Social Media: Motivator or Distraction

In this article from the New York Times, author Noam Choen reviews an interesting thesis conducted by a Yale graduate student that provides an interesting viewpoint on the effects of social media that I feel relates to the DailyKos article in an interesting way. In his thesis, Media Disruption Exacerbates Revolutionary Unrest, Navid Hassanpour examines the effects of President Hosni Mubarak's decision to cut off Internet and cellphone service in the middle of the Tahrir Square riots. He concludes that this was a poor decision because it involved citizens who did not previously hold a political opinion about the situation, it prompted more face-to-face activism, and it decentralized the rebellion thus making it more difficult to control.

I would have to agree that while social media sites are great for people to come together and discuss like interests, I have not seen much actual activism influenced by these means. Everyone is more than happy to post status updates about whatever cause interests them that day, but anymore than that would require a major catalyst for change. In this case, the incitation needed to move the opposition from a virtual world to the real world was provided by the government when they removed these avenues of communication.

I feel that this relates to the DailyKos article because it provides a current example that validates the claims that Friedman and Kohn make about social media hindering the face-to-face activism of yore. Due to the fact that the government restricted the use of the Internet, the activists had to find another way to vent their feelings. Since they couldn't do it from the comfort of home, many went to the streets. This illustrates many of the concerns that Friedman and Kohn have about social media.

This also validates many of Logothetis's claims as well. Without the social media, these people would have never assembled together in the first place. But that is not enough to incite the kind of change that the protests accomplished.

All in all, I feel that social media is a powerful tool for this, but we also gotta get off our butts from time to time and get the word out.