The Ingredients : Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted

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.

The relationship between people has been changed because of the widely using of new technology. People can easily communicate with other people by using different kinds of methods. Because of the use of those methods, people have more space with others and frequently hide part of themselves on the Internet in order to show the best of them. In the essay “Small Change: Why he Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, Malcolm Gladwell states that the relationship between people can be categorized by strong ties and weak ties. For example, in the past, people communicated by the method of interpersonal hierarchies, which are considered as strong ties. However, with the development of technology, social network, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Skype, which have become very popular in the world, are regarded as weak ties. Moreover, in the essay “Alone Together”, Sherry Turkle claims that people are distant with others and get lost in the virtual world through the new technology. She points out that now people communicate with others through technology instead of directing talking to real people. Furthermore, some people suppose that sociable robots as substitutes for people. Both Gladwell and Turkle agree with the idea that technology plays an important role on people’s connection. Technology only creates inauthentic relationship because it hides identity of many disorganized people.

Does social media “shrink the world” by bringing us closer together? In his article Small Change, Malcom Gladwell asserts that social media might be connecting more people, but the bonds it forms allow us to stay comfortably separate and avoid impacting meaningful social reform. Gladwell makes it apparent that he believes social media and revolutions are unsuited for each other. His article, written just two months before the beginning of the Arab Spring, was written in response to what some contemporaries have dubbed, “The Twitter Revolution” in Moldova. This revolution, as well as another in Iran, was heralded as examples of the merits of social media, with some even nominating Twitter for the Nobel Peace Prize due to their belief that Twitter had played a major role in these uprisings. Gladwell writes against a sentiment of righteousness and accomplishment that advocates of social media maintain in an attempt to convince people that the true motivation behind social change is conviction. He raises the point that while it is exceedingly easy for someone to join a cause, such as hitting a ‘like’ button, it is far more effortless for them to quit. This sentiment seems to be fueled mostly by opinion, looking only at how social media did not cause revolutions and avoiding analysis regarding how

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

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

Ryan Sorge Rachel Thomas Composition 1 4 September 2015 Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted Summary In the essay Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, The author Malcolm Gladwell, explains the pros and cons of how activism has transformed into social media, instead of social activism. Without social media, he explained that protests and large group gatherings can be arranged, without social media, successfully. High-risk activism has "strong-ties", while social media has "weak ties". Using the web has turned into a critical component in which the way people live today.

The article “Small Change” was published in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell on October 4, 2010-- “the article was aimed to convince the general population that social media is not as dangerous to the status quo as many would be lead to believe” (McMillan). Gladwell is effective in explaining why social media is not adequate enough in achieving social or political change; however this statement is incorrect. Through the examples he provides from present day and the Civil Rights Movement, Gladwell shows the reader the technique used in the past was more effective than what is used today, “he (Gladwell) discusses how social media establishes a large network based upon consensus instead of a hierarchy”(McMillan). Although without a hierarchy,

In the 21st century if the revolution is not tweeted, is it still a revolution? Many say the revolution will not be televised but it will be tweeted. In “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” by Malcolm Gladwell, he provides us with an argument on how social media has an impact on activism. Gladwell discusses how social media will not spur the next revolution because it has changed the way protests form. The protests went from small, high-risk acts formed by people whose purpose was close to their heart to a low-risk act with an enormous amount of people who may hardly know each other. Although interesting, Gladwell’s article fails to prove today’s revolution will not be tweeted.

In the essay ‘Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted’ by Malcolm Gladwell, he writes of how the revolutions of today will never amount to those of the past due to the lack of interactions that social media provides. In the article Tweet Like An Egyptian by Kevin Clarke, who writes of the revolution started by Arab women who learned of all the freedoms in the world by interacting on the Internet and wanting the same rights as all of the other women who have freedom in civilized countries around the world.

Popular opinion believes that the internet, email and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat has reinvented social activism for the good, but is this belief really true? In his article, SMALL CHANGE: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell makes a compelling argument that this is not really true and in fact, the spread of social media has caused us to lower the bar as to what activism really means. He starts by showing us how activism worked in the 1960s during the Civil Rights movement and how in a relatively short period of time thousands of people joined sit-ins and or protests throughout the South - without the use of social media! He describes the movement as a well-orchestrated movement by the NAACP and

Memes that are spread throughout the internet allegedly become successful, because the internet is a global network that connects millions of people around the world to link and exchange their ideas, opinions, and information. Through the internet it will be easily accessible for memes to be copied, spread and to be successful. Nonetheless, Malcolm Gladwell stated the internet and the social media are nothing compared to the sit-in movement, and considered the internet and the social media as weak ties and a disorganized network. To add on according to the essay, “Small Change”, Gladwell included that, “Social networks are effective at increasing participation---by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires” (138). On the other hand, in the essay, “Strange Creatures”, Susan Blackmore asserts that, “Memes spread themselves around indiscriminately without regard to whether they are useful,

What if humans’ thoughts are manipulated by memes? From

Internet meme spreads in the form of an image or a video. It can be a word or a phrase. Memes have the power to shape the culture, change our living styles, and continually evolve with changing society. The widespread adoption of social media as a common component of everyday life has completely altered the ways we communicate and allowed memes to spread and become part of the popular cultural framework for many different populations (Shifman, 2013).

Some, including Malcolm Gladwell, a famous Canadian journalist, uphold a negative view that social media is not capable to make real social activisms. In the article, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Gladwell states, “the platforms of social media are built around weak ties,” (Gladwell 406) whereas high-risk activisms in the past concern more of the strong ties. In other words, Malcolm believes that closed relationships are critically required for the activisms while social media only provides distant connections among acquaintances. Therefore, weak ties offered by social media, “seldom lead to high-risk activism”

The term ‘social media’ has become a broad-term to describe a large number of online systems that serve as a platform for the generation, and distribution of user-generated content. Social media creates a virtual social space, where a large number of users come together and interact with one another. These interactions can be either structured, such as responses that are moderated on blogs, semi-structured, such as a discussion between an extended network on Facebook, or unstructured, such as the anarchial functioning of Twitter.