Reflection 8

Although the methods of social movements have changed throughout time, the concept of people coming together has remained true. However, Gladwell believes that "where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools" (Gladwell). In essence, he is trying to say that even though more people can follow a cause, it does not allow for the same connection to the topic as was once possible in the past. Gladwell has the belief that using social media is not the best way to form and maintain a social revolution. Although revolutions like those in Poland when controlled by the Soviet Union could have been much different if the social media like Facebook or Twitter had existed.

I do believe that social media is necessary to a degree for social movements. Social movements today are able to gain a following much quicker compared to the past. As stated bye Opam, "I think that we have to be open to new ways of organizing and new ways of building community. I’m mindful that we aren’t born woke, something wakes us up, and for so many people, what woke them up was a tweet or a Facebook post, an Instagram post, a picture." (Opam).  I believe that everyone should have the ability to help with a social movement even if they do not live in the same area as where the movement is happening. Americans or Europeans would never have been able to learn as much as we did about the Arab Spring had it occurred in the 1980's or 1990's. The Arab Spring was also able to use social media to spread their message to the people. Although site like Facebook and Twitter were blocked by the Libyan government. Users were able to use sites like roosterteeth.com to post what was happening. This allowed people all over the world to see what was going on in the country in ways that news outlets would never have been able to. Even the video of the leader being captured was posted through social media and later picked up by news outlets.

I will acknowledge that social media can be negative to the movement. False information can be quickly spread today using social media and this can led to both sides of an issue to quickly react to something that never happened or was told wrong. However, this issue existed without the use of social media in the past. Altogether, social media is key today for the spread of social movements and is not something that can be removed from the future of social movements.

Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm. "Small Change." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 12 May 2015. Web. 03 May 2017.

Opam, Kwame. "DeRay Mckesson on Black Lives Matter and Building Tools for Digital Activism | Verge 2021." TheVerge.com. The Verge, 29 Nov. 2016. Web. 03 May 2017.