It Takes A Village To Find A Phone
In the first chapter of Clay Shirky's book, he is right to ask what defines a cause as being right. In the case of a stolen cell phone, it was not relevant that there were threads started on the forum where users asked each other if Sasha was attractive enough to sleep with, but that is part of the give and take with making something like this public with the anonymity of the internet. Many people are inclined to get off topic and stray from the facts; is it fair that Sasha became the target of this sexualized conversation because of a phone? Some might say it is no different than if she were walking down the street and a group eyeballed her and started the same conversation topic about whether they’d “tap that”, and others might say she provoked this type of conversation, especially due to the fact that she had a Myspace page. As the author points out that, having this online persona greatly increases our social visibility, which can have both positive effects (ease with finding each others) and negative ones (being scrutinized by the public). This subtopic was one of the many surrounding the original issue, and overall many of the subtopics take away from the actual issue at hand which all in all weakens the overall cause, and makes it hard to define if this cause is indeed just.
Additionally, the author emphasises the need for socialization amongst humans – in his own words, “not occasionally or by accident but always” which I don’t know if I would agree with entirely. For the most part sure, but there are some people and some times where humans have no desire to form connections amongst each other. Does the interface of the internet change this? I don’t think so. Even though it may seem like its all about connectivity at times if for no other reason than the series of networks that connect a laptop (and thereby, an individual) to the rest of the web/world is being implemented, this doesn’t show a need to form connections to other people as the internet can be just as isolating as the real world.
Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted
In this article, author Malcolm Gladwell says that "Social media can’t provide what social change has always required." He compares the civil rights movement with recent online campaigns targeting Iranian political issues, and it is obvious from both tone and text that he believes activism has not only gotten soft, but that we seem to have forgotten what it is all about entirely. This is clearly emphasized though his examples, such as when one Mark Pfeifle (a former national-security adviser) called for "Twitter to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize," which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all day, and I sincerely hope he was joking or misunderstood but sadly feel that he was not.
Which argument is more convincing and why
After reading these two articles, I have to say that I am inclined to agree with the latter article, that being Malcolm Gladwell's Small Change. His ideas are more along the lines of my own in that I do not believe social change can be generated through the internet. He asks, "Are people who log on to their Facebook page really the best hope for us all?" The obvious answer is "clearly not," but I do no think the majority of internet users/facebook addicts would agree. Some of the examples the author uses remind me of many of
the recent facebook trends that get people to do things like put their bra colour into their status updates, because it supposedly supports breast cancer campaigns. “What?!” and “How?!” are the only things that spring to my mind. Even if their purpose is just to raise awareness, that’s great…but what is the point and who is that actually benefiting? Like in the article, all the people from the West who were posting on Twitter about the event surrounding the Iranian election for the most part actually had nothing to do with it, because they do not actually live there.
