Social media…Revolutions online and offline

The People of Iran (Lewishamdreamer via Flickr)
When Iran had their most recent popular revolution in 1979, people around the world had no 24 hour news source to convey what was happening. CNN would be launched the following year by Ted Turner so coverage was limited to shows like ABC’s Nightline (which was created in response to the hostage crisis which grew out of the uprising) and the regularly scheduled network new programs, as well as the daily newspapers like The New York Times and newsweeklies like Time magazine. The Internet? A gleam in Al Gore’s eye.

Now there are the stirrings of what might turn out to be another popular revolution inside Iran and newsjunkies have skipped a whole generation ahead, past the 24-hour news channels which mostly filled their weekend schedules with less-expensive canned programming, and have gone straight to Twitter and the Huffington Post.

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