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To his credit, Malcolm Gladwell has opened a critical space of discussion in the media and blogosphere in his latest New Yorker article, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted.”.

I won’t detail all his arguments leading to the conclusion that, compared to the merits of face to face communication, activism on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter is very poor activism indeed. There are already many terrific critiques of the article, such as Ken Kambara’s.

I would simply add to this discussion that in constructing his views, Gladwell has forgotten about the findings of his first book, The Tipping Point, which taught us much about the nature of viral epidemics and influence in society. In a section of the book, for instance, Gladwell demonstrates how one type of person critical to such epidemics, “Connectors,” have an amazing ability to make social connections and act as a source of social power/glue by having so many mere acquaintances and “weak ties” in their networks. Before even questioning Gladwell’s notion of weak ties (I again refer you to Kambara, who discusses “multiplex” ties, etc.), surely social media have at least a) amplified the ability of Connectors to continue doing what they do best, and b) created forums for these kinds of Tipping Point ties–the likes of which the world has never seen before. There’s lots of other relevant points from Gladwell’s book, like his discussions of academic diffusion models, which could have been applied and updated to the context of social media.

All in all, though it’s only been nine years, we shouldn’t forget “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.”

This blog post is part of a series on Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article on how social activism during the Civil Rights era is categorically different from activism using social media. Malcolm Gladwell’s controversial piece in this week’s New Yorker is shaking things up, as he’s advocating that social media doesn’t lend itself well to social activism. He cites examples of how social media only fosters surface-level, low-commitment actions based on weak ties and that social movements, like those pushing for civil rights, require hierarchies. I disagree. Others have, as well, as John Hudson has compiled over on The Atlantic. I’ll focus on Gladwell’s take on weak ties in this post, which I find problematic due to his sweeping generalizations of ties and their potential in guiding everyday life. The Nature of Ties Gladwell claims that social media fosters weak ties::

“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.”

Others have critiqued this by stating that social media tools {like Twitter and Facebook} can foster more than weak ties. Network structures are combinations of both weak and strong ties. The organizational research of Brian Uzzi at Northwestern {see image above} found that there are dangers of being overembedded {too many strong ties leading to insularity} and being underembedded {too many weak  or arms-length ties leading to a lacking of social structure}. Gladwell’s critique on this front hinges upon characterizing all networks as underembedded networks. There’s another issue here, which is the content of the tie. Ties can be characterized as strong or weak, but they can also be multiplex, i.e., representing a complex relationship that has more than one channel. For example, a tie can be characterized by flows of different types of capital, e.g., social, economic, political, etc., with varying degrees of strength. Social media campaigns can and do tap into networks and use people’s multiplex ties to increase engagement. Hearing about an issue through someone in your network is often more persuasive than from media and advertising, so there’s great potential here, but going from a social media campaign to action, let alone social change, is far from automatic.

My next post will address the issue of motivation and social media. Gladwell doesn’t think social media motivates people, but drives participation. I question this puzzling sweeping generalization.

“Call Me Maybe,” the song of the summer, is the latest example of the music world being flipped on its head. Rather than emerging from the major-label promotion machine, its success was built through social media. So, goes this story in today’s New York Times.

Let’s hold aside for a second the holes in the the Times’ narrative. Nevermind that “Call Me Maybe” was promoted by industry-men, like Justin Bieber and Jimmy Fallon (as the story acknowledges). Nevermind that plenty of hits of the past have “trickled up” from the streets (Gladwell’s “The Coolhunt” describes that process well). Nevermind that many songs and artists have gained fame via social media in the past (as a case study in the risks of this, see Lana Del Rey’s SNL appearance). Nevermind that “Call Me Maybe” is about as conventional a pop song as there is (it’s not as if stereos on the beach are blasting Riceboy Sleeps this summer).

What the NYT has right is that “Call Me Maybe” is a powerful example of the fact that hits no longer have to come from the music industry. Social media offers an alternative pathway to success. In William and Denise Bielby’s classic (1994) work, “‘All Hits Are Flukes’: Institutionalized Decision Making and the Rhetoric of Network Prime-Time Program Development,” they argue that decisionmakers in the culture industries believe that it is impossible to predict which TV show, movie, or song will be come a hit. In this uncertain context, they make fairly conservative decisions that aim to reproduce past success (e.g., hiring established stars, making sequels, recording predictable three minute ditties, etc.).

