Mohamed Moulid
Professor WOLF-MONTEIRO
Media and Society
November 26, 2015
Annotated bibliography
Kessler, S. (2010). Why Social Media Is Reinventing Activism. Mashable. Retrieved 7 November 2015, from http://mashable.com/2010/10/09/social-media-activism/#1ZWjioGawZq7
This article presents the new standards for social activism by examining the introduction of social media. The arguments from both sides are summarized, and a brief discussion is included of the implications for what the author calls Slacktivism (participating in an online activism but not really doing something about the issue). The author indicates that changes to activism will be huge as more and more people participate saying “[The Internet] has changed expectations around reporting,”. This is a helpful source for getting an overview of the influence social media had on our society and how it’s changing as social media evolves and how we are evolving with the change.
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Even though social media has only been available for a couple of years, it’s impacts and how it influenced the activism scene is unimaginable. The authors point here is that if we all have a strong cause for a change people are going to contribute because you are a sense of hope that jumpstarts their leap of faith.
Kessler’s article is descriptive, timely, and well-analyzed, but it relies almost entirely on quotations from four researchers. And that might limit the scope of the article and who it’s intended for. But at the same time the article answers answer and analyzes the topic from multiple sides and even looks at the future and predicts how current social media will look in the future and how it will pan out. This article has been helpful for my research because of the different key researchers that the author Kessler includes in her research since they specialize or do research in this specific
“But there is something else at work here, in the outsized enthusiasm for social media. Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is” (Gladwell 44). Gladwell strongly feels that the internet has created this loss of social activism in the world, in which the internet has redefined what protesting used to stand for. Protests during the civil rights movement, was a method for people to bring about change, but since the creation of the internet people use it as a way to replace protesting. Carr believes that the internet creates a loss of reading while Gladwell thinks it creates a loss of the meaning of social activism.
Suzanne Collins: An Annotated Bibliography “Suzanne Collins” Famousauthors.org. 2016. Web. 19 August 2016. This article is the description of Suzanne Collins’ accomplishments as an outstanding author.
When presented with the argument that says social media allows faster communication and the ability to reach a larger audience, Gladwell counters with the fact that the media promotes weak connections with many people which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but does not do well in fostering revolutions. He explains “There is strength in weak ties… It’s terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration… But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism” (407). He ties in his explanation of weak connections with the fact that social media has no hierarchy, so any revolution started there will have no organization or true leadership.
In this article Gladwell makes sure to clearly define his thesis by also acknowledging that not all technology is bad. In fact recognizing that social media is a great way to motivate and inspire while also educating with new ideals, he just thinks that activism through social media is not the same. Gladwell also disagrees with social media activism because there is no structure, and is held together by “weak ties”.
Changes are made spontaneously today, either due to creativity or innovations. However, do all changes make a benefit for the people in the community? That is where Malcolm Gladwell gives the reader a detailed understanding of how the change in the usage of social media flawed the society in a crucial way. Malcolm Gladwell writes an essay called Small Change, where he compares the activism in the segregation time period and the current time period. The social media has made us, humans, connect with each other less and less.
Ajayi, L. (2015). Vocabulary instruction and Mexican–American bilingual students: how two high school teachers integrate multiple strategies to build word consciousness in English language arts classrooms. International Journal Of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 18(4), 463-484. doi:10.1080/13670050.2014.924475 Ajayi notes that the combined issues of an increasingly diverse student population in American high schools joined with the demands of high stakes testing and lack of evidence-based, scaffolded instruction for bilingual students are compounding the numerous problems of effective English Language Arts (ELA) instruction for these students.
Introduction There is great contention regarding the impact of social media on political activism in Canada. While social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter offer users new opportunities to communicate, share, and disseminate memes and ideas, they also promote or facilitate the movement into streets for protests or other forms of activity. The arguments against social media generally revolve around its disposition towards remaining sedentary, behind the screen of a laptop or smart phone, writing short messages for the opposition to witness instead of actually making a physical presence in the real world. Alternatively, those who regularly engage in social media activism argue that they are raising awareness for their cause, which is theoretically true if one is to consider the sudden surge in discussion about specific topics.
