There is very little serious empirical research about the actual role of social media in protests and revolutions. Most published academic works are speculative or big data analyses that can say nothing about how prevalent social media use was among actual activists who occupied squares.
The OccupyMedia! Survey studied the role of social media in Occupy movements. I published its results in the book OccupyMedia! The Occupy Movement and Social Media in Crisis Capitalism (Fuchs 2014c). About 429 respondents, who participated in the Occupy movement, took part in the survey. One question was what the role of specific media was in protest mobilisation (see table 9.2).
The data indicate that face-to-face communication, Facebook, e-mail, phone, SMS, and Twitter are the most important media that occupy activists employed for trying to mobilise others for protests. Activists use multiple media for mobilisation-oriented communication. These include classical interpersonal communication via phones, e-mail, face-to-face, and private social media profiles as well as more public forms of communication such as Facebook groups, Twitter, and e-mail lists.
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2 Spring awakening. How an Egyptian revolution began on Facebook. New York Times Online. 17 February 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/books/review/how-an-egyptian-revolution-began-on-facebook.html? pagewanted=all&\_r = 0