The People's Power
Clay Shirky in the article The Political Power of Social Media talks about how much power people can have through the wonders of social media. With the discovery of Web 2.0 people have now been given the opportunity to give impactfull feed back to various kinds of different decisions, be it political or business positions and promotions.
This is not just power, this is the ultimately power. Power that could change a president or rules and regulations. This is exactly what happened in the Middle East, in the Philippines and right here next door in Madison.
But is this really impactfull. Or is it more like the soda bottle that pops open after shaking and dies out in less than a minute. Yes its not easy to gather people who have the same passion for a problem, but can they really find a solution?
So Malcolm Gladwell raises the same question in the article From Innovation to Revolution. He says " just because innovations in communications technology happen does not mean that they matter". So is there a problem that needs solving? He says that innovation did not make this power possible. Which is true. People still had protests going on since before the dot com bubble. But what Shirky is saying that it didn't make it possible but rather faster and made it increase the volume to a point where it made the officials take quick reactions.
Where do I stand in between all this- I think I would tend to be on Shirky's side for the most part. Yes it made the volume of the people increase but still think that it doesn't solve problems. I think its like a wound that's opened up to bleed again and the someone put a quick band aid to fix it in the short term.
Here is an interesting video http://bigpeace.com/elcid/2011/02/23/middle-east-unrest-how-social-media-left-the-msm-in-the-dust/
This is not just power, this is the ultimately power. Power that could change a president or rules and regulations. This is exactly what happened in the Middle East, in the Philippines and right here next door in Madison.
But is this really impactfull. Or is it more like the soda bottle that pops open after shaking and dies out in less than a minute. Yes its not easy to gather people who have the same passion for a problem, but can they really find a solution?
So Malcolm Gladwell raises the same question in the article From Innovation to Revolution. He says " just because innovations in communications technology happen does not mean that they matter". So is there a problem that needs solving? He says that innovation did not make this power possible. Which is true. People still had protests going on since before the dot com bubble. But what Shirky is saying that it didn't make it possible but rather faster and made it increase the volume to a point where it made the officials take quick reactions.
Where do I stand in between all this- I think I would tend to be on Shirky's side for the most part. Yes it made the volume of the people increase but still think that it doesn't solve problems. I think its like a wound that's opened up to bleed again and the someone put a quick band aid to fix it in the short term.
Here is an interesting video http://bigpeace.com/elcid/2011/02/23/middle-east-unrest-how-social-media-left-the-msm-in-the-dust/
I liked your commented on the soda bottle. I agree that there's so much drama at first but then it just disappears. Did the "drama" make a difference? Depends. Sometimes it seems people speak up about things that are not always important.
ReplyDeleteps. I like your font on here :)