Last week’s edition of the New Yorker contained an article that got me thinking. “Small change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted” written by Malcolm Gladwell presented an interesting perspective on the nature of social networks, and why these networks are incapable of inciting true social, political or environmental change: “The platforms of social media are built around weak ties.” Weak ties? Really? I’m not a tweeter, but I am an avid Facebook user. After reading the article, I decided to do some math to reexamine my own personal Facebook network; I wanted to see if Gladwell was right, if my network was predominantly comprised of weak ties. One spreadsheet and a pie chart later, I discovered that Gladwell was more right than I thought he was, but still not totally right: at least about my network. I ranked my Facebook friends according to strong, medium and weak ties, based on how I was feeling at the moment (not exactly the tightest methodology!) and determined that 23% of my Facebook “friendships” were medium ties, 31% were weak ties and 46% were strong ties.
So what?
So nothing. So nearly one half of my network connections are strong ties. So maybe my numbers are the exception, not the norm. So what does my network have to do with networked social activism? Well, not a whole lot since I’m not a social networking social activist. But I think it is an interesting experiment in assumptions about people’s personal networks. Not all Facebook users have thousands of “friends” made up of family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, friends of friends and complete strangers. The ties that comprise each person’s network are going to be as individual as the person. So if you can’t make the assumption that all networks are made up of weak ties, than why is it that real change won’t be made through online networking? I think it has less to do with the strength of the network, and more to do with the physical space and location. It’s a lot easier to sit behind a computer screen and type a tweet with the hashtag #iranelection than it is to sit behind a lunch counter for civil rights.
If you haven’t read Gladwell’s article, it can be found at
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=1
Awesome post, Sarah. A couple of thoughts. 1) Gladwell rocks. I read his seminal marketing book, The Tipping Point, for Organization Mgmt and Strategies last year. He’s accessible and on top of or even ahead of the trends. 2) Gladwell’s obviously referencing Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGaRtqrlGy8; http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html) and the sentiments in his article do somewhat echo the original song’s, except replace TV with the Internet. I think too often we feel socially engaged when we click the “like” button for the It Gets Better anti-bullying campaign instead of say, saying or doing something in public. While I appreciated being back on fbook this summer in order to read the updates from the G20 debacle in Toronto, I didn’t actually physically protest. As Scott-Heron said, “The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.” Social media is pretty darn passive; what we do, not what we watch, or click, is what will matter.
Thanks for the link Nicole- I will definitely check it out. I think, in the case of social networking, it’s really easy to mistake activism with awareness. Social networking is a fantastic way to promote awareness in a cause, but it doesn’t provide people with the incentive to ACT and take risks. “Liking” a post isn’t an action (unless you want to nit pick!). It seems sort of silly- “I’m so outraged by what’s going on! I better “like” this page so everyone knows how I feel.” The numbers might look good, but they are in no way representative of what will happen, and what changes will, or will not be made.
I haven’t read the Gladwell article yet, but I did see the Facebook movie this weekend, so I’m going to consider myself an expert. What I think a lot of people – critics in particular – don’t get about social media is that not everyone uses it the same way. I know a lot of the “younger generation” (am I allowed to say that at 25?) still use it as a popularity machine (like those ads all over Dal would seem to suggest – you know, the awful ones that promise to accurately gauge your popularity by your social media presense), and since this type of user makes up a vocal majority of Facebook, it’s almost no wonder that they’re considered the norm. But on the other hand, there’s users like my sister who requires a strong tie as criteria to make it as a Facebook friend.
Me, I’d probably be an outlier on this issue as well, and part of me suspects that this is a librarian thing. I love social media, especially Facebook, because I think it has the potential to act in some ways as a personal catalogue record. As such, weak ties don’t belong there for me because they’re not really part of my life, or by extension, of me.
I don’t think the revolution will be “tweeted” per se, because Twitter can’t help but be weak ties. After all, the messaging restrictions bar against any meaningful communication. But Facebook’s different, and I like what you said about the difference between activism and awareness, because Facebook is the best tool I’ve ever seen to record and spread the zeitgeist of anyone’s social network. Clicking a ‘like’ button doesn’t get anyone up off the couch, but it does help like-minded people communicate, and it can spread fervour like wild fire. The act of social media is passive, but as to whether it can spurn or incite action, I would argue a definite yes.