...Synthesis essay: 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. Gladwell believes that in order for a revolution to be successful, it does not have to rely on social media networks. In the beginning of his writing, he discusses the sit-ins that occurred in the 1960s. After acknowledging how fast the word spread about the sit-ins, Gladwell mentions that it happened without the help of “e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Tweeting” (314). Social media was probably not thought of in the 1960s. One of the biggest revolutions, the Civil Rights Movement, was accomplished without the need of social media. Also, it is easier to get participation on a social networking site rather that participation for something that is confronting a disgraced practice. Gladwell claims that it is easier for a person to donate blood rather than to protest for a certain...
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...Sherif Gaballa English 12 Concurrent After reading both “Small Change: Why the Revolution will Not Be Tweeted” by Malcolm Gladwell and “Reforming Egypt in 140 Characters?” by Dennis Baron one may realize that they allude each other in a not so obvious form. The articles share ideas and build of similar points, by reading one article one may take consideration of points that they would have been ignorant to in the past (before reading the first article). Starting by critically reading the article “Reforming Egypt in 140 Characters?” by Dennis Baron after reading the title and the first sentence one can instantly identify that the revolution was not tweeted, a coincidence I think not. The first sentence states, “Western observers have been celebrating the role of Twitter, Facebook, smartphones, and the internet in general in facilitating the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt last week.” Western observers stand for Americans who in no way participated in the revolution. Another point that the author states about how the revolution is not do to Twitter, Facebook and other social media is when he states, “In Cairo’s Tahrir Square continued to grow during the five days that the Mubarak government shut down the internet; that only nineteen percent of Tunisians have online access; that while the Iran protests may have been tweeted round the world, there were few Twitter users actually in-country” The quote shows that even with no internet the protest still...
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...against people that did not look like the majority. With the constant increase in new technology and social media platforms, it has become much easier for people to speak out about the material that most interests them. In Malcolm Gladwell’s essay titled “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, he discusses how the development of technology in today’s society does not positively impact the most important social issues. Many can disagree with this though, because with advancements in technology, the public has easier access to learn about the latest social issues, people are able to connect and learn from others through the internet and finally, it brings people who believe in the same values together....
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...y 1. Introduction Social media is gaining more and more acceptance and popularity as a practical and strategic method for communication and organization among wider group of people, making it an ideal platform for popular use. This paper attempts to stress the role of social media in shaping opinions and motivating collective actions. It draws example from the recent Arab revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. In this regard, the paper will debate the arguments made by Malcolm T. Gladwell, is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, peaker and a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. Malcolm was critisized by many Arab activists because of his contradictory views regarding the role of social media in the Arab Springas he made it clearly that he doesn’t think such tools amount to much. In an online chat that Malcolm Gladwell did for the New Yorker's website , he explicitly stated that the internet can be an effective tool for political change when used by grassroots organisations as opposed to a core crop of activated individuals. Thus, simply showing that the internet was used to publicize, and even organise protests in the Middle East does nothing to counter his argument. The paper would argue that social media could be very strong and powerful communications tool for a particular group of audiences as well as the general public. One value of using social media is that it is simple and can easily be used by various channels to deliver messages that are unique to...
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...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...
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...In "Strange Creatures," Susan Blackmore proposes the idea of "memes," which she tends to describe as imitation of others, and seemingly brands us as memes. However, through Malcolm Gladwell's "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted," we are able to interpret as to how exactly memes inspire people and what consequences they bring about. The phenomena of Strong-Ties and Weak-Ties give an apt understanding of memes and their consequences. Blackmore seeming goes against the idea that us humans can generate our own ideas. As she implies "Instead of thinking of our ideas as our own creations, and as working for us, we have to think of them as autonomous selfish memes, working only to get themselves copied"(Blackmore,37). That obviously...
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...September 29, 2014 Assignment 4a - Draft Joern Meier Royal Roads University – Continuing Studies Author Note This assignment was prepared for Academic Writing and Critical Thinking, PAAP3858-A, taught by Jessica Michalofsky Academic Writing and Critical Thinking – September 29, 2014 Assignment 4a - Draft Final Paper The almost omnipresent Internet transforms our lives, connecting us to family, friends, and the world in ways inconceivable only a few years ago. Through social media, we actively participate in creating, editing, and consuming a never-ending stream of data. Private corporations and protagonists of political or social change all vie to reach and engage highly targeted audiences. Can a social media campaign be an effective tool, helping recruit people to volunteer and become physical participants in lobbying for change? Two camps have emerged, with one side proclaiming that the new world of Internet activism transforms and extends activism in ways previously unthinkable, and the other camp insisting that Internet activism entices a new but widely disengaged audience that can be motivated to a lukewarm show of hands but not to real committed participation as seen in more traditional forms of activism. This debate is widely known as the 'activism vs. slacktivism' debate. However, it is rather short-sighted to approach this very complex subject matter with a plain black and white approach when every single byte offers 256 shades of grey to explore. Gladwell...
