How Does Social Media Affect The Civil Rights Movement?

Throughout the generations, social media’s growth has drastically exploded. There are various different ways to communicate with one another, both being with people that have met each other and with people who will never have the chance to meet each other in the real world. With today’s technology and through the various of different social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, people are now able to video chat, send messages or talk via phone, tablet or computer. As of 2017 nearly 81% of the United States population has a social networking profile (Gordon). Through his work, Small Change, Gladwell claims that social media is not a strong enough form of communication to develop a growth and impact on education in the worlds important and trending movements. The growth of social media in today’s generation proves otherwise. The power of social media allows the possibility of growth in both awareness and …show more content…
As Gladwell claims, during the Civil Rights movement there were no social media used with publicating the movement. Yet, millions came together to march as a whole. However, by the time the civil rights movement had such a large march, it had been a working progress for over 10 years. The months or even years spent discussing logistics, leafleting and building a coalition were crucial to the success of the Civil Rights movements (Tsukayama). Moreover, social media has the capability and potential of exposing the word or movement through the entire universe. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag exploded through the power of social media. Mostly trending on Twitter with an engagement of over 9 million times by users (Morrison). The three activists who created the #BlackLivesMatter movement, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi have all cited the importance of social media in helping pursue