Analysis Of Small Change By Malcolm Gladwell

The Effects on the Reader of Presenting Arguments in Different Tones This literary analysis will be reviewing and comparing the different tones used to present non-fictional information in the essays “Small Change” and “Time and Distance Overcome.” In the essay “Small Change,” Malcolm Gladwell highlights the difference between activism and networking by comparing events that took place during the civil rights movements to modern protests against governments. Gladwell emphasizes that the modern-day activism that took place in Iran was overshadowed by modern society giving too much credit to social media. This is due to the ideals of social networking not matching up to the level of commitment that is required in activism, since on social

This could be attributed to how the story is presented to the reader, as it starts with summarizing how the invention of telephones arose with good intentions, as it gave people the ability to connect with each other over long distances. However, the essay quickly takes a dark turn when it presents the argument for the misuse of telephone poles, as history is interwoven with the misuse of them for racist purposes, such as the horrifying lynchings that took place using them. This essay uses its unique structure to highlight how Americans at that time were unwilling to embrace change and violently fight it, in both the original installments of telephone poles, along with the cruel racism people had at the time towards black Americans. While both of these essays could be seen as argumentative, they presented information to support their claims in different ways. While the traditional style of argumentative essays could be seen as better at presenting a large amount of information and thoroughly supporting through claims, the unique style of “Time and Distance Overcome” makes the author’s claim stick with the reader more, as it gives fuel to our

The argument presented in “Small Change” is while social networks are a great way to interact with people who share similar interests, the one-on-one connection shared with in-person interactions leads to a stronger bond between them, making activism more likely to occur when it is needed. Furthermore, Gladwell also explains that networking on social media may take away from modern-day activism since too much credit is given to social media of the effect that it plays. This argument is clearly made in the essay, since the author first provides an example of activism during the civil rights movement and how effective it was, then provides a counter-argument of how Twitter didn’t really do as much as it’s chalked up to be when starting modern day revolutions by saying, “Twitter had scant internal significance in Moldova, a country where very few Twitter accounts exist. Nor does it seem to have been a revolution, not least because the protests—as Anne Applebaum suggested in the Washington Post—may well have been a bit of stagecraft cooked up by the government” and “There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” Both of these counter-arguments make the claim the author is presenting clear, as well as when he included, “High-risk activism, McAdam concluded, is a “strong-tie”