The videos that I believe were most effective in arguing how social media is used to encourage protests, revolution, and social change were in Clay Shirky’s speech How social media can make history, How the Internet will (one day) transform government, and Alexis Ohanian How to make a splash in social media. In Alexis Ohanian speech I found that an issue, in this case humpback killing, can be so troubling that the public can change that with social media popularity. Social media has the power to transform an issue with popularity and I learned that it can be something as little as a meme. In this example, Reddit had a majority vote to what trend their main logo should be and the highest vote was 119,367 votes with 78% of the entire poll being …show more content…
He states several reasons in the video CNN: Tech’s role in revolution overhyped? supporting his claim; “if you look at the way how the Civil Rights Movement manipulated the mass media in the 1960s, they were able to commandeer this sort of monolithic machinery of media effusion in a way that made their own cause much stronger than it would otherwise. He also says, “there were four platforms, today there are thousands. You can't capture or commandeer and craft your message the same way as you could.” Malcolm's point is that the oppressed or public who is revolutionizing must have a political organization and need to be disciplined to build a coherent movement as well as preparation. Gladwell also uses an example how he asked John Lewis, Civil Rights leader, that if he thought anything should be done differently in the Civil Rights Movement. His response was that if anything that should have been different was more time discussing the issue. This interprets how social media doesn't need to be involved, although it can be useful, but isn't necessary for an organization to uprise and fight their problem. And in the article Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted Malcolm Gladwell asserts; “the platforms of social media are built around weak ties… It's terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world. But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism” (pg. 207). Gladwell believes that social media is only good for reaching out to people, but the real work is done somewhere