In many ways, the “Call Me Maybe,” a-hit-can-come-from-anywhere model reaffirms the idea that “all hits are flukes” and may lead the music industry to revisit their assumptions. On the other hand, based on the Bielby’s work, we might speculate that the music industry will simply try to reproduce the success of “Call Me Maybe” by developing more aggressive social media promotion campaigns. There are some potential tie-ins here to my good buddy Ed Walker’s work on “Grass-Roots Mobilization, by Corporate America”. Just as trade industries and corporations attempt to reproduce “authentic” protest campaigns, we should look carefully for the corporate hand at work in the next big social media popstar.

James Fallows has an insightful article in the Atlantic how President Obama’s personality traits contributed to some of the challenges he has confronted in his first (and perhaps only term). Among these personality traits, Fallows reports on an aloofness that inhibits the president’s ability to form a wide network of friends (ala Bill Clinton’s famous FOB’s — Friends of Bill). Hence this president has a small network of friends from which to draw advice. As Fallows notes:

Like Clinton and unlike George W. Bush, Barack Obama is said to be a night owl. But in the wee hours, Clinton would be on the phone, playing cards with friends, gabbing about history and politics, or doing anything else that involved live human company. Obama is more likely to be spending time with papers or a book, or even to be online—prowling through the same blogs and news sites as the rest of us, which is somehow unnerving given a president’s otherwise total cocooning from the daily details of shopping, driving, waiting, in ordinary Americans’ lives.

Hence, Bill Clinton was/is a hub of his social network. A connector that builds a broad base of relationships he can then draw upon.

This makes me wonder how Bill Clinton would fare if he had social media at his disposal. Instead of a rolodex, he might have had thousands of Facebook friends (Dunbar number be dammed)!  This raises an interesting question about whether high intensity social network politicians might actually be better at governing.  One way Fallows claims Obama’s aloofness or inability to form broad based networks harms him is in staff selection.  Fallows finds a number of Democratic insiders complaining about the quality of the “talent” surrounding the president:

 Shortly after William Daley, himself the son and brother of Chicago mayors, succeeded Emanuel in the White House, he came to Obama with his initial report. You are reeling, he said—stating the obvious after the Republican surge. Part of the problem is that the team around you is not good enough. To raise your game, you have to surround yourself with the best people available. There have to be changes.

Obama thought about it, and reportedly called Daley back in a few days later. “I like my team,” he said. “I am comfortable with who I have around me. Just so there’s no miscommunication, I’m saying that I like this team.” (The White House declined to comment on the episode.)

“The people he is most ‘comfortable’ with have the same limits of experience he does,” a veteran political figure told me. “An emotional reliance on people who are good people, and smart, but simply not A-plus players—it’s a limit.” These discussions often revolve around the central role of Valerie Jarrett in the Obamas’ professional and social lives. Her supporters say that she is the one friend they can truly trust; her detractors say that her omnipresence illustrates the narrowness of the president’s contacts.

I’m not sure I buy this since it’s hard to determine who has “a level” talent, but this is an area of inquiry I haven’t yet seen. Is it possible that social media makes you better at governing by enabling you to build a broad based network? I’m still partial to the idea of a president reading briefing books until late into the night rather than playing poker with buddies, but that might be my own tempermental and professional biases peeking through.

This NYTimes article brings up some interesting questions about hacktivism and whether or not it’s a form of protest. I think for many, it’s hard to be sympathetic to the LulzSec/Anonymous crowd with their taunts and adolescent antics, but the idea that many of these young people echo protesters of the 60s who may have been naïve in their understanding of the gravitas of their actions. More interesting to me is how LulzSec and hacktivism can develop into a social movement, tapping into youthful angst in the current zeitgeist in this era of diminished expectations in the West.

