Forget what the digirati are saying. Don't expect Twitter and Facebook to create any real social change or revolution. It will create a difference, the question is how much?
Writing in the New Yorker, social commentator Malcolm Gladwell says it's not going to happen and he gives two reasons why. The first is that effective social movements require people to make sacrifices, and the second is that social movements only work when there are strong bonds between the participants. Social networking sites, by contrast, do not require sacrifice and the links between the participants are weak.
Gladwell writes: "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice .. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That's why you can have a thousand "friends" on Facebook, as you never could in real life. This is in many ways a wonderful thing. There is strength in weak ties, as the sociologist Mark Granovetter has observed. Our acquaintances-not our friends-are our greatest source of new ideas and information. The Internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections with marvellous efficiency. It's terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world. But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism."
Gladwell has a point. But then, the beauty of social networks is that governments can't control what's being talked about and potentially, that might hinder abuse of power.
And it can change things. As Ben Popper at the New York Observer says, the rhetoric around social media might be shallow and self serving but it's wrong to imply that a network of weak ties can't accomplish serious change. "One could argue, for example, that social media played a crucial role in electing our first black president, a historic moment in our nation's struggle for equality,'' Popper says.
And that's why corporations are paying close attention to it.
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