Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted
1/20/15
By Joshua Hahn-Varona
Although Gladwell does not say so directly, he assumes that social media is a weak way of starting revolutions and pushing for social change. This, however, is not the case. Many social revolutions like the Arab Spring revolutions in the early 2000s among other, more recent social revolutions have been started on social media websites such as Twitter.
Though I agree with Gladwell that "friends" and followers on Facebook and Twitter do not necessarily have strong bonds between one another, I think having and being a "friend" or follower can bring people together when it comes to social change.
One thing I noticed about this article was that it was written in 2010. Now I am not one hundred percent sure but, in 2010, Twitter specifically wasn't as much as a part of our lives as it is today. Today, we have Twitter in our morning news. The news castors will say "Tweet us your thought on this with the hash tag: X." They then show incoming Tweets on screen with people's thought on the recent story.
I don't think Gladwell understands how strong social media can be. Social media is great start to revolutions. Social media may more strongly influence a revolution in some countries than others, but the impact social media has is still significant.
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