The dissertation is devoted to the social networks study as a tool of influence on the Arab world elite’s transformation. The modern Arab world is one of the most complex social systems in the global world. Firstly, it is a separate civilizational phenomenon, with the core being quite firmly entrenched in the framework of two continents – Asia and Africa, – having its own quite powerful branches to other content, Europe and America in particular. Secondly, this world consists of various subsystems, sometimes contradicting each other – up to mutual destruction. The reason for this is a different level of social, political, cultural, and economic development destabilizing the Arab world. The most consolidating element of the Arab world is Islam – one of the largest world religions. In fact, the Arab world was formed as a single social system only in virtue of the Islamic religion, resulting in it still remains an influential international factor, despite various internal contradictions and shocks. The need for a thorough theoretical analysis of the features and level of the social networks influence on both the process of social development and the Arab world elite’s transformation in the process of revolutionary events at beginning of the XXth century makes this study significance. The study focuses on events that changed political life in a vast space and entered the scientific discourse as the «Arab Spring» and the Twitter/Facebook revolution. The latter identified the main scenarios of the Middle East protests in the form of an unprecedentedly active involvement of participants in the process of using information and communication technologies in most social networks, which influenced the elite’s transformation.
The chronological framework covers the 2010–2015 periods. The lower chronological border is associated with the beginning of the protests deployment in social networks in Tunisia, which led to revolutionary events in several Arab countries. The upper border is associated with the final cessation of active protests in the Arab countries, in particular in Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen, with the civil war beginning in the latter one. The geographical scope of the study covers the countries of the Arab world, primarily such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and other territories of the Middle East. The paper studies the level of Internet accessibility in the Arab world. Thus, the information and communication technologies made it possible to use mobile TVsystems and various gadgets connected to the Internet and resulted in growing the number of its social networks users. Just on the eve of the Arab Spring, in 2010, the media began to create an information space and lay down the ideological basis of the protest. Social networks have provided Arab citizens with the opportunity to speak out about their choice and to attract a large number of citizens both within the country and abroad through sharing personal thoughts and observations of what is happening. Media channels also provided citizens with the opportunity to get news from not «censored» sources. And it helped to perceive news programs from various sources, and not just those highlighted by their own state-controlled media. Therefore, social networks during the «Arab Spring», been originally created as virtual communication zones, unexpectedly turned out to be a serious alternative to the traditional media, been under severe pressure from censorship in individual countries. Based on this, it is established that the people’s virtual solidarity, as a new phenomenon, had an important place in the course of those events. As a result, some countries’ authorities drew their attention to this phenomenon and made significant efforts (blocking social networks) to take them under their control. Most of the popular communities created in the Arabic-language segment of social networks used materials of a similar orientation, the main characteristics of which should be pointed out: emotional colouring; brevity and simplicity of theses; a high-quality audio-visual realization. Horizontal connections between users played a significant role of the social networks gaining its popularity as the main information source; that is, the very nature of the network with all participants been connected and able to freely share information. Social networks and modern means of communication are increasingly being used to mobilize the masses. The Internet plays the role of an effective tool for creating and destroying social actors, as it was observed during the wave of democratic revolutions in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Social communication technologies in social networks were the main means of popularizing movements and public contact with the outside world during the events of the Arab Spring. Key words: social networks, the Arab world, «Arab Spring», elites, revolution.
