Social Media Evolution of the Egyptian Revolution

More than 800,000 tweets on topics related to the Egyptian revolution were studied. The study was aimed to find how sentiment evolved in response to unfolding events, how the most influential tweeters and popular tweets shed light on the most influential Twitter users and what types of tweets reverberated most strongly, and how user sentiment and follower relationships relate in terms of dynamic social network characteristics and sentiment. Tweets for each day Egypt-related topics were collected and the sentiment was assessed of daily tweets. The sentiment value for most topics decreased, possibly due to decreased interest outside Egypt or the realization that Mubarak would not willingly step aside as president. Almost two-thirds of the most popular tweets on Egypt-related topics were news, communicating important updates on unfolding events, while inspirational and humor tweets each represented 15% 20% of the popular tweets.