“Don’t use social media to impress people; use it to impact people” Dave Willis. Malcolm Gladwell, would not agree or disagree with this statement. In his article “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, Gladwell talks the impact social media has on activism. He believes social media will not spur the next revolution because the connections are too weak. Social media can create small change or awareness, but it can’t lead people to take a real action.
n today’s society the internet plays a huge role in the everyday lives of many people, therefore many individuals’ main form of communication is over sites like Facebook, and twitter. In Malcolm Gladwell’s essay, “Small Change, Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted,” he explores the different methods used by activists nowadays versus those used by the activists in the 1960s. Gladwell argues that social media is not an effective tool to initiate revolutionary movements or any change at all for that matter, based off its weak ties formed over different social networks. Gladwell illustrates multiple cases of protests and adds that without the assistance of social media, these protests were stronger, prearranged and based off deeper emotional ties. Throughout the article Gladwell continuously returns to the Civil rights movement and why it was effective.
Celia Buckman in the Column, “The limits of Hashtag Activism,” explains, how the use of hashtags in social media can be effective in raising awareness, but how people are not often fully informed of he causes when supporting the cause. Buckman writes a strong article through the use of statistics, a concession and the structure of her column. Throught Buckman’s article she uses logos, statistics to explain how using social media raise awareness more money than without the use of the hashtag. Buckman’s first example is the ALS Ice bucket challenge, she explains that without the use of #icebucketchallange, donations wouldn’t have reached “100 million in one month during the viral challenge, compared with 2.8 M raised last year during the same period (Par 2). Buckman’s use of statistics makes her article strong as, it gives her argument credibility.
Ever since its conception, social media has been a vehicle to enable and mobilize citizens to participate in the political sphere. In 2008, Facebook boasted over 100 million users logging in at least once a day, a month before election day. Though social media is not new to politics, the 2008 election is the greatest example, because of Barack Obama’s implementation of SNS (Social Networking Sites) drove him straight to the white house. It would, in the end, be naive to believe that social media does not affect elections and the political landscape within the United States.
Thesis: Social Media holds an important role in modern American Democracy, as the collection of open forums which directly connects the ideas; ideas are formulated between fellow voters with one another and political officials with the voters which help turn the rusted and heavy wheels of change in America. Introduction Paragraph: Social Media holds an important role in modern American Democracy, as the collection of open forums which directly connects the ideas; ideas are formulated between fellow voters with one another and political officials with the voters which help turn the rusted and heavy wheels of change in America. In its best form, this massive public brainstorm (Social Media), allows the American people to create passionate
Social Change Having gone through one of the more-tense election cycles in the history of our country, I have witnessed crowdsourcing on social media being used for organizing protests. Prior to social media, protests were a lot more complex and a lot harder to organize (Madison, 2017). This was because a lot more resources needed to be put into them like building phone trees, sending out physical resources, etc. Using social media for organizing these movements has allowed them to organize faster and at a larger scale.
In conclusion, political impact on social media is huge and obvious. Social media platforms is substituting the traditional formal news media which has restrictions on the news and information they share especially in closed societies. Governments of closed societies are facing a problem because the government cannot control the news and the information shared on the internet which diminish the government authority to control their citizens. Lack of control on internet has made social media a platform for activists in politics and human right
Social media was developed to link people to the world and is an effortlessly convenient method for communication. Due to this, people are able to get in touch with just about anyone from all over the world and it no doubt has an incredible amount of influence on our lives. However, not all of it may be positive. Almost everyone is aware of how social media impacts us on a micro scale, but what about the influence it has on a macro level? Interestingly enough, it has taken a tremendous toll on politics.