

Author

Listed:
  • Kiss, Hubert Janos
  • Rosa-García, Alfonso

Abstract

A distinctive feature of recent revolutions was the key role of social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube). In a simple model we assume that while social media allow to observe all previous decisions, mass media only give aggregate information about the state of a revolt. We show, first, that when individuals' willingness to revolt is publicly known, then both sorts of media foster a successful revolution. However, when willingness to revolt is private information, only social media ensure that a revolt succeeds, with mass media multiple outcomes are possible. This suggests that social media enhance the likelihood that a revolution triumphs more than traditional mass media.

Suggested Citation

  • Kiss, Hubert Janos & Rosa-García, Alfonso, 2011. "Why do Facebook and Twitter facilitate revolutions more than TV and radio?," MPRA Paper 33496, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:33496
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/33496/1/MPRA_paper_33496.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Suk-Young Chwe, 2000. "Communication and Coordination in Social Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(1), pages 1-16.
    2. Lohmann, Susanne, 1993. "A Signaling Model of Informative and Manipulative Political Action," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 319-333, June.
    3. Lohmann, Susanne, 1994. "Information Aggregation through Costly Political Action," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 518-530, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rosa-García, Alfonso & Kiss, Hubert Janos, 2011. "Coordination structures," MPRA Paper 30463, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hubert Janos Kiss & Ismael Rodríguez-Lara & Alfonso Rosa-García, 2017. "Overthrowing the dictator: a game-theoretic approach to revolutions and media," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(2), pages 329-355, August.
    2. Hubert Janos Kiss & Alfonso Rosa-Garcia, 2013. "On the mobilizing role of social media in revolutions: a game-theoretic approach," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1343, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    3. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    4. Christian Salas, 2019. "Persuading policy-makers," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(4), pages 507-542, October.
    5. Wilson Perez-Oviedo, 2015. "Citizens, dictators and networks: A game theory approach," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(1), pages 3-39, February.
    6. Marco Battaglini & Rebecca B. Morton & Eleonora Patacchini, 2020. "Social Groups and the Effectiveness of Protests," Working Papers 20200039, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Feb 2020.
    7. Sangnier, Marc & Zylberberg, Yanos, 2017. "Protests and trust in the state: Evidence from African countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 55-67.
    8. Barbera, Salvador & Jackson, Matthew O., 2020. "A Model of Protests, Revolution, and Information," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 15(3), pages 297-335, July.
    9. Enriqueta Aragones & Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Weiss, 2011. "Making statements and approval voting," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 461-472, October.
    10. D. Mark Anderson & Kerwin Charles & Krzysztof Karbownik & Daniel I. Rees & Camila Steffens, 2023. "Civil Rights Protests and Election Outcomes: Exploring the Effects of the Poor People's Campaign," NBER Working Papers 31973, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Sangnier, Marc & Zylberberg, Yanos, 2017. "Protests and trust in the state: Evidence from African countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 55-67.
    12. Ryo Arawatari, 2009. "Informatization, voter turnout and income inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(1), pages 29-54, March.
    13. Christopher J. Ellis & John Fender, 2008. "Democratic Errors," University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers 2008-2, University of Oregon Economics Department.
    14. Wit, Jorgen, 1999. "Social Learning in a Common Interest Voting Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 131-156, January.
    15. González, Felipe, 2020. "Collective action in networks: Evidence from the Chilean student movement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    16. Koster, M. & Lindelauf, R. & Lindner, I. & Owen, G., 2008. "Mass-mobilization with noisy conditional beliefs," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 55-77, January.
    17. Randall Calvert, 2017. "Strategic rationality and endogenous institutional change," Rationality and Society, , vol. 29(1), pages 91-110, February.
    18. Susanne Lohmann, 1995. "A Signaling Model Of Competitive Political Pressures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 181-206, November.
    19. McMurray, Joseph, 2017. "Voting as communicating: Mandates, multiple candidates, and the signaling voter's curse," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 199-223.
    20. Verpoorten, Marijke & Arora, Abhimanyu, 2011. "Food Prices, Social Unrest and the Facebook Generation," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114230, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social media; mass media; revolution; coordination game; sequential games;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:33496. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.