Morozov believes the Arab Spring, should be viewed via the lens of ‘cyber-realism’. In a nutshell, he thinks, Facebook, Twitter were kind of important but they weren’t the be all and end all – good old traditional human agency was at work. One of his arguments is that previous revolutionary movements (Bolshevik; Iranian; revolutions of 1989) are remembered for the human issues not the technological means (telegraph; tape-recorder; fax machine). He says:

‘Will history consign Twitter and Facebook to much the same fate 20 years down the road? In all likelihood, yes. The current fascination with technology-driven accounts of political change in the Middle East is likely to subside…’

He may have a point, but I don’t think that means that the role technology played was that of a mere tool. Arguably, the recent uprisings would not have happened as they did if the communications infrastructure, the social media, the mobile phones and all of the other ‘things’ involved didn’t exist. It could be argued that the affordances that these ‘things’ performed were equally as powerful in determining the shape of the uprisings as the activists and that *together* they formed a hugely vigorous, rolling mashup of sociomaterial networks that was forceful enough to topple regimes.

If that’s true, the question of whether the phenomenon is dystopian or utopian, perhaps depends on your perspective.