Nine months after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, and as the Egyptian people continued to express their dissatisfaction with Egypt’s military rulers, celebrated blogger and activist, Hossam el-Hamalawy, spoke about the roots of his country’s spring revolution. During a fresh October evening in Rome, Hossam began by dispelling the notion that Egypt’s was a “social media revolution”. Facebook, twitter and al-Jazeera undoubtedly played a part, but the extent in which many in the west hailed these new technologies was to overshadow the decisive role played by ordinary men and women, activists and factory workers, whose courage and commitment were rarely captured on film.