ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to shed some light on the role played by the media in its different forms in the four countries by underlining the specific ways in which digital media users, foreign satellite channels and official media. Media coverage played an important role in the development of a successful informational cascade in Tunisia and Libya, but failed to produce the same result in Algeria and Morocco. While traditional venues for information were all under the control of the authorities, the regime was also attempting to exert the same degree of surveillance and censorship over the massive digital content produced on the Internet both by local and international actors. Digital social networks fed by content generated by local bloggers allowed activists in every city to follow the events that were happening in their own towns and villages, with constant updates on police violence and the number of casualties.
