The Importance Of Social Activism In Small Change

Social activism consists of efforts to promote change, which influences the actions of individuals and groups. It builds connections among people and focuses on issues such as promoting awareness and social change. People who have experienced inequality and prejudice are seeking for hope through social activism. In “Small Change,” Malcolm Gladwell argues that modern social networking technology does not play a role in revolutionary movements because it forms weak bonds between individuals and does not have a hierarchical structure. He discusses the idea that people were able to conduct protests without the help of social media resources spreading the word. Social media serves as communication channels, but not powerful structures that can provide …show more content…
Social change strengthens diverse societies by promoting reconciliation and propagates peace across various cultures. It addresses injustice and provides equal opportunities for individual development and social bonding. Gladwell mentions that networks are weak-tie connections that give people access to information. However, the strong-tie connections help them to make social changes and face dangers as he states, “the students who joined the sit-ins across the South during the winter of 1960 described the movements as a ‘fever’. But the civil-rights movements was more like a military campaign than like a contagion.”(235) The Greensboro sit-ins had a powerful impact on society without the use of social media. The weak ties related to social media cannot lead to high risk activism and that only results to limited commitment. While strong ties are required for social change to occur, Gladwell uses more examples to prove that many social activists movement had not succeeded due to lack of central authority and hierarchy. The personal contacts between people strengthens the strong ties that can make differences and promote social change through the Civil Rights Movement. Social changes have preserved equal relationships and fostered the values of tolerance between people that resolve their conflicts non-violently in Hawaii. Olson discusses how the growth of interracial marriages portrays the idea of the end of race and how barriers between groups become permeable by stating, “as this inescapable conclusion becomes more and more widely held, our genetic histories inevitably will become less and less important. When we look at another person, we won’t think Asian, black, or white. We’ll just think: person.”(344) The mixing of race is a requirement in order to not focus on different ethnicities of people, but on their personal