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...NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES | SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF NETWORK AND SOCIAL MEDIA | Critical essay | SOYEON PARK 20122455 2012-12-05 | SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF NETWORK AND SOCIAL MEDIA Malcom Gladwell printed an article in The New Yorker, the article is entitled ‘Small Change : Why the revolution will not tweeted’. The article is giving criticism in principle about the social media disseminator’s ideas that social media such as facebook and tweeter will bring enormous changes on social activities and movements. His article provides us with amount of food for thought about what is behaviorism and social movement in the age of social media and what is relations between social media and social movements. Of course, there would be a sharp division of opinions between those who approve and disapprove. He argues that it is impossible to reform the society radically by social media such as tweeter and facebook based on weak ties. And he pointed out the limit of ordinary unimportance of weak ties. It means, in spite of extensivity and quantitative expansion of weak ties, it does not have materiality of solidarity showing in the 1960s’ a civil rights movement. And he’s opinion is that the connection of information is different with the solidarity of people. A movement, which goes along with human body, makes people blood boil and heat them up, unlike when they are absorbing information by using their brain cells. It is hard to banish the lingering and regret about that kind of...
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...impacts of watching TV, playing video games, and communication through social media networks. Bissell, Tom. "Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter” They Say I Say, The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing With Readings. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 349-362. Tom Bissell describes his personal experience playing the newly released video game Fallout 3 on November 4, 2008. Bissell expresses how he played the game for seven hours straight and missed watching the CNN International broadcast of the United Sates Presidential election results that occurred this same date. The remainder of the article Bissell describes the related game content and characteristics for which he expended his time. Bissell evaluates and provides specifics regarding the games atmospheric graphic elements, overall style, and in-game play intelligence. Bissell expresses that he is more interested in video games that tell stories. Bissell evaluates the differences between films and video games by which the player creates the game experience and storyline. While Bissell’s article provides a review of the video game Fallout 3, he also informs readers of general video game attributes that individuals find entertaining and worth their playtime. Gladwell, Malcolm. "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted." They Say I Say, The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing With Readings. 2nd ed. Ed....
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...me. But how the culture warns against it!” (248). The author is regretful for not maintaining the duel voices that she once had, while also showing how cultures warn against multiple voices because it weakens cultural allegiance. In other words, cultures look out for themselves and perpetuate the closed-minded viewpoints that many people in the world still have. Meanwhile, Gladwell mentions, “Donating bone marrow isn’t a trivial matter. But it doesn’t involve financial or personal risk; It doesn’t mean spending a summer being chased by armed men in pickup trucks. It doesn’t require that you confront socially entrenched norms and practices” (138). Closed-minded people are afraid to open discussion about socially entrenched norms, which is why the Civil Rights Movement was met with violent resistance from white traditionalists. In addition, leadership during the Civil Rights Movement was a “hierarchical” power structure, or one that featured a primary leader (Gladwell 139). This is important because the organizational structure was guided by African American leaders who were often lettered, or well educated. With this in mind, Gladwell references the extremely well planned out Montgomery Bus Boycott and...
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...Sreya Vavilala Professor Elliot Souder Basic Composition OA 22 September 2015 Rough Draft How the differences between strong ties and weak ties influence how a meme is transferred? Every day different people and groups are transferring memes onto others and so forth. As a matter of fact, these memes are transferred in the world through many different ways and through different relationships such as strong-tie and weak-tie relationships. Even though memes are passed on and on again through these ties, it is done through a different process in these ties between people. This is shown by connecting Malcolm Gladwell’s, author of Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, reading and Susan Blackmore’s, author of Strange Creatures, reading. Weak-ties influences how a meme is transferred by sending information to a more collective group rather than individually. “Our acquaintances-not our friends- are our greatest source of new ideas and information” (Gladwell 137). The word “acquaintances” in this quotation implies that it is better for someone to ask an acquaintance for help or information in order to get what they want. This quotation is an example of how information is easily passed on through people who barely know each other. A weak tie relationship such as acquaintances shows how memes are transferred. If looked even closer, if many people, online, give out information others would join in on the process and thus the cycle of ideas being passed onto others...
