Here's what I sifted out from responses to my call for empirical work on the Arab Spring. Thanks to everyone who responded. -robert *Social Media and the Arab Spring* *General argument about Arab Spring and/or social media:* http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolut... http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/egypt/PMag-1107-Egypt-o... http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67812/asef-bayat/the-post-islamist-re... Howard, Phillip "The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," http://poliecon.com/2011/09/08/information-manipulation-coordination-and-reg... flows and regimes) http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/02/24/facebook.revolution/index.ht... http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/03/16/netizens_egypt_tahrir_square/(bac... on Egypt) http://www.gnuband.org/files/papers/Ferron_Massa_Collective_memory_building_... wikipedia fits in) *Empirical study:* Howard et al = http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12947477/reports/pITPI_datamemo_2011.pdf http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1246/613 (Information flows during Tunisian and Egytian revolutions/Tweets) *Regarding the Internet Shutdown in Egypt:* “New Social Networks with Old Technology - What the Egyptian Shutdown tells us about Social Media” (Dan McQuillan) http://www.internetartizans.co.uk/socnets_with_old_tech_egypt Abstract Egypt is the latest in a series of countries to witness the powerful potential of modern social media to catalyse and mobilise people around social issues. The Egyptian government response was to have the internet and mobile networks completely shut down. This was, however, not the end of the role that social media ideas played in the events that followed. People inside and outside of Egypt collaborated to re-create the missing networks using the still-available technologies of landlines, dial-up and ham radio. This paper argues that this use of pre-digital technologies to form the kinds of infrastructure afforded by modern social technologies is evidence of a radical change in people’s perceptions of their world and its connectedness. Social media has constituted a real change that goes beyond specific technologies. This flies in the face of many sceptical critics who argue that new technologies only reinforce old practices and social structures. This view of the effects of social media presents a challenge to its study. Technological studies and formal analyses of relationships inscribed in social networks will never be able to capture fully the way people understand and interact with these technologically-enabled structures. In this paper, I use the internet shutdown in Egypt to raise issues that I believe need to be considered in analysing the influence of social media on social movements. I discuss how existing models need to become hybridic, heterogeneous and responsive to the grassroots appropriation of technology, especially the future creation of alternatives to the corporate internet. In conclusion, I analyse the phrase 'Egypts Facebook Youth' as the emblem of social media's impact.