A very interesting article, in which Malcolm Gladwell asks the question about the contribution of social networking to social change - and tries to compare the Twitter revolutions in Moldovia and Iran to the genesis of the civil rights movement in Greensboro, NC in 1960.
An example - does having 1,000 "friends" on facebook mean that these 1,000 would help you drive social change? Gladwell states that The Save Darfur Coalition has 1.2 million members on facebook, but the average donation only comes out to 9 cents per person...
There have been quite a few responses to Gladwell's article - for example, "If the Internet didn’t exist, Barack Obama would not be president of the United States,” says Ben Rattray, the founder of Change.org. “The fact that the most powerful person in the world wouldn’t be in that position without the Internet and organizing online says something.”
The power of the Internet in Obama’s case, Rattray says, was its unique ability to organize thousands of passionate people to work together for change. While 100,000 people ranting on Twitter might not be worth anything, organizing those 100,000 people in a simultaneous action can have a significant impact.
Although e-petitions, Change.org’s most common advocacy tool, might top the list of low-commitment activism in some minds, Rattray says that the organization wins a campaign — changes an unjust law, policy, or practice — at least once a week. But he also admits this is probably not the most dramatic method of activism out there..."
All in all, a great question, and very thought provoking...
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