Social Media And Its Impact On Society

In “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” Malcolm Gladwell discusses the social media and society changed how people and groups of interact with each other. The four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. The Woolworth’s lunch counter denied service because of their race. They refused to leave until the dinner closed and protest grew. The four students protested widespread and people from different states started to join in four students. They were also protested to happen without social networking. There was incident that people protested against the communist government and received through Twitter Revolution. Gladwell emphasizes the importance of social media for

Technology is being used all across the globe in everyday life. With the development of technology, the development of social media became very popular. In “Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted”, Malcolm Gladwell stresses that “real” revolutions do not depend on social media to be resolved or started; however, small revolutions can depend on social media or networking. Although Dennis Baron is sending the same message in “Reforming Egypt in 140 Characters?” there is one point that Baron makes that differs from that of Gladwell’s; Baron actually believes that a game changing revolution can occur with the use of social media.

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).

Their actions alone sparked the revolution for sit-ins and silent protesting, contributing to the Civil Rights movement. The protesters didn’t put anything on social media that allowed their sit in at the diner to grow, but simply the sight of how “people spilled out onto the street”(Gladwell 400) that grabbed activists’ attention. Gladwell observes that in the absence of social media in these events, the protesters tend to be stronger, have emotional bonds, and be more organized. The people participating in the revolt had strong connections (strong-ties), due to the fact that they all share a high risk of consequences. Talking about the dangers starting on page 404, protesters faced violence from the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacists. Gladwell uses the examples of the revolutions in Moldova and Iran to show how while Facebook and Twitter did let people be “confident to stand up for freedom and democracy” (401), the use of that social media is a weak-tie. Social media helped bring awareness to these, but as Gladwell explains “social networks are effective at increasing participation-by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires” (408). He talks about how social

Debunking the myth of hierarchical necessity brings us back to the question regarding the role of social media. Gladwell elegantly states that social media is "not a natural enemy of the status quo." Thus, the question becomes whether social media can in fact contribute to the process of forming a significant social movement and effective social action, as opposed to whether it can serve as a satisfactory substitute for that process. Referring to the previous example, a phone is not a branch of government, but a phone if properly utilized can mobilize a large

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.

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

Malcolm Gladwell argues through social media “the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate and give voice to their concerns,” but ultimately concedes this collaboration doesn’t provide enough social motivation to act (Gladwell,

With the increase in use technology and social media, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a relevant article to today: “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted”. After reading Gladwell’s article, I found myself agreeing to his ideas that social networks, although convenient in spreading information and raising awareness, are ineffective in creating the bond and community necessary to make a change or a big impact in society.

In Norman Gladwell’s “Small Change”, he seeks to answer the question: can activism through social media be as effective as it’s real world counterpart? In his opinion, no, though he notes that it can have it’s uses. Gladwell's primary argument is that social media sites lack the hierarchy and structure needed to execute and control the highly risky protests required to actually make a change, citing the almost militant precision exhibited by the civil rights movement. He theorizes that this is because social media is incapable of fostering the deep bonds between people necessary to trust and devote themselves wholly to their comrades and cause. He concludes that while social media activism can

Gladwell provided an example of successful revolution in the past when there was no existence of social media and some current examples when social media like Facebook and Twitter were popular in most of people's daily life while they were not as useful as they were claimed to be so in the revolution. By listing these examples, the author would like to to support his statement that social media is ineffective in revolution. The first example is the revolution against the racial discrimination in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. The revolution started with the sit-in protest of four college students in a lunch counter. It is a typical and successful example of revolution without the help of social media. The revolution grew quickly that it

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

Delving deep into the history of how new media has the ability to cause the autocratic ways of governments to run into a stone wall, the infamous incident of how university students of Indonesia leveraged on the power of e-mail to overthrow the then corrupt President Suharto presents itself as an excellent illustration. Through examining more recent cases where the citizens of Tunisia and Egypt have tapped on the power of social media to help upend the existing political order, the potency of new media becomes apparent.

Can social media bring social changes? Gladwell states that social media can’t bring social changes. “Platform of social media are built with weak ties.” (Gladwell:319). Gladwell believes that social media is not enough to bring social changes because eventually nothing changes because of social networks. “Social media can’t provide what social change has always required.” (Gladwell: 315).

In Here Comes Everybody, Shirky suggests that digital tools enhance democracy, (Shirky, 2008) and this paradigm shift indicates that individual voices can be heard in the digital era; for instance, the use of social media platforms including status-posting on Facebook and tweeting on Twitter. Moreover, the mounting popularity of online social movements deserves a careful examination. Castell believes that the digital social networks are decisive tools which facilitated modern-day movements, and that the Internet empowers people to exchange emotions, which then become the impetus that transform collective feelings into collective actions. (Castells 2012, pp. 1-19) In the light of the Arab Spring, it is evident that the protest organizers had strong online presence, and the Internet acted as a bridge from the activist core to the mass publics. While this echoes with Castells’ idea of the creation of counter power and the Internet being the cradle of society communicative autonomy (Castells 2012, p. 1-18), the analysis of the Arab Spring suggests that this concept could be somewhat reductive. In the wave of protests, the megaphone effect exceeded all the other results brought by the social media. According to research, majority of the online clicks came from outside of the stakeholder countries – this may illustrate how the Internet is drawing external attention instead of being the nucleus