There is a controversy ongoing about the role of social networks in the recent movements and revolutions in the Arab world.
Everybody agrees that social networks played an important role, but was it decisive? In other words, would these revolutions have happened without social networks?
Refer to this article “Is Social Networking Useless for Social Change? A Response to The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell” to get a sense of the controversy.
My opinion is that Malcolm Gladwell is still in the Industrial Age mindset that expected a group of people to get together to broadcast something to society. Today we are beyond this. We don’t need a small group of people to devise something intelligent and broadcast it as a platform for social change. Everybody is exchanging and coordinating together on social networks and that creates the fertile ground of social change. And governments that are still in the broadcast-control mode will be swept away by the wave of change. Because the control of broadcasting, which was the foundation of power, is now obsolete.
What do you think about this controversy?
