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Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted
An anonymous reader writes "Social media is ill-suited to promoting real social change, argues Malcolm Gladwell in this article from The New Yorker magazine. He deftly debunks conventional wisdom surrounding the impact of Twitter, Facebook and other social media in driving systemic social change, comparing them to the organizational strategies of the 1960s civil rights movement. For example, the Montgomery bus boycott, he argues, was successful because it was driven by the disciplined and hierarchically organized NAACP. In contrast, a loose, social-media style network wouldn't have sustained the year long campaign. He concludes that social media promote social 'weak ties' which are not strong enough to motivate people to take big risks, such as imprisonment or attack, for social change."
I can haz revolution?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
On the more subtle side, social media does influence the electorate, therefore affecting votes and possibly politicians. So even if it may not bring about drastic, almost revolutionary change, it will certainly influence politics.
Developers: We can use your help.
Which revolution did those protests successfully pull off? Did the 1999 protests in Seattle even meaningfully slow down the WTO, much less kill it?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Just as soon as there is something similar in other countries...
expect governments to impose censorship measures against websites that host these types of services.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Just social media doesn't promote anything. It is a tool. I will bet the NAACP used the phone when promoting the boycott. It may take an organizational structure to promote social change. But, that organization can use social media as a tool to communicate with and motivate its base.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Great, I'll keep reading their articles.
When I see "Nuclear War", "Stock Market Crash" or "Second Coming of Jesus" I'll have at least a few days to prepare.
"Lame" - Galaxar
If you actually made it to the bottom of page #1 of the Gladwell article, you might have read this(emphasis mine):
That when the revolution does come, Mark Zuckerburg is the first against the wall.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Because protests actually affect anything in the slightest anymore?
In the heyday of protesting the huge protest was new, rare, impressive, and scary. News media outlets were limited and protests were big new(s), which amplified their impression, excitement, and scary nature (scary to those being protested against). And they protested things that actually, really mattered. War and peace, freedom and oppression.
But today?
At least in the US protests are a dime a dozen. Huge protests maybe a quarter a dozen. Decades of ever increasing protests for every single cause from global threats against humanity to legalizing pet ferrets, protests have lost their bite. They've lost it because protesting never had any real bite. The huge over use of protesting taught The Man that protests really don't mean anything...they don't really don't hurt...they are mostly all bark, no bite. In the flood of 24/7 news outlets, protests rarely get much if any attention. There's just too many for too stupid of causes for anyone to care to pay attention when real ones for real causes happen.
Social media "protests" may be too weak to have any real effect...but neither are actual, feet on the ground, protests.
My
Activism from the left is dead in the US. There's no significant, effective opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the concentration of wealth, the crushing of unions, the decline in wages, or the tax benefits enjoyed by Wall Street. (All of which would have been unacceptable to the Eisenhower administration, an indication of how far to the Right the US has moved.)
The activist organizations that accomplish anything are either on the Right, funded by big business, or church-based. Or they're purely self-interested, like gun owners and gays.
Much of '60s activism was powered by music. That's over. Today's musicians have near zero political effect.
No. Clearly they didn't light enough cars on fire.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
No, I don't think they have. I am currently in Barcelona and got to see the protests here first hand a couple of nights ago; up close and personal with camera in hand, both from within the ranks of the rioters and those of the police and fire brigade, dodging riot batons and thrown bottles and masonry accordingly. It's not the first riot I've witnessed like this, and it probably won't be the last, but the organization has been pretty much the same every time.
The initial setup, performed by a trade union here in Barcelona, does indeed take organization, but the vandalism, thrown rocks, burning barricades and all the other mindless acts that occur is always totally anarchic. You might get a few people come together to build a barricade, trash a police car, set fire to garbage cans etc., but there is absolutely no organization and absolutely no overall strategy other than to cause mayhem. The rioters build on each others daring and gain confidence from each other to do ever more destructive feats of violence but that's about it. Eventually, they have the capability and numbers to overwhelm the police - they probably outnumbered them 10:1 in Barcelona - but they can't. They can't do it because they have no overall strategy and leadership; just anarchy. Even if they did have the leadership, riots are extremely fluid situations that no not allow for much prior planning and there is no ready way to co-ordinate that kind of mob mentality into an effective force.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Best car analogy explanation so far.
Social media led revolution works swimingly...
http://i.imgur.com/abXW9.png
~Syberz
Today he can't appear in public in the UK (the security would be too expensive) and his protégé David Miliband has just narrowly lost the chance of being the next Prime Minister, with many people thinking that his support for the war tipped the balance. Protests change public opinion, perhaps only a little, but sometimes decisively. You appear to be falling into the trap of so many USA citizens, of despising "soft power". But the values of your Founding Fathers are today being more undermined by the "soft power" of lobbyists and journalists than by any display of force.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
That's a very good point. The main reason for "democratic" popuplation to be manipulated to elect a certain establishment is to guarantee subsequent consent: "did not you _freely_ elected this?"
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Revolution/mass movement/polictical action and social media aren't particularly related. Social media is a tool, not a goal, and not a method. There's nothing inherent to Twitter that prevents it from being used by well organized groups as another (and easier to use) tool to get the word out.
The internet has the effect of lowering the bar to entry in to a lot of things. It is cheaper and easier to start up a company with a world wide market, it is cheaper and easier to rant incoherently on your pet peeve to lots of people, and it's easier to communicate political ideas to people who share them.
