PD 2 AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE
You should have read Malcolm Gladwell's article "Small Change: The Revolution Will Not be Tweeted" and "Social Media as Formidable Force for Change" by Ritu Sharma.
Respond to 2 of the below questions in detail (at least 5 sentences for EACH response).
Post is due by Friday at midnight. Two legitimate (conversation continuing) replies to peers by Sunday midnight. (Note: Short replies with no explanation such as "I completely agree with you!" or "good job, buddy!" without will not count)
48 Comments
Czar Parrish
11/2/2016 09:58:24 am
Social media has had a big impact on many current events occuring around the world. Events such as Net Neutrality, and Ferguson have been brought attenrion through the use of hashtags. The use of social media has brought about the accessibility with people worldwide which results in more communication and more power. Social does have a legitimate impact through this way. Although in person movements such as those in the age without social media has brought about change is possibly capable of a more powerful, quick change; social media united people together to where their voice can be heard by authorities. The language of social media impacts social change because it can be used as digital propoganda. Through this, people can be just as easily influenced as art posted around restaraunts and other public places. The points I found most interesting came from the second article in which a writer claimed that social media makes it easier for activists to express themselves but harder for it to have any impact. This is somewhat true in the case of a rebellion that a political authority would not approve of. If a political authority recognizes something as a legitimate issue then there is a possibility of social media impacting it as well as real life movement.
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Kara Herber
11/2/2016 05:10:46 pm
I agree with you Czar in that communication person to person will cause a more "powerful" change. I think people are too easily influenced in what they see on the internet, and instead they need to verify their resources and have a solid foundation for their opinion of change. Reading an article about civil rights on social media could not possibly be the cause of revolution.
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Ben M
11/6/2016 01:53:37 pm
I agree, also, and I won't repeat what Kara and Czar already said. One thing I will add is that with the ease of instigating change from this advancement in networking, and the general repercussions from an increase of networking, I believe individuals have, to some extent, become desensitized to the events announced by way of social media. This in turn makes it difficult for activists to grab the attention of possible followers through social media.
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Dominique W.
11/6/2016 07:57:47 pm
I agree with Ben; the amount of news reports or posts we see everyday has made it difficult for anything to really grab our attention. In my case, I like to browse news sites sometimes and I kind of shock myself worth how willingly I accept things. I see an article about something bad happening somewhere, and I can just go on like is part for the course unless it's something really horrible. It reminds me of when I read about how someone said that the world isn't getting worse, it's that we're just more aware of all the bad things that happen. Social media has improved our awareness of events in the world, but it can also numb us to it as well. That really does male it hard for messages to impact people on a deep enough level as to get them to help.
Hannah
11/2/2016 02:05:06 pm
In the Gladwell's article he made the pout that we have blurred the line between the impact social media has and the impact activism has. I agree, and believe that social media does have an impact on change in a way. Malala believe that education is key to change,and if one believes that then social media is the root of change. After reading both articles and learning about the Iranian Revolution and my already existent knowledge, I believe that social media is like Google. It is a hub of inforation and that information had a weight to it, but not a push. There is talk and then there's is action and I believe that is what Gladwell meant in his article, one should not be replaced with another and social media should not be glorified and replace activism, but work in harmony.
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Kara Herber
11/2/2016 05:16:08 pm
Hannah, I like that you said social media is an outlet to speak out, but that it can be masked and protected. I do also agree that social media cannot take the place of proper activism. If we look for change through a computer screen, how can we face issues in our lives that do not pop up as a notification on our phones. I believe we need to act in person and use social media as a TOOL to get the results we want for change. We cannot let social media be the manual to our personal and worldly revolutions.
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Kara Herber
11/2/2016 05:06:10 pm
In Malcolm Gladwell's article, I found it interesting that he chose to argue that hashtags are one of the most popular ways to spread awareness of a certain issue. While I think hashtags can create awareness, I do not think they can revolutionize change. He did use several examples of popular hashtags such as "#Ferguson" and #icebucketchallnge". However I do not think these hashtags institute all change. I do agree that they spread awareness, but I disagree that they can cause a revolution because of my personal experience with social media. I had social media when the ALS ice bucket challenge became a trend, but I remember its popularity was because my friends and I got to dump ice water on us and that was unusual. The challenge itself did create some change, but I do not think it completely represents change or plays the biggest role in it. I also remember that my main source of information about the Ferguson issue was not on social media, but instead news programs.