I’ve been thinking about LulzSec as a social movement that uses social media to tell the tale of their exploits and get the word out. Last year, Malcom Gladwell asserted that social media takes away from real social change, fostering a lazy form of “one click” activism::

“The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.”

Gladwell was unmoved by the events of the Arab spring, remaining skeptical of social media’s impact. I think what’s missing isn’t just the content of the communication, but the meaning of it and what it does to people psychologically. Social media can be empowering, creating {dare I say} tipping points from social contagion. In other words, people seeing large numbers supporting a cause acting as a motivator that goes beyond low commitment acts.

Hacktivism has a draw as a counterculture, given it’s a movement {evident in social media} and has the objective of pushing back on the power structures—often with adolescent churlishness. Perhaps the computer makes the seduction easier, since one doesn’t have to go outside and don a balaclava. Consequences seem remote, akin to the pirating of IP. In the Times article, Professor Spafford of Purdue was skeptical that the arrests last weeks will make a difference::

“A whole bunch of people were angry, they didn’t really think about whether it was legal or not. It never entered their minds. This was kind of the equivalent of a spontaneous street protest, where they may have been throwing rocks through windows but never thought that was against the law or hurting anybody.”

The allure is empowerment through destruction for a cause. It isn’t all destruction, though. The legal targeting of PayPal in a boycott, due to not allowing Wikileaks to collect donations, will be interesting to watch. While it may not result in any real change, it may be part of a meaning system that attracts more followers and emboldens them, perhaps in the spirit of a Palahniukian Fight Club.

While the Toronto G20 protests serve to remind us that even lawful assembly can get you locked up, I wonder if in the wake of that, counterculture activists are rethinking their strategies. Will there be an allure of civil disobedience behind a proxy IP? Disrupting the communication technologies we’ve all grown reliant on, in order to bring attention to their cause or block the powerful’s media access through denial of service attacks.

I think it’s early days to make any statements about whether or not social media is a bust when it comes to social movements. I don’t think there is a restriction on what types of activities can be fostered with social media, so the beliefs that it cannot spawn anything requiring commitment and that it takes away from “real” social movements seems premature. While hacktivism may seem distasteful, I feel it can develop into a decentralized counter culture movement that delights in destroying the house of cards of data we’re all dependent upon.

I’ll leave you with two thoughts. It will be hard for governments to control the activities of people, particularly as computer security knowledge diffuses and when there are sufficiently large numbers of people acting together simultaneously or relentlessly. The former narrows the information asymmetry between user and law enforcement and the latter is contagion overwhelming the order. We live in interesting times.

Canada is in the midst of a federal election and you can read posts covering it by myself on r h i z o m i c o n and Impolitical on our respective blogs. Lorne Gunter in the National Post is mad as hell and he’s not taking it anymore. His beef? All of this social media in politics hoopla::

“Oh, please, spare me. Social media – services such as Twitter and Facebook – are not going to swing the current federal election away from the Tories and in favour of the Liberals, NDP or Green party, no matter how much anti-Harper activists and reporters wish they could.”

While he acknowledges that social media is a useful tool, he’s also making sweeping generalizations about their effects::

“But they don’t win or lose elections on their own (or pull off Middle Eastern revolutions), no matter how much social media devotees in newsrooms and elsewhere claim they do.”

He seems particularly perturbed by the shitharperdid website and this supposedly gushing Vancouver Sun article.

“The Vancouver Sun story claims 2 million web surfers quickly hit on the www.shitharperdid.ca site. Great, so they went to a site run by like-minded lefties and had their prejudices confirmed. Whoopee.”

He drifts into a Malcolm Gladwell argument that social media promotes just “one click activism” and doesn’t really engender any real persuasion. Here on ThickCulture, we have discussed Malcolm Gladwell’s downplaying and concerns about social media in the social activism arena, here, here, and here.

Lorne argues that social media campaigns are largely ineffectual, citing anti-prorogation and strategic voting efforts. Then, he loses it and goes off on Harper Derangement Syndrome as the latest manifestation of a leftist affliction along the lines of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Well, the left has no monopoly on demonizing the other side.

