Does new technology promote democracy or could it become a means of control?

Nabil Sharif has had a distinguished political and media career. He was editor-in-chief of Jordan’s Ad-Dustour newspaper, was Jordan’s Ambassador to Morocco and has three times served as Jordan’s Minister for Communication. According to Sharif, digital communications and the lightning speed of events surrounding the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa took governments and experts by surprise. He noted that analysts had coined the term ‘the Arab exception’ to explain why the region had missed out on democratic reform. Governments in the area were confident that their control over the local communications media would suppress popular pressure for change. They were proved badly wrong.