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Connor Hall
11/3/2016 06:32:53 pm
Kara I liked the way you brought in the part about hashtags and then explained how you believe that they do not "all institute change". I agree with that statement, just because something happens and keeps happening, does not mean that it changed something else. Like with the ice bucket challenge, it became a trend as you said, but nothing changed.
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Hannah
11/6/2016 11:25:55 am
I agree that hashtags can't revolutionize change, I think you can a strong force for change led by people and strengthened by speeches and words and outreach but you can't have hastages without people.
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Czar Parrish
11/6/2016 11:39:27 am
Yes, social media can spread false information and can be used as a very good tool. I do think as well that it requires in person confrontation to really change something rather than digital text. Social media is a great place to start but there must be another way in order to finish.
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Broc glover
11/6/2016 01:33:43 pm
I agree with you on how hashtags create awareness but do not institute change. The ice bucket challenge spread awareness and it raised a large amount of money for ALS but it did not change anything. The money raised will be put towards a research to help change but does not come right out and change it. It takes time for a change to occure.
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Morgan Smith
11/3/2016 05:18:09 am
I think social media has a huge impact in revolutions big and small. Social media creates a a huge platform for people to project their causes to audiences that without it, would never be aware of the cause. Power lies within numbers so having a larger group would be helpful to a cause.the comparison between that and the documentary a is that for the Iranian revoultion there was no social media, so the outside world knew very little about the causes and inter workings of it while Malala was during the age of social media
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Nikki
11/4/2016 08:25:09 pm
I agree with you Morgan how social media can be big and small acts of revolution.
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Brady Michael
11/5/2016 05:35:02 am
I agree that social media provides a wide audience to advertise and promote a cause. But it is also a very new and powerful tool. We do know of events now that would have only been spoken about on TV and in newspapers. Now we can see events as they happen and even an individual's views of events. I do disagree that with social media a cause can be rigidly backed up by individuals. It doesn't take much effort to follow a cause, and not be passionate about it. To sign a petition or even physically protest makes a much stronger statement that you are passionate for that cause, such as sit-ins during the Civil rights era.
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Hannah
11/6/2016 11:27:59 am
Good comment, Brady. I like how you make the point that social media allows for communicaton in way we never had before, but that you also mentioned how important it is to be present and willing for a cause.
Jaelin Cochran
11/6/2016 05:23:29 pm
I agree social media is a thing of the present. It is beneficial to all causes as it reaches out to those who are permanently attached to their cellular devices, myself included.
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broc glover
11/3/2016 08:49:57 am
Many points in both articles were interesting and controversial. I found that bonding together will help gain support for the cause with solutions to act upon was most interesting. It could be a peaceful community coming together or it could turn into a mob. The controversial part of this article is where it talks about the "Ray Rice video." The video showed that changes had to be made to the Violence Against Women Act passed by President Clinton in 1994. I agree with the part where they talk about how hashtags are helping to bring people together. Freguson and Ice Bucket Challenge are just a few hashtags listed.. Each of these were used to gain support for the cause. ALS and police brutality were the focus and each where at the top of the news because of the use of hashtags. All of these events were brought to focus by the use of social media.
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Connor Hall
11/3/2016 06:40:33 pm
I like the point you made about how when hashtags are used a lot they pop up and people see them more. I did not believe that social media had much impact on change, but I agree with some of your points and my view has somewhat changed.
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Puja Chudasama
11/4/2016 01:58:11 pm
I do not entirely agree that people depend on hashtags to be informed on topics. We do get informed by current events quickly due to young people using social media but that can also lead to false information being spread.
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Brady Michael
11/3/2016 01:52:49 pm
I think social media does have an impact on change. One example of this is when the first article addressed the ice bucket challenge. Without social media, the challenge would not have spread as much without the contagious use of social media to make the challenge famous. Another change made by social media, stated by the second article, is people's capability to communicate and even discuss topics which is the main purpose for such websites as Facebook and Twitter. Fifty years earlier, there was no way to communicate with dozens of people at a time without having them all phtsically gathered.
