Small Change- why the revolution will not be tweeted.

Gladwell, M (2010, Oct 4) Small Change- why the revolution will not be tweeted. The New Yorker. Retrieved from: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell

   

        In the article “Small Change- why the revolution will not be tweeted” by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell states that social media websites allow “powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voices to their concerns”, they act more like a communication channel for increasing motivation among participants, not a powerful structure of a real activism. Gladwell argues the connection around social media platform is built around weak- ties, like a casual acquaintance as following people that you never met before on Twitter. These types of social media are the tools that help effectively disseminate information faster and broader, but seldom lead to high-risk activism, because social media websites lack of clear line of authority and a centralized leadership.  A high-risk socio-political movement requires people who have strong ties with each other and strong commitment to the same accomplishment; moreover, it requires hierarchy, specific rules and procedures that controlled by a single authority among the protestors; not the followers or posts from the social media websites.

    Overall, Gladwell thinks the power of social media websites is completely opposite with the real activism movement, where social media do not practice real activism and the organization structure is leaderless that fails to achieve meaningful changes.

    This article was published on a well-known American magazine of reportage, criticism, essays website- The New Yorker. Gladwell presents a strong subjective point of view about how he thinks social media only make a small change in our real lives, and it is not powerful as the real command of a revolution.  He lists many examples to show how a powerful revolution can proceed without any help from social medias to demonstrate his ideas.  However, this entire article has shown a strong bias, and the topics have remained controversial with other researchers, which might not be a reliable, resource for academic research in CCT110 class, but the content of the source fits perfectly within the overall topic for CCT110 because it emphasizes on effective communication, digital and interactive environment as this course aims to develop a critical analysis of communication on multimedia platforms.