Malcolm Gladwell Small Change

“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.

Due the human nature, the pursuits of liberty, justice, and happiness have always been major concerns of humans throughout the history regardless of the way individuals connected and organized. Before phones or emails were even invented, the underprivileged individuals or groups congregated through “close ties”. In the recent years, individuals with “weak ties” adopt a different approach on similar activism with the help of various social media. Although these events are meant for similar intentions, their different communication methods induce an enormous distinction on their impacts, says Malcolm Gladwell in “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”. He depicts that the movements by people bonding with “strong-ties”(Gladwell 405) tend to impact the society with substantial advancement through “high-risk activism”.

Face-to-face contact was the most important aspect to building a strong grassroots following for The Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, political activism manifests itself online and, if lucky, is addressed by politicians. Turkle mentions, “Technology makes it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will” (274). Turkle references motivation and how people are uncommitted to communications with others. Being able to disengage at will allows people to do whatever they want.

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.

When news got out of the killing of Mike Brown, Wellington says the information “spread like wild-fire” demonstrating the power of social media. He believes that social media, like Twitter and Facebook, can serve as a means in accomplishing political and economic goals of

The essay “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell gives a brief explanation of a 1960’s boycott sit-in organized by a small group of African Americans who weren’t allowed to sit at the snack bar that was reserved for Caucasians. Gladwell used this example to further elaborate about how high-risk activism requires a strong hierarchical structure in order to thrive. “Tweet like an Egyptian” is about the Arabs that are located throughout Africa and the Middle East gaining access to social networking. Attaining the internet allowed Arabs to acquire a virtual life of freedom of speech and expression. The internet empowered these people with information to challenge their authorities in real life.

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.

An unemployed millennial joins his fellow comrades, creating an army whose mission is to march to Wall Street, the pit of corporate greed. The army is equipped with picket fences and posters, and is ready to fight in order to seize what is rightfully theirs. They fight, and as the war they wage is continuing strong, those on the sidelines observe that the eternal struggle, the one marked with social media activism that has created an entire movement to Occupy Wall Street has changed absolutely nothing. Occupy Wall Street was an example of social media activism that demonstrates social media alone cannot change challenging problems, and confirms Malcolm Gladwell’s argument about the ineffectiveness of social media activism in affecting legitimate

A journalist, and a magazine writer, Malcolm Gladwell is the author of The Tipping Point. Appealing to the common people is the main purpose of Gladwell’s book as it leads to the rapid increase in its popularity. He believes that little things create change, something that can be seen as common sense. Although Gladwell is able to gather a large number of readers and followers, he is unable to reach to people other than the common people. Gladwell is successful in manipulating the readers by playing with their emotions and by providing an immense amount of examples; he lacks credibility and attempts to use numbers to prove his point.

In “Small Change”, Malcolm Gladwell explains how activism is affected by social media. Gladwell looks negatively upon new “tools” of social media for activism, in particular social activism. She thinks this form of activism is weak and perhaps not even activism. She defends activism as unions of people who have a personal relationship and fight against a conflict that involves them all. An example of this in the text is the Civil Rights movement, where African

In today’s society, social media platforms engage their users and are able to manipulate them by making social media use the reality, influencing people to be bolder and more outgoing, and sharing

Each year numerous amount of people become a social media user. The eMarketer website estimated that by 2019 “there will be around 2.77 billion social media users around the globe, up from 2.46 billion in 2017” (1). A great deal of those users utilizes social media to communicate their opinion to other users; as a matter of fact, these users might change their perspective a certain person might have on a topic. Social media is a marketing tool, therefore people utilize those social media platforms to pursue, and even manipulate the public to think in a certain way; hence, why social media can influence the public opinion.

Thirty years ago, the concept of social media would have seemed impossible. A place where a person can show everyone they know what they are doing in two seconds from any city seems insane. Today, it is the daily ritual of the average teenager, including myself. I start my mornings looking at Instagram and end my nights looking at Snapchat. The middle of the day is for YouTube.

People whom are on Social Media are twice as likely to feel isolated. As the internet has grown people are seeing it in different light. The name “Social Media” was give as these sites were to bring people together and make them more included in today’s society. Experts on the topic say that in certain areas it’s quite helpful, while others argue how it’s keeping the younger generation away from face to face socializing and making them far more isolated. People feel more inclined to share opinions about SM because of its high impact on today’s online age.

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.