According to Malcom Gladwell, a well-known author in the area of social media, social media are built around weak ties and real social change can never come from loose networks of people that do not know each other. Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?
I disagree with Mr. Gladwell, I think the main potential and ability of social media is communication, the ability to communicate ideas across to a variety of people. In this facet, social media is irreplaceable for social reform, especially to the average user who has an idea and a passion to share it and raise awareness. Let me be clear, social media can bring about social change by allowing someone or an organization to instantly reach an audience of millions who, if they so choose to, can carry on the message through their networks of contacts. Therefore social media is able to achieve it's purpose and potential by allowing awareness to be created for social problems.
The foremost example to illustrate my point would be the "KONY2012" campaign which aims to spread it's message of grassroots lobbying to capture a known and wanted war criminal in the Uganda/Sudan area. Clearly this demonstrates the far-reaching abilities of social media to affect and spread ideas, with the video reaching 17 million views within a week and getting support from celebrities and politicians who were carefully targeted by the organization to allow for their message to reach bigger audiences. In conclusion social media is able to bring about social change by putting into effect the spreading of ideas which then can contribute to real world change.
