The media has spent weeks concentrating first on Tunisia and now on Egypt. The popular uprisings which followed the sacrifice of the young Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi soon led to the downfall of dictator Ben Ali and, like a stack of dominoes, the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak, opening up a democratic process in the country. Demonstrators also took to the streets in Yemen, Algeria and Jordan. What we are seeing is the Arab world rising up, calling for greater levels of freedom from its respective regimes. New technology plays a fundamental, even key, role throughout this process, particularly social networks which enable people to by-pass the prevailing censorship. In light of these historical events, Manuel Castells, university professor of Sociology and Director of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC), reflects on what is happening and provides keys to understanding a citizens' movement which is exploiting fully the new communication channels available to it.