This article analyses the geography of urban uprising during the so-called Arab Spring, with a focus on the relationship between its virtual and physical dimensions. To enhance understanding of contemporary social movements, it pays particular attention to the interwoven relationship between the social media that now organise gatherings and communicate political messages, the practices of protest in urban space and the magnifying power of global and national media. Using case studies from Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, it analyses the spatial and temporal aspects of recent protests and suggests that the reciprocal interaction between social media, urban space and traditional media does not simply reproduce relations between these actors, but also transforms them incrementally.
Demonstrations in the Arab spring were successful in affecting the tenure of incumbent authoritarian rulers where they occurred in national capitals that were also primate cities. The outstanding examples are Tunis and Cairo. Where the national capital was not a primate city street demonstrations had limited effects or failed to oust incumbents as in Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen. In such instances incumbents were more likely to be ousted by civil war than relatively peaceful urban uprising.