• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Charlie Rogers

  • About Charlie Rogers
  • Posts
  • Contact
  • Twitter

Malcolm Gladwell “Why the revolution will not be tweeted”

In the pages of the New Yorker, author Malcolm Gladwell makes an interesting point about what could be called “cohesion” differences between hierarchical organizations and social networks, using Twitter as a case study.

Several writers have made the point that Twitter paid a key role during the unrest in Iran, but Gladwell doesn’t believe that Twitter is actually powerful enough to pay an active part in real social change.

Boycotts and sit-ins and nonviolent confrontations—which were the weapons of choice for the civil-rights movement—are high-risk strategies. They leave little room for conflict and error. The moment even one protester deviates from the script and responds to provocation, the moral legitimacy of the entire protest is compromised. Enthusiasts for social media would no doubt have us believe that King’s task in Birmingham would have been made infinitely easier had he been able to communicate with his followers through Facebook, and contented himself with tweets from a Birmingham jail. But networks are messy: think of the ceaseless pattern of correction and revision, amendment and debate, that characterizes Wikipedia. If Martin Luther King, Jr., had tried to do a wiki-boycott in Montgomery, he would have been steamrollered by the white power structure. And of what use would a digital communication tool be in a town where ninety-eight per cent of the black community could be reached every Sunday morning at church? The things that King needed in Birmingham—discipline and strategy—were things that online social media cannot provide

True or not? Time will tell.

Malcolm Gladwell, via the New Yorker

Filed Under: Digital Journalism Tagged With: Malcolm Gladwell, social networks, the new yorker, twitter

Charlie Rogers Charlie Rogers

Chief content officer, editor-in-chief, managing editor, launch manager, and product strategist on dozens of digital ventures, for companies including NBC, Conde Nast, Time Warner, Martha Stewart and Random House.
Here's my bio...

Get in Touch!

Footer

Twitter: @jrnlsm

  • Just now
  • http://twitter.com/jrnlsm

Popular Sections

  • SEO For Editors
  • Digital Journalism
  • Digital Management
  • Audience Development

Recent Posts

  • Free or Cheap Tools for Learning Web Analytics
  • Why Are Your Web Pages So Fat and Slow?
  • Jon Morrow’s 52 Headline Hacks
  • The Immutable Error of Parenthood
  • Calvin Coolidge was super-judgmental

Quick Subscribe

Receive an email every time new content goes live.

Thanks!

Copyright © 2023 Charlie Rogers