The problem with Lorne’s analysis is his narrow definition of success and assumption that social media merely preaches to the converted. There are three things wrong with what he’s saying:

1. It assumes a narrow definition of efficacy
2. It ignores the “mere exposure” effect
3. It ignores the marketing concept of “segmentation”

Efficacy

Gunter suggests that social media doesn’t win elections on their own, but nobody is really advocating that they are. Naheed Nenshi, the Calgary mayor whose campaign last fall was attributed to the use of social media notes that his campaign was based on ideas. Social media helped to personalize his campaign to make it salient to voters. I don’t think Gunter would quibble with this, but I think he underestimates the effects of content that “preaches to the converted” and the persuasive effects of content that goes viral.

When the March 2007 anti-Hillary Clinton Vote Different video went viral {posted by a designer who worked for the firm that designed Obama’s website}, Obama’s polling numbers didn’t budge. Guess what? That month, his contributions did, quite considerably. My point being is that the effects of social media may not be straightforward and political strategy needs to take account of this. The preaching to the base aspect of social media that Gunter views as a waste of time can help a campaign motivate its loyals and turn them into activists. Social media can also increase the exposure and salience of a party, which segues into the next issue.

The “Mere Exposure” Effect

Decades ago, social psychologist Robert Zajonc found that people can be persuaded to have positive inferences about an object {or brand, party, or candidate} through increased exposure. So, controlling for aesthetics and other source material and content characteristics, Zajonc found that increasing exposure leads to higher favourable attitudes. In effect, a “familiarity breeds contentment” route to persuasion that doesn’t require any real substance to the content. This explains how the ubiquity of Starbucks builds the brand with relatively little advertising. Social media can have the same effect. Anti-Harper sites can persuade by just going viral and entering into voter consciousness. The challenge is cutting through the clutter to get that exposure, i.e., coming up with something that resonates and goes viral.

Segmentation: It’s the Young Voters, Stupid

A big topic this election is the youth vote. The 2008 turnout for those 18-24 was 37%, compared to 58% overall, a historic low. Interestingly, some view this as likely to worsen, as prevailing attitudes deem voting as a choice rather than a duty [Also, see StatCan 2005 pdf youth voting/civic engagement report]. The youth vote is a prime target of sites like shitharperdid.ca and the youth…have more of a tendency to not vote Conservative. Getting the youth mobilized, along the lines of the Rock the Vote campaign in 1992, is tricky business that cannot be easily replicated. Nevertheless, sites targeting the youth aren’t necessarily “one-click activism” that has no effect.

It’s About Engagement

At the end of the day, engagement matters. I think it’s the height of arrogance for Gunter to state that social media cannot swing the federal election. I’m curious what Gunther’s thoughts are on the Conservative Party’s efforts to use the web and social media to scare voters about how there “might” be an iPod tax with false claims that IP expert Michael Geist has debunked.

The A Channel news in Victoria gets it, as does NDP Leader Jack Layton who used the Twitter term “#fail” {hashtag fail} in the English debates last week::

The idea that social media can increase youth engagement of “square” politics through sites young people use and help to make politics less intimidating are part of the democratizing potential of the web.

Watch while you can. Al Jazeera English is being streamed, but a media clampdown may shut it down. Police are said to be on the way to the Al Jazeera office. A 6PM local time curfew is impending.  Currently, a social media expert is explaining the overlap between Internet activists and protests. Take that, Malcolm Gladwell.

Updates::

I saw this article by Thomas Roche linked to on Twitter, where he finds the genesis of the cartoon character-end child abuse meme. He doesn’t like how the meme, which started as celebrating an artform, took on a life of its own by morphing into the support of a specific cause. It sounds like he’s pretty peeved::

“Such epic asshattery is a the confluence of good-natured light-hearted celebration and rampant, infectious shallowness. It cheapens the cause of child abuse prevention and, just as importantly, it draws a connection between comic books/cartoons and childhood, where none should exist.”

He goes on to criticize how this One Click Activism doesn’t really do anything, which echoes Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change” critique of social media social activism [see criticisms of Gladwell’s article on this blog here]. Both Gladwell and Roche take a dim view of these “consciousness raising” efforts because they do precious little “real” work as diversions. Gladwell sees identity-driven social activism as being at cross purposes with the more hierarchically organized variant::

“It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.”