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...Week 5 Global Warming C02 and You Bonita Jones-Bey 1. Is your emission higher than average US emission? By how much. See report 2. What steps will you be taking to reduce your emission? We currently use one vehicle more than the other one. The one with the better ass mileage of 38 mpg. 3. What needs to be done to increase sinks and reduce sources? Change in Uses of Land Increasing carbon storage by using land differently or maintaining carbon storage by avoiding land degradation. • Encouraging the transformation of cropland to forest. • Avoiding the conversion of forest land to settlements. Changes in Land Management Practices Improving management practices on existing land-use types. • Reducing soil erosion to minimize losses in soil carbon storage. • Planting after natural or human-induced forest disturbances to accelerate vegetation growth and minimize soil carbon losses. 4. How much has the amount of C02 in the atmosphere changed in the past? Ice cores have been collected from Antarctica and Greenland which contain information stored in the ice that can be used to reconstruct climates thousands of years ago. As snow accumulates on ice caps and ice sheets where temperatures usually remain below freezing year round, it lays down a record of the environmental conditions at the time of its formation. Over time the snow, buried under further accumulations, is compacted to ice, preserving the climatic information. Air bubbles trapped in the ice can be analyzed to reconstruct...
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...David Graeber likes to say that he had three goals for the year: promote his book, learn to drive, and launch a worldwide revolution. The first is going well, the second has proven challenging, and the third is looking up. Graeber is a 50-year-old anthropologist—among the brightest, some argue, of his generation—who made his name with innovative theories on exchange and value, exploring phenomena such as Iroquois wampum and the Kwakiutl potlatch. An American, he teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London. He’s also an anarchist and radical organizer, a veteran of many of the major left-wing demonstrations of the past decade: Quebec City and Genoa, the Republican National Convention protests in Philadelphia and New York, the World Economic Forum in New York in 2002, the London tuition protests earlier this year. This summer, Graeber was a key member of a small band of activists who quietly planned, then noisily carried out, the occupation of Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, providing the focal point for what has grown into an amorphous global movement known as Occupy Wall Street. It would be wrong to call Graeber a leader of the protesters, since their insistently nonhierarchical philosophy makes such a concept heretical. Nor is he a spokesman, since they have refused thus far to outline specific demands. Even in Zuccotti Park, his name isn’t widely known. But he has been one of the group’s most articulate voices, able to frame the movement’s welter of hopes and grievances...
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...#Yes2RH: Selfies in support of the reproductive health law Using the hashtag #Yes2RH, upload selfies on your Facebook and Twitter accounts from March 28 until April 8 in support of the reproductive health law Rappler.com Published 5:26 PM, March 27, 2014 Updated 5:26 PM, March 27, 2014 [pic] MANILA, Philippines – A social media campaign is underway to raise awareness in support of the reproductive health (RH) law, whose implementation has been put on hold by the Supreme Court for a year a now. Republic Act 10354, which would provide information on and access to reproductive health services, is under status quo ante order “until further orders” by the Supreme Court (SC). The law – probably the most polarizing national issue today – was passed on December 18, 2012, after 13 years in Congress. Anti-RH advocates immediately questioned the constitutionality of the law before the SC. The high court is expected to decide on the case in April, with insiders predicting the law could be headed for defeat in the Supreme Court. House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr has said that declaring the RH law as unconstitutional would be "a veto against the will of majority of our people." As decision time nears, frustrated reproductive health supporters are taking the fight to the social media world. The #Yes2RH campaign was initiated by Likhaan Center for Women's Health, in cooperation with several other pro-RH organization.It will run from March 28 until April 8. Likhaan...
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...YE AR S CE L EB RA TIN G6 HISTORY HISTORY A World Transformed II: World in Flux E D I TOR PW AA -TA ST IC Y EA R S! RESOURCE Tania Asnes A L PACA-IN-CHIEF 2 0 1 2 Daniel Berdichevsky the World Scholar’s Cup® ® HISTORY | 1 History Resource 2012: A World in Flux Table of Contents Preface: A Swiftly Texting Planet ................................................................. 2 I. The Determinators....................................................................................... 4 Toward a model for technological change............................................. 5 I’m on Team IDUAR ................................................................................ 6 Disruptive technologies..............................................................................8 Classic Technologies ...................................................................................9 The time of wheels ..................................................................................9 How the stirrup stirred things up ......................................................10 Print all about it: the printing press ................................................... 11 II. Transformations in Everyday Life .......................................................... 13 Turning on the lights ................................................................................. 13 Picking up the telephone .......................................
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