Malcolm Gladwell's article, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” is a rhetorically successful argument that depicts why social media is not an effective tool in organizing social or political activism. Social media was just rising in popularity and worldly politics were tense at the time, so Gladwell had a wide audience of readers. In his article, Gladwell describes multiple examples of protests that had no means of social media during these events. Consequently, these protests tended to be more stronger, organized, and more emotional to the people that participated. He begins his article with a description of the Greensboro sit-ins of how a group of four college students grew to almost seventy thousand all “without email,
…show more content…
Gladwell uses pathos to make the readers feel like they want to be reading and understanding his article and take something away from it. Malcolm Gladwell appeals to the emotions of the readers by subtly putting emphasis on certain stories. Gladwell begins by going in depth about the Greensboro sit-ins leaving the reader with a sense of pride that such reformist events took place without the use of social media. His second story, the Moldova Revolution, is written in a negative tone, belittling the people involved with calling it a “Twitter Revolution” (Gladwell 550), and discrediting the entire social media aspect of the event and is written in a way that almost makes the reader feel foolish for believing anything different. He concludes his article with this same tone while describing the story of Evan and the Sidekick. Since Gladwell does not have any factual evidence on the story, he makes it seem like a pointless event by reducing it to “Wall Streeters getting phones back from teenage girls” (Gladwell 555). He ends his article with a sarcastic remark, “Viva la revolución”, solidifying his effort of forcing any readers that disagree (Gladwell 555). Malcolm Gladwell's use of pathos almost condemns people that contradict him to a loss of pride and
Gladwell uses pathos to make the readers feel like they want to be reading and understanding his article and take something away from it. Malcolm Gladwell appeals to the emotions of the readers by subtly putting emphasis on certain stories. Gladwell begins by going in depth about the Greensboro sit-ins leaving the reader with a sense of pride that such reformist events took place without the use of social media. His second story, the Moldova Revolution, is written in a negative tone, belittling the people involved with calling it a “Twitter Revolution” (Gladwell 550), and discrediting the entire social media aspect of the event and is written in a way that almost makes the reader feel foolish for believing anything different. He concludes his article with this same tone while describing the story of Evan and the Sidekick. Since Gladwell does not have any factual evidence on the story, he makes it seem like a pointless event by reducing it to “Wall Streeters getting phones back from teenage girls” (Gladwell 555). He ends his article with a sarcastic remark, “Viva la revolución”, solidifying his effort of forcing any readers that disagree (Gladwell 555). Malcolm Gladwell's use of pathos almost condemns people that contradict him to a loss of pride and