A Virtual Platform By Malcolm Gladwell

In April of 2017, a hardworking doctor was forced to leave and lugged off a plane for no apparent reason; soon after, a video of the incident was posted online, causing outrage throughout our media-enhanced world. A woman’s hopeless cry for help was not enough, and although several passengers recorded the horrific episode, no one intervened nor did anyone help the passenger that had been treated so awfully. Technology gives us emotional and physical comfort, whether that be in expressing feelings or chiming in on a controversial current event, in an age where social media has an immense impact on our habits on and off the web; yet in reality, our phones, computers, and tablets are turning us into active bystanders allowing and perhaps even amplifying the bystander effect. The diffusion of responsibility is a poison that begins with cell phone usage and spreads to social media. Today, people are too reliant on technology and fail to comprehend that social media is not social activism.

To build his argument, he ties in similar examples from history that involve either social or political activism. Not only does he connect these examples to the “weak ties” that the platforms of social media are built upon, but he also offers insight to his readers, the general public, and social-networking gurus (Gladwell 551). In his essay, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, Gladwell creates a rhetorically effective argument that illustrates why social networking is not an adequate way to conduct social or political activism.

Gladwell sends a very strong message about how social media cannot cause a major revolution in society; likewise, Baron is sending across the same message. Revolutions continue even after the internet is shut down. As crowds gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Baron describes how they “continued to grow during the five days that the Mubarak government shut down the internet” (330). The crowds increased in size without the help of social media. Somehow, word got out and people came to support the cause. Also, Baron brings into realization that Americans are too involved in the world of social media. Americans fail to realize all of the news that they are missing because they “can’t seem to survive without the constant stimulus of digital multitasking” (Baron 330). American citizens are too busy tweeting about what they ate for breakfast to worry about the hungry that is going on overseas. They depend on social networking to tell them the news rather that picking up a newspaper and reading about what is going on in their country or maybe even overseas in a different country.

In his article “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, published in the New York Times on October 2010, Malcolm Gladwell looks closely into the notion of social change and the different means to achieve it. He makes a clear distinction between traditional activism, which implies sacrifices and physical devotion, and current activism, based on social networks. The writer considers that “social media can’t provide what social change has always required” (Gladwell, paragraph 1).

The main argument of the Gladwell in this article is that social media is not effective in “high-risk” activism because it lacks strong bonds and hierarchical command structure. Although he agrees that social media can bring a “limited” change which has far less consequences than the “high risk” activism and do not require a higher level of commitment. He thinks that social media is not an effective enemy of status quo.

Malcolm Gladwell’s article "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted" raises a significant question about the prospective contribution of web-based social networking to the advent of progressive social movement and change. Gladwell’s bold declaration that "the revolution will not be tweeted" is reflective of his view that social media has no useful application in serious activism. Contrasting various elements of the “high-stakes” lunch-counter protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1960’s with the “low-stakes” activism achieved through social media, Gladwell concludes that effective social movements powerful enough to impose change on longstanding societal forces require both “strong ties” among participants and the

Essay Assignment 1: Rhetorical analysis of “The Small Change” Malcolm Gladwell’s article, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, argues why social media is not an adequately effective tool in terms of social and political activism. Published by the New Yorker on October 4, 2010, the article was purposed to convince its readers that social media is not a threat to the status-quo as many would believe. Social media’s popularity was rapidly increasing and the tension of the worldly politics at the time was high thus spicing up the author’s wide audience of hungry readers.

This attention seeking nature, this focus on people, whom we will never form bonds, with instead of focusing on those who care about us, people that would give anything to make us happy, the people we have strong ties with; that is what we need to focus on. But, what if we did meet these people? What if these people that we have "weak ties" ties with really do care about our well being. Zeynep Tufekci, in her Ted Talk, "Online social change: easy to organize, hard to win" challenges Gladwell directly with her own experiences and knowledge of human nature. "It's also not true, as Malcolm Gladwell claimed, that today's protesters form weaker virtual ties. No, they come to these protests, just like before, with their friends, existing networks, and sometimes they do make new friends for life. I still see the friends that I made in those Zapatista-convened global protests more than a decade ago, and the bonds between strangers are not worthless. When I got tear-gassed in Gezi, people I didn't know helped me and one another instead of running

Author Malcom Gladwell makes it a point to show his distaste for today’s active protests done through social media. In his essay, “Why the Revolution Will Not Be Retweeted”, he feels there is no personal connection or leadership when creating protests through Facebook or Twitter. Only in the beginning Gladwell is convincing when using logical appeal with emotional undertones. As the essay progresses, Gladwell shows obvious hostility for modern day practices of protests. He attempts to tap into the young audiences emotional minds by using shocking quotes and emotional historical events.

