Briefly, we have tried to analyse the impact of the Third Wave on important events over the past two decades.

In Ukraine’s 2013–2014 “Euromaidan Uprising”, social media was the catalyst for a spontaneous revolution that conventional political parties failed to ignite. The uprising began with a single Facebook post by journalist Mustafa Nayyem, followed by Nataliya Gumenyuk and journalist Yuliia Bankova, calling for a protest that quickly went viral and mobilised thousands.

Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were crucial for organising real-time gatherings and bypassing traditional, often ineffective, political structures. A spike in new Twitter accounts at the onset of the protests demonstrated how social media fuelled, and was fuelled by, collective action.

Activists used Facebook groups to organise logistics, such as the “Euromaidan SOS” legal support initiative, and Twitter for coordination. Key hashtags such as #Euromaidan and #EuroMaydan helped build a global audience. While foreign media framed the protests as a geopolitical struggle between the EU and Russia, analysis of Facebook posts showed that the protesters themselves focused on domestic issues and anti-regime sentiment, framing it as their own revolution.

Live-streaming through Hromadske TV and YouTube was used to provide real-time updates, counter state media censorship and appeal to an international audience, with translations crowdsourced to amplify the message abroad.

During the Arab Spring, Libyan youth movements used social media in 2011, particularly Facebook, to forge a collective identity and voice dissent against Muammar Gaddafi’s four-decade-long regime. Activists used Facebook to develop a shared group identity, which was........

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