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Czar Parrish
11/6/2016 11:43:27 am
Good points! Social media does seem to be a great outlet to bring people together. It is much better than the old ways of advertising change throughout a community. With social media a person can reach a broader spectrum, resulting in more people joining a cause which means more success.
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Broc glover
11/6/2016 01:36:15 pm
I agree with you that social media brings people together. On social media you can reach out to people how you might not normally be able to in person. This helps spread awareness and bring people together to help a cause or situation.
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Connor Hall
11/3/2016 06:27:21 pm
Gladwell says in his article that we as a society may have made the area between the impact activism has and the impact social media has, on change. Social is a lot of information and all that information has a certain weight behind it, but not much. In life there are people who talk about getting things done and then there are the people who actually get them done. Posting on social media is like being the one who is all talk but no action, being the person who takes action will actually get things done. So no I do not think that social media causes much change, but it can work to promote activism which causes change.
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Nikki
11/4/2016 08:27:00 pm
Connor I liked how you mentioned that social media can take away that emotion. I would have never have thought of that !
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Emma Stone
11/6/2016 04:54:30 pm
Connor, I agree with you on that social media doesn't act alone when I comes to revolutions. There are always other factors playing into a revolution. For an example if someone were to speak out against the government that could be the start of a revolution.
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Allyson Shifflett
11/4/2016 07:17:07 am
Social media has a large impact on change because, like Sharma stated, it educates people on little known issues, and then helps those people to educate even more people. However I do disagree with his claim on hashtags, because I don't believe that they make change. Trending hashtags exist to bring light to little known issues, but it's the information taught through them that makes a change. A trending hashtag doesn't cause anything by itself, it merely spreads awareness so that people can make change.
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Puja Chudasama
11/4/2016 01:54:47 pm
The article by Sharma was something interesting and her argument of hashtags did not seem valid. If you were looking to spread information about a certain then a hashtag makes a good tool. However, it does not do anything else.
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Sage Burdette
11/6/2016 04:20:36 pm
I agree that hashtags do not create a change. They simply give awareness. Those who speak out and stand for something are the ones that will give the greater word in the end.
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Puja Chudasama
11/4/2016 01:52:06 pm
The article written by Malcolm Gladwell contained powerful arguments that I hadn't thought about. For instance, he believed that social media builds networks, which is not useful for high-risk activism. To protest properly, you would need a hierarchy. Someone to lead and make decisions. I believe that Gladwell made some good points, but they are considered flaws instead of reasons not to use social media. After reading his article, you can use social media as a way to protest and make a change. Use it make connections, learn new information, and have a leader for your cause to help advise you when you need help.
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Sage Burdette
11/6/2016 04:24:17 pm
I agree with you that the Gladwell article did not contain the full arguement. I don't agree that a protest needs a heriavhry but more of a strong cause and figure to lead.
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Dominique W.
11/6/2016 05:58:39 pm
I think that you can't have a strong leader in most social media causes, as there is no defined order or limit as to what and where to things are said. When there isn't order, it makes it difficult for any one person to have a say in what goes on. I did think that Gladwell could have gone more in depth with his argument though.
Emma Stone
11/6/2016 06:22:11 pm
I agree Puja because I don't think gladwell did a good job at explaining why he considered them flaws and not putting reasoning behind why social media shouldn't be used.
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Jaelin Cochran
11/6/2016 06:47:01 pm
I completely agree in this era we need to use social media to even be noticed anymore. There is no such thing as word of mouth anymore it is all technological.
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Ryan Winkler
11/6/2016 08:52:53 pm
I believe that historically, and it has been represented many times by the most successful protests, having a leader for a movement does help secure a better result. It is however much more difficult to have a leader through social media. Something that identifies a leader is their physical representation and through a screen that effect is very much lost.
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Sage Burdette
11/4/2016 02:01:34 pm
In the Gladwell's article, he articulates that social media has been used as a way to speak out and express opinion by the common person and highly by activist. Although this is true, there are times that it hasn't been used for the greater good. Some subjects that are spoken about bring light to good helping organizations that the public can become apart of but others such as #BlackLivesMatter have caused violent outbreaks and controversy between races, ethics, religion, political views, etc.
