The ubiquitous presence of “smart” phones, mobile Internet-connected devices, and rapidly evolving social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, is changing the nature of political activism. Recent uprisings like the 2011 revolt in Tunisia have been popularly anointed as “Twitter Revolutions.” Critical Planning sat down with Technologist Yoh Kawano and Humanities Professor Todd Presner, both from the University of California’s Center for Digital Humanities and creators of Hypercities, a digital research and education platform, as well as Urban Planning PhD student John Scott-Railton, founder of The Voices Feeds, to discuss their respective work digitally chronicling the social revolutions in Egypt and Libya. The interviews shed light on a relatively new area of research among social scientists, and reveal how emerging technologies are impacting the relationship between people and the state.
