Tweets and the Streets : Social Media and Contemporary Activism From the Arab Spring to the indignados protests in Spain and the Occupy movement Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of a new protest culture. Gerbaudo argues that activists use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a cyberspace detached from physical reality. Instead social media has been chiefly used as part of a project of re appropriation of public space and as a means to exert a form of soft leadership involved in the choreographing of collective action around symbolic occupied squares from Tahrir to Zuccotti Park. Offering an exciting and invigorating journey through the politics of popular protest this book points to both the possibilities and the risks that social media bring to the contemporary protest experience. Page 4 of cover Friendly reunions : social media and the choreography of assembly We are not guys of comment and like : the revolutionary coalescence of Shabab al Facebook We are not on Facebook we are on the streets! : the harvesting of indignation The hashtag which did (not) start a revolution : the laborious adding up to the 99% Follow me but dont ask me to lead you! : liquid organising and choreographic leadership