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Parycek

SMALL CHANGE Why the revolution will not be tweeted - 2 views

www.newyorker.com/...101004fa_fact_gladwell

socialmedia socialnetworking socialnetworks activism facebook Gladwell

shared by Parycek on 28 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coördinate, and give voice to their concerns
  • There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. “Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”
  • The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. 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.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • “Social networks are particularly effective at increasing motivation,”
  • But that’s not true. Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires
  • social media are not about this kind of hierarchical organization. Facebook and the like are tools for building networks, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies. Unlike hierarchies, with their rules and procedures, networks aren’t controlled by a single central authority. Decisions are made through consensus, and the ties that bind people to the group are loose.
  • There are many things, though, that networks don’t do well. Car companies sensibly use a network to organize their hundreds of suppliers, but not to design their cars.
  • The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the network isn’t interested in systemic change—if it just wants to frighten or humiliate or make a splash—or if it doesn’t need to think strategically. But if you’re taking on a powerful and organized establishment you have to be a hierarchy.
  • it is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability
  • Parycek on 13 Dec 10
     
    Twitter, Facebook, and social activism : The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell
thinkahol *

The myth of Obama's "blunders" and "weakness" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

The myth of Obama's blunders and weakness - Glenn Greenwald Salon.com

shared by thinkahol * on 03 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 03 Aug 11
     
    Even when the President repeatedly says he wants severe budget cuts, many refuse to believe him
thinkahol *

Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...index.html

Obama's bad negotiating is actually shrewd negotiating - Glenn Greenwald Salon.com

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Apr 11
     
    In December, President Obama signed legislation to extend hundreds of billions of dollars in Bush tax cuts, benefiting the wealthiest Americans. Last week, Obama agreed to billions of dollars in cuts that will impose the greatest burden on the poorest Americans. And now, virtually everyone in Washington believes, the President is about to embark on a path that will ultimately lead to some type of reductions in Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid benefits under the banner of "reform." Tax cuts for the rich -- budget cuts for the poor -- "reform" of the Democratic Party's signature safety net programs -- a continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies and a new Middle East war launched without Congressional approval. That's quite