That means that more people will do all those things. One can self-publish a book through Amazon without a real publisher. One can get one's fifteen minutes (or even more) with a free blog. And one can start a political movement. And most of the people doing all those things because the internet makes it so easy will do it poorly. That is the nature of lowering the bar.
However, none of that will interfere with the efforts of those who know what they're doing in the first place. Those who would have succeeded in the pre-internet age will succeed now, not because the new tools exist, but because they're smart enough to figure out how to use them. And those who were too incompetent and clueless in the pre-internet world to get in to the game at all will fail now, not because the new tools are flawed, but because they don't know what to do with them.
Having a paint brush doesn't make you Michaelangelo, even if it's a computer controlled pneumatic hammer, and having a ball point pen, or even a word processor and printer, doesn't make you Shakespeare. But if you are Michaelangelo or Shakespeare, having that pneumatic hammer or word processer won't make you any less a genius.
Because protests actually affect anything in the slightest anymore?
Tea Party is having quite an impact I would say. Or do you not count is as a protest unless windows get broken and cars burned?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Meh, what's the point to life without freedom? Why bother getting out of the way if it will just lead to a world where those who lead (via lying, cheating, coercion, and so on) prey upon those who follow? See, the way I see it, there are three types of people in the world:
1) Those who recognize problems and run away from them.
2) Those who recognize problems and fix them.
3) Those who don't recognize problems.
They world's always been a rough place. That hasn't stopped our species from doing some absolutely amazing things. Keeping your head down and hiding in a hole while those around you are beaten down is just pathetic.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
TeaParty
Q.E.D
I'm not commenting on the validity of the TeaParty movement at all, I'm just saying that it seems to be counter to what the author just said. It is shunned by the MSM and derogatorily referred to as "teabaggers" by many. Yet in spite of the vitriol against it, has sustained for well over a year. And even if you don't like it, you need to admit it is a juggernaut that is completely changing the political landscape. Even (R) people are running scared.
On a side note, thank you California voters for choosing two complete dumb turds for Governor and two more twits for Senate. I'm sure glad I vote third party.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What I'm about to claim is a fairly subtle distinction, but bear with me as it makes a big difference.
Overuse of protests has not made protests weaker. You might say it has produced an increasing proportion of examples in which protests are ineffective. The distinction is in the causal relationships.
It isn't that using protests as an everyday tactic leads to weak protests. It's that protests are effective for certain types of cause. Use of protests against other types of causes will lead simultaniously to two symptoms: many protests, and weak protests. So yes, you see a correlation between frequency and weakness, but it is not because one causes the other.
The difference is, even today if 60's-style protest tactics were used against an appropriate opponent for an appropriate cause, they would work as they did then. A nonviolent sit-in draws much of its strength by painting a salient moral picture in the public eye. It creates a confrontation, and observers see one side peacefully asserting their position and being bullied by the other side. This can be used to mobilize public opinion.
But when you use the same tactics to oppose 'the man' not because he's the kind of person that would turn a fire hose on you, but because that's how you want to perceive him... well, then you have a problem. He never attacks you, never cedes the moral high ground, and the whole incident goes unnoticed.
The risk faced by the 60's activists was a key factor in their success, because their function was to shed light on exactly that risk as a symptom of the social status quo. Take that risk element away (by applying the tactics to the wrong kind of adversary) and you increase the number of protests - because it's easier to get people to join in - while reducing their effectiveness.
In part, this implies that the effectiveness of a protest is related to the character of the group being protested. Could the pro-segregation establishment have ignored the sit-ins to cause them to go away? Well, no, because of the alignment of those protests as a defiance of "the rules" - not just a statement of dissent. For four black students to sit at a "whites only" lunch counter, they were assured an aggressive response at some level because their protest, unchallenged, was not harmless to the status quo. For the establishment not to respond would be to concede - "you really can sit here".
But by contrast if a group stands outside an abortion clinic with picket signs, how does that force any response at all? Such a protest is usually ineffective not merely because it is perceived as a lesser threat to the establishment do to overexposure, but because it is a lesser threat by its own nature. Unlike a lunch counter sit-in, the only way for either side to "lose" in this confrontation is to be the first one to turn violent.
I think the problem is that by tweeting about something people think they've done their job. It's the equivalent of sticking all those ribbons on cars.
"I've devoted 30 seconds between fun and games to think about something important."
But honestly, I think it's more of a symptom of larger problems. Despite everything people piss and moan about Americans, and the developed world in general, by and large have it pretty good. There's a constant stream of entertainment and shiny toys. This stuff is the adult equivalent of a pacifier. And a lot of what seems to get people upset is the fact that they can't have more of it, or more time to enjoy it. I'm convinced we're living in an era where people don't want to be responsible for anything. They'll happily go to the government for all their needs, be it giving up rights for security or expecting handouts of every kind. So why expend any effort on actually doing something for yourself?
I also suspect that politics have gotten so polarized and fear-mongering so rampant because that's the only way people will pay any attention at all.
No, Fox News is having quite an impact. If they didn't want the Tea Party to achieve its aims, not only would it be totally ineffective, it probably wouldn't even exist. Of course, it's in their interests to portray the Tea Party movement rather than themselves as the important ones because that's easier to sell, but without Fox they'd be nothing.
In fact, there's a good argument that Fox News in effect created the Tea Parties.