The Arab Spring: Beyond media effects

Abstract

We put primary and secondary data associated with members of the Arab League into a regression model to derive what we call the ‘Arab Spring Equation’. This formula indicates that international news coverage during the upheaval constituted a reliable index of protest intensity, a criterion consistent with the predictive power of sociopolitical and socio-economic indicators, but not indicators of communication technologies. Variables considered in the analysis included level of democratic development; level of corruption; degree of press freedom; rate of unemployment; rate of population growth; per capita gross domestic product (GDP); percentage of population living in poverty; rate of inflation; literacy rate; number of Internet users; number of mobile phone users; Internet penetration rate; military expenditure as percentage of GDP; and type of political rule. Results point to explanations related to the role of media in the Arab Spring beyond those attributed to the advent of communication technologies.