Can social media ignite social change?

Can social media ignite a freedom rally?

Published on October 12, 2010

Do social media merely a vehicle for new forms of communication, or do they hold promise for new kinds of social movements creating social change?

In a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell, "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted," he poses an interesting question--will social networking make an important contribution to social movements and social change? By comparing social networking to the civil rights movement, which, as a social movement, created significant social change, he argues that movement had strong ties among individuals and among hierarchical organizations, which the social networking movement does not.

Gladwell argues that the "platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with." He says that there is a strength in weak ties because our acquaintances, not our friends, are our greatest source of new ideas and information. Gladwell argues that social networks are effective at increasing participation by lessening he level of motivation that participation requires; "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice."Gladwell contends that in order to make substantial social change you need a hierarchy, and that social media buzz doesn't qualify.

Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, writing in Common Dreams.org disagree with Gladwell's assessment. They contend that some interpreters of movements have identified networks as another social form; networks coordinated by means of the sharing of information and voluntary mutual interplay among participants. Brecher and Smith ask whether social media can contribute to the process of forming social movements and effective social action, and argue in the affirmative. They say that social networking websites play an important role in finding and connecting people who are beginning to think and feel similar things. They can help participants deepen their understanding and form common perspectives, and inform a course of action. Brecher and Smith agree with Gladwell, however, in saying that merely a massive number of Tweets can't make a revolution or even major social change, because that requires non-cooperation with the status quo.


Certainly, there's evidence that social media can affect buying patterns of consumers, as witnessed by consumer negative feedback of products spreading like wildfire on social media sites and subsequently affecting product sales. Recent study from Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies shows that over 50% of Facebook fans and Twitter followers say they are more likely to buy, recommend than before they were engaged. The study of over 1500 consumers by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower. And an impressive 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of. Considering Facebook's over 400 million users, the opportunity is great for social media marketers.

Jennifer Aaka and Andy Smith, authors of The Dragonfly Effect, show how social media technology can in fact support social missions. Non-profit consultant Beth Kanter has shown how social media tools have been used to create social change including helping children in Cambodian orphanages. Jessica Jackley, cofounder of Kiva.org, the non-profit micro financing website, which allows people to promote internally development and break the cycle of poverty, argues that these kinds of efforts have revolutionized the approach to philanthropy through social media.

So time will tell whether social media is merely a technologically advanced form of social, political and business communication, or can become a structure for social movements and social change.