Blog Post 2

Now more then ever social media and politics are interwoven. Our current president, Donald Trump, seems to have a Twitter finger, tweeting whatever comes to his mind. This has lead to debate on how much politicians should use social media. There is more to social media then tweeting and posting whatever. It can be used to start great movements and rally people together. As Natalie Walton notes, “Those who respond to politicians on social media have the potential to gain their own responses of some kind through likes, retweets, favorites, etc.” Since the comments are in response to a politician, many people can see what others are saying, most of the time not knowing who each other is. Similar to the rest of her article, “How Advocating from the Comfort of Our Own Homes Has Impacted American Politics”, Walton is praising the interconnectivity of technology and politics. This is in stark comparison to Malcolm Gladwell’s “Why the revolution will not be tweeted.” He believes, “Unlike hierarchies, with their rules and procedures, networks aren’t controlled by a single central authority.” Structure and order are his main concern with networks when it comes to protests. Walton would call the NAACP a hierarchy and Twitter and other social media a network. To him, hierarchies were useful and productive, especially in the Civil Rights movement. This juxtaposes Walton’s opinion of networks, explaining, “A networked, weak-tie world is good at things like helping Wall Streeters get phones back from teen-age girls.” All networks are good for is trivial matters like finding a lost phone. Something that is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Something that does not have an impact on the rest of the community or county; an isolated incident that does not impact many. Bijan Stephen could not disagree more, praising twitter for the start of the Black Lives Matter movement. In his article “How Black Lives Matter Uses Social Media to Fight the Power”, Stephen cites examples of the success of the Black Lives Matter movement. “It helped secure the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol. It helped pressure the federal government to investigate police practices in Ferguson and Baltimore.” Challenging Gladwell’s view, Stephen is giving concrete examples of how a movement started on a network, with no central authority, was able to make drastic changes to their community and country. Online activism can definitely promote social justice and equity. Instead of having to rely on word of mouth, being limited to who each other knows, people can now spread messages to anyone and everyone. Not only can we now speak to everyone directly, we can do it from the comfort of own bed or wherever we are. This means people have a wider audience of who they are talking to and they do not need to be well known in order for them to be heard.