In 2011, global audiences followed the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with inspiration, fascination and astonishment. The use of media technologies and social media platforms became a focal point of discourse and spurred debates between techno-utopians and techno-dystopians as to the role new technology played in what became referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’. This chapter engages with the question of whether WikiLeaks’ releases of MENA-related material contributed to the sudden explosion of angry protests and argues that such a connection exists, even though it has to be considered in the context of the broader media landscape and the political environment of the region. Further, the chapter places WikiLeaks in the context of emerging communication platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which provided a human narrative on the activities and effects of oppressive regimes in the MENA region, and helped to enable dissidents to organize protests, voice anger and fight for freedom and democracy. . The chapter aims to offer a different perspective from the conventional analysis of the region drawn from the hands on experience and the understanding of the role of Arabic as a language that is affected by the local cultures within MENA. This happens in contrast to most of the research on the impact of the internet or new media that has been primarily dominated by a focus on politics and the public sphere with a clear divergence and perplexity between the hope for “revolutionary” change and the admission that regime stability in the region has not easily been unsettled by media revolutions alone.The chapter opens with a brief outline of political and media-related contexts; then it discusses broader influence of WikiLeaks as a result of exposing raging and contradictory forces between the idea of freedom of expression or democratic values on one hand and starvation, poverty and oppression on the other hand. This more contextual approach has questioned the narrative that linked Wikileaks to the thesis of “global struggle” based on universal values seeking political change.
