¡One way in which the media can be argued to have become more democratic is through the use of social media to organise and enable political protest. A recent example of this is the ‘Arab Spring’ unrest across the Middle East in early 2011. In Syria, for example, news of an individual protest in a small town was quickly carried via Facebook across the country, resulting in lots of copy-cat protests, riots, and eventually to the downfall of the King. In the past, any such individual protests would have been prevented from appearing on Syrian state television, and therefore prevented from spreading. However, the rise of social networking meant that democratic forces such as access to information and freedom of speech were given a place where they could flourish.
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