The population went from being passive recipients to proactive participants in the country's present and future. And by challenging the information being transmitted by the captured media sources, they prevented the small group of mid-level officers from turning pre-emptive claims of victory into reality.
A significant number of Turks collectively formed what advancing military forces fear most -- crowds of civilians blocking their path and complicating their operational plans. The strength of the people was transmitted both domestically and internationally through images on social media of civilians standing up to rebel soldiers in the streets. This signaled that the rebels were not winning, and diminished the chances that they would ultimately prevail.
Sensing defeat, hundreds of rebellious soldiers started surrendering and road blockades were lifted. The images that filled social media showed that citizens had again found a way to have a deterministic role in their political destiny -- particularly when it comes to how they are governed and by whom.
This is not the first time that social media and mobility played an important role in influencing outcomes, or allowed ordinary citizens to play a greater part in ensuring that a tiny minority is unable to impose its will on the majority. And it is not the first time that the will of the people prevailed with the help of technology. For example, in 2011 and 2013, millions of ordinary Egyptians, enabled by social media, stunned the world with their collective action, taking to the streets to influence how they would be governed.
In helping to foil a coup against a legitimately elected government, social media reinforced democracy. This is the flip side of the tragic use of this same technology to influence and radicalize the disenfranchised.
History will record that the rogue Turkish officers and their followers failed to understand how social media has changed the traditional dynamics of military coup d'etats. It contributed to avoiding an outcome that, at a minimum, would have created huge uncertainty in one of the largest European countries and a member of NATO. That would have been yet another development that "expert opinion," both in the public and private sectors, had not predicted. Now the challenge for Turkey is to ensure that the legacy of the failed coup will be the strengthening of the country's democracy and its legitimate institutions.
Mohamed El-Erian is chief economic advisor at Allianz SE.