“We used to be customers of the media,” said Dr. Yair Amichai-Hamburger, director of the Research Center for Internet Psychology at Sammy Ofer School of Communications at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. “Now we produce the media.” Regular, everyday people have become journalists and social activists, he added, and a group of people with a shared interest can form a small but influential army. This allows the ability for real, dynamic opposition that is nearly impossible to suppress, even in a dictatorship like Iran, Amichai-Hamburger said. Twitter in particular works well for such communication because it is short, simple and instant. Amichai-Hamburger explained that Twitter’s immediateness escalates users’ emotions, because people who are always online and always connected are always involved. “It’s not like reading the news,” explained Amichai-Hamburger. “You are in the news.
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=145850