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Jaelin Cochran
11/4/2016 02:36:42 pm
I really enjoyed reading both of these articles, each containing two very different opinions. In the article against social media, they mentioned the Greensboro Four Woolworth's Lunch Counter. That event started with only four black, male students and escalated to over 70,000 people without the help of social media. However, later on and into the 21st century there was an article for social media mentioning many events, including the Ice Bucket Challenge, in support of the ALSA, raised $115 million after the Grassroots Campaign went viral.
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Nikki
11/4/2016 08:23:16 pm
I believe that social media has an impact on change. It's all around us today that we don't see that change. Since we are so sucked into it we don't even realize it's there. However I think that social media can create a good change as well. It can make a movement to help people. Also people can benefit off the change as well.
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Brady Michael
11/6/2016 09:55:54 am
I agree that social media makes a movement. In a way, social media could act like an advertisement for a cause. It doesn't phycally sell the product, but it brings awareness to it. I feel like the articles didn't go deep enough into more sides and specific aspects of social media. Social media comes in many more shapes and forms that were not specivic ally covered such as snap chat. In relation to this, I feel that the articles didn't reference specific social media sites enough to give example.
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Dominique W.
11/4/2016 08:30:23 pm
I found the article by Gladwell to be the most interesting to me, which I found very suprising. I normally find these types of articles to be very condescending and irritating to read, but this one wasn't really like that. Gladwell made very good points on the downsides that social media has without necessarily insulting those who do use it. For example, when he explains how social media is more like a network than a hierarchy, which effects how it operates and what obstacles it can have. He also made good use of comparing social media activism to real life revolution such as the sit in at the diner or the bus boycott. I felt that he could have shown more of the positive aspects of media activism, and also appear less condescending in some of the points he makes, but overall I enjoyed reading his point of view.
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Tyler Francesconi
11/4/2016 08:31:32 pm
I feel that the claim that social media has a direct effect on change is not entirely correct. Now, I will not deny that social media brings awareness to an issue. It does so well, and often with the use of a hashtag. People are then provided with information that allows them to do something about the problem. It is then up to the idividuals to do something. Social media brings awareness, but not necessarily resolution. I disagree that it solely impacts change. The way I would put it is that it has to do with the process of change. People create change, not hashtags.
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Ryan Winkler
11/6/2016 08:48:14 pm
Well said. I agree that social media is more of a helpful step to solving global issues, but cannot be given credit for the overall success of any of these movements.
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Emma Stone
11/5/2016 10:52:20 am
Reading both the articles gave me a new look on how social media plays into revolutions. I think social media does and does not have a legitimate impact on change. The reason it does have and impact on change is because everyone now and days are on social media and hear the news. An example that the article used was the challenges people do to raise money or awareness. The reason it doesn't have an impact on change is because not everyone acts out on their beliefs.
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Ben M
11/6/2016 12:52:03 pm
I thought it was very interesting how the first article deemed rebellion and revolution from the masses to be positive. Never in history has revolution by the masses been successful or prosperous; so why does the author believe another outcome will occur through social media?
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Ryan Winkler
11/6/2016 08:44:00 pm
The article "Small Change" was very interesting and had a funny topic. I didn't really find myself in agreement or disagreement with it because the topic is easy to see from both views. Gladwell basically says that protests are not the same as they were in the past, being that many take place digitally and do not represent the feelings of those speaking out like they once did. He has a point because there is no physical representation or presentation of peoples' passion on a subject. However, I also believe that the Internet has helped many political and emotional movements through having the power of many being able to endorse them.
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12/25/2016 11:18:58 am
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3/2/2017 01:12:33 pm
Going to graduate school was a positive decision for me. I enjoyed the coursework, the presentations, the fellow students, and the professors. And since my company reimbursed 100% of the tuition, the only cost that I had to pay on my own was for books and supplies. Otherwise, I received a free master’s degree. All that I had to invest was my time.
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4/22/2017 11:39:41 pm
As with other social networks, if you want to get noticed on Instagram, follow some basic rules such as interacting with other users, posting regularly and adding interesting descriptions to your pictures.
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2/21/2018 11:34:20 am
Only about 22% of the world's population uses the internet as of now. America has the largest percentage of netizens (people who use the internet) followed by Australia at about 60% and Europe at close to 50 %. When we look at the number of people using the Internet, Asia tops the list with about 600 million users, followed by Europe at 385 million users and America including Latin America and the Caribbean total to a trifle less than 400 million.
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