Summary Of Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted By Malcolm Gladwell

Why the revolution will not be tweeted is a compelling argumentative article by Malcolm Gladwell. In it he states all the reasons why social media is not helping our world, in regard to social reform, like people believe. The civil rights movement was often described as a fever, people had a personal reason for change, there was risk, but what they were doing would impact their entire world. With social media, it is difficult to create the fever in people that is necessary to generate an impact on society. In the article there is constant mention of “strong-ties” and the civil rights movement had that. They had an intimate bond with the movement that is not possible to create with social media. These connections helped them through difficult times. The structure of strong-ties is better than social media, dubbed weak-ties. In a strong-tie there is often a hierarchy, a couple of people are in charge and they are the ones that plan and implement demonstrations. With weak-tie organizations, everyone has an equal say, which makes getting anything done quite difficult. As Gladwell so eloquently put social media “makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact” (9). …show more content…
In the article, Gladwell uses the examples of the civil rights movement, other recent protests, and someone losing their phone fro the two types of ties. While he did pick the civil rights movement and someone losing their phone specifically for their contrast they both provide insight into how effective the different ties are. While social media is not the best way to implement change, it does have its