Last time we blogged about Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article on the inability of social media to cause meaningful social change, we linked to a few prominent responses (see: The New York Times, The Atlantic, HuffPo, Beth Kanter’s blog).
There have been many other great discussions around the web, and we wanted to highlight the best of them here:
In case you missed the article, ReadWriteWeb did a great summary of Gladwell’s main argument.
Jonah Lehrer argues that weak ties, like those built though social media channels, build trust among large groups of people. Citing the work of sociologist Mark Granovetter, he explains the importance of weak ties: “While Gladwell argues that the flat hierarchies of online networks are a detriment to effective activism…Granovetter points out that leaders of social movements often depend on weak ties to maintain loyalty. He notes that organizations dominated by strong ties tend to produce fragmentation and cliquishness, which quickly leads to the breakdown of trust.”
At techPresident, Nancy Scola points out that Gladwell’s conception of activism is too rigid Continue reading “Gladwell Round-Up”