While Roche wants to shame everyone participating in what he sees as a shallow, identity-feeding enterprise::

“But Facebook Activism isn’t just stupid; it’s dangerous. It convinces people that doing next to nothing is actually better than doing nothing at all. And you know what? It’s not. If it’s better to light one candle than curse the darkness, is it the same, but less of a hassle, to just call up a photo of a candle on your iPhone? Seriously. Ask yourself. Is that the kind of person you want to be? Someone who can’t even be bothered to strike a match?”

I disagree.

First, I think a lot of naysaying regarding social movements has everything to do with discontent, simmering in the zeitgeist of these times in North America. The federal parties in Canada are lucky to get support of 30% of voters and many in the US are disillusioned with Obama’s promise of change and the Tea Partiers are advocating their own variant that isn’t necessarily in synch with the Republicans. I feel the Gladwell and Roche articles resonate with those skeptics who are critical of what they see as feel-good do-goodery.

Could there be something to these criticisms? After all, what is the point of just getting people to slap an image on their profiles.

The problem with this discontent is that it’s based on a zero-sum mentality and a conjecture that none of it matters, as opposed to the possibility that some of it might matter—a lot. The zero-sum angle assumes that these efforts are taking the wind out of the sails of more concrete efforts. I think these are apples and oranges. The attention received by being a meme that goes viral may seem like a bunch of wasted effort, but a more useful way to see this is that it raises consciousness and may motivate key people to do more organizing or mobilize resources in this direction. Is this likely? Maybe not in most cases and causes, but it’s a possibility and and a possibility borne out of the power of the Internet. In fact, I would argue that with Web 3.0 that the gaps between memes, activism, and results will be narrowed. So, pissing on the idea categorically is premature.

On my r h i z o m i c o n blog,  this post on Nestlé’s handling of social media criticism and attacks on Facebook for their use of palm oil in Kit-Kat bars shows how activism interfaces with corporations. In this facepalm tale of corporate woe, social media and the old guard media {OGM} converged to raise awareness of the issue that palm oil destroys wildlife habitat. Nestlé allegedly altered its practices due to activist pressures, so while the corporation was touting a greener approach to palm oil, Greenpeace wasn’t buying it due to practices of an Indonesian supplier, Sinar Mas, and an anti-Nestlé, anti-Kit-Kat video was circulated and hammered with—wait for it—copyright infringement. Did it matter that people were changing their Facebook profile images and posting critical comments on Nestlé’s Facebook wall? Nestlé thought so and requested users to stop doing it.

I’m not buying the arguments that social media activism merely feeds the ego or is dangerous because it takes efforts away from more real endeavours. I’m of the mind that if it increases awareness through resonance and meaning and increases motivation by just a fraction of those touched by a meme, it’s far from useless or dangerous.

Roche is seeking a stronger connection between the meme and outcomes. I can appreciate that, but when he expresses his frustration with the government and the public regarding the social ill of child abuse, his argument turns into what I see as an elitist political treatise::

“Do you want to know why kids are being abused in the United States? Because no system exists to prevent them from being abused. Do you want to know why no system exists to prevent kids from being abused? Because some very vocal Americans seem to spend much of their time being terrified that some kid somewhere who’s not their kid will get something for free, up to and including a life without abuse.

Violence against children has been endemic throughout all societies. We in the Western world had a chance, last century, to make great strides toward eliminating it. We chose to fight wars, cut school lunches, privatize national parks and pay lower taxes instead. As a result, we march into a new decade in which the kids of the world are as helpless as ever.

And legions of people out there are exactly upset enough about that to upload an image of Danger Mouse.”

I think this makes huge assumptions about anyone supporting the meme. Maybe it’s cynical of me to take issue with him on the grounds that my take is that he doesn’t get or doesn’t like how the mobilizing of the masses works. It works by making a cause “cool”, e.g., Obama 2008, and if you’re fighting something that’s cool, you need to make it uncool, e.g., adding social stigma to smoking. I say cynical, as it pretty much means that we as a society are often driven by what’s cool—or at least by things that resonate with us through meaning, no matter now tangential it is to anything “real”.

Twitterversion:: Is the attack on the cartoon-child abuse Facebook meme warranted or does Thomas Roche just not get the big picture here? @ThickCulture @Prof_K

Social media have been getting employees in hot water {remember the Cisco Fatty meme and the suspension of a professor for Facebook updates expressing frustration} and even candidates for office cannot escape the wayback machine glimpse into one’s past. I don’t think the “culture of optics” is a good thing and while before the advent of social media it was easier to control content, that is no longer the case without having a chilling effect on free speech.

The National Labor Relations Board has now ruled that a the Connecticut firm, American Medical Response, illegally fired an employee, Dawnmarie Souza, for criticizing her supervisor on Facebook, engaging in online conversations with others workers. Acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon , for the board announced::

“It’s the same as talking at the water cooler…The point is that employees have protection under the law to talk to each other about conditions at work.”

While many of the finger-waggers might think Souza et al. were engaging in a workplace facepalm moment and should expect negative consequences, the fact of the matter is that labour laws protect workers when discussing their jobs and working conditions, whether unionized or not. While Malcolm Gladwell may disagree, social media may provide an avenue for increased activism, including labour activism, which may be an issue if the economy remains in the doldrums and high unemployment creates a “buyers market” for labour.

Social media creates challenges for organizations to maintain their brand in an era of instantaneous and decentralized communications that can foster multiple dialogues outside of the control of the organization. These dialogues make the organization more transparent and can increase goodwill and trust. In fact, I would argue that the challenge of many organizations is to communicate both trust and competence with their stakeholders and social media can foster both.

What I think is going to happen is that organizations are going to continue surveillance of employees and focus on more rigorous screening at hiring. This won’t eliminate the thorny issue of what to do when social media fosters conversations that the organization doesn’t want to have or isn’t prepared for…which is why transparency’s a bitch.

Twitterversion:: [blog] Thoughts on NLRB ruling stating worker complaining about supervisor on Facebook was illegally fired. @ThickCulture @Prof_K

Maclom Gladwell searches for an activist Facebook in his recent New Yorker piece. Guess what? He doesn’t find it. Gladwell isnot the first person to make the observation that Facebook and other social networking platforms are of limited effectiveness in promoting activism. Evegny Morozov makes the important observation that the ease with which Facebook users can express support for a cause and feel they have taken action on that cause inhibits, rather than promotes, social activism.

I think these social critics are setting up a digital straw man. Facebook, for instance, serves other important political purposes that might not have direct, identifiable effect upon social policy. In my own recent work on Facebook political groups, I find that many of them are created with no specific activist purpose. Often, these groups seem simply to be a site to “park” political views in a place with access to thousands of sympathetic eyeballs. I argue that many individuals use Facebook to perform political identity in a venue that allows them to try on different political selves in a nomynous (not anonymous) venue. This means that individuals are performing a “public” political identity. For many of them this might be the only place they feel comfortable expressing this voice. Those who aren’t good communicators, disabled, low income or otherwise inhibited from participating in political activism can use Facebook as a semi-autonomous space to proclaim their political self.

Rather than see it as the savior of global politics, we should see Facebook as one more site where individuals can development their political voice. It’s often not a voice that we necessarily want developed. There is a great deal of nativist, racist, sexist and homophobic voice development on-line. But as a space, Facebook and other SNS sites allow the development of humanist/transformational voices. It is not an activist training ground, but rather a “third space” for cultivating political identity.

For us, the trick should be transforming these performative identity spaces into deliberative, cross cutting spaces. This requires theorizing digital citizenship to include cross-cutting dialogue as an essential component. In a paper I presented at the Western Political Science Association annual conference last year, I made the case that we should be training young people in a digital citizenship that includes stressing the importance of what Susan Bickford called “the politics of attention” or including the voiceless as be part of public conversations. Listening to the other through what Diana Mutz calls cross-cutting dialogue is critical in helping individuals developed textured, vetted and more nuanced voices in public dialogue.