I would have to say that I disagree with Gladwell’s analysis of the usage of social media for social justice. I think that social media helps social activism by creating another platform for people to use. Two important causes for me were and still are the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and against the police brutality against minorities, especially Black people. For both, I was mainly an observer. The sharing of videos, news stories, updates, and more was how I and mainly people around me spread awareness. I am a member of AISES on campus and we, along with NASAC, raised money to donate during the Penny War for NoDAPL. Gladwell mentions that social media allows for weak tie activism, but I would argue that people who have share identities with the cause would be more motivated as well and not just those who know people personally. No one that I knew personally has ever been shot by the police or killed and I do not know anyone from Standing Rock, but I am Native as well as Black. Besides caring about social justice in general, I feel like I need to be involved in some way.

At first of the essay, Gladwell provided an example of a successful revolution in the past with no reinforcement of internet and social media. "Some seventy thousand students eventually took part. Thousands were arrested and untold thousands more radicalized. These events in the early sixties became a civil-rights war that engulfed the South for the rest of the decade -- and it happened without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter." This quote just states the thesis statement, which I agree with the author’s. The revolution always happens by the needs of the times. People will follow the right thing, which be accepted by most of the people. And the dross of the society which should be corrected would make people spontaneously participate into

The dissertation Spring Awakening, transcribed by Jose Antonio Vargas, can be beheld by the progressive ramifications cyberspace and newfangled apparatuses have to contribute to one’s epoch. Coupled with the fixation of a singular named Ghonim who had written a “fast-paced engrossing new memoir of political awakening”, which had contributed to “Serve as a touchstone for future testimonials…” (Vargas 433); to enumerate how social media is the “connective tissue of society” (by Clay Shirky), in which we as a society can rally and amalgamate under a singular basis, such as the usurpation of an oppressive authoritarian. As a result “What had bubbled up online inevitably spilled on the streets…” (Vargas 433); subsequently further demonstrates the

The written word,now a weapon, is now digitized and feed through media. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.” (Bradbury 58). Not only have books become a media revolution so has social interaction. Social media allows for connections formerly unheard. “The problem, they say, is that we spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real-life relationships.”(WSJ). This avenue of socialization allows for discretion of the true life and person of the poster. “And even worse, the human condition is beginning to devolve. We have become addicted to the vanity of social media unable to expose our lives to the world.”(Green). This media based socialization can overtake the lives of many. “When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.”(Synder). Making the human race even more technology

As a logical consequence, Postmes and Brunsting (2002) reasoned that the Internet is changing society because people's cognitive processes, triggered by access to information and communication, replace the strong social ties that traditionally underpin committed activism. In simpler words, in the past, humanity used the herd instinct as the main driving force behind committed forms of activism. Thanks to the Internet, we climb another step or three on the evolutionary ladder, and simply do away with the herd instinct and replace it with reason. The argument, if put this way, does not sound particularly strong. What can be taken away is that social media is still evolving, that social media changes the way we – or most of us communicate, that social media is used in social and political activism, and that the Internet increases quantitative if not qualitative access to information.

Most of us use social media to communicate with our family, friends and our loved once. Since almost all of my friends live 8000 mile away, I use Facebook, Instagram, and viber to keep in touch with them. Bur recently I started noticing it has become more than a means of communication. I start posting a picture and obsesses about how many likes I get, checking other peoples Facebook just to see if they have more friends than me, believing every post without questioning if it’s a fact and funny enough I start sending friend request for people I don’t even know. Christine Rosen, a senior editor of the New Atlantis and resident fellow at the Ethics and Public policy Center in Wessington, D.C. on “In the Beginning Was the World”, she wrote how technology is affecting the society’s critical reading ability. Peggy Orenstein, an author and a contributing writer for the New York Times, on “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” she talks about how social media is distracting as from fully live in the moment. Even though the development of technology have increased the quality of life, it also brought undeniable challenges to our society. The constant use of social media and internet has increase society attention-seeking, Distracted, and decries critical reading. The use of social media has increased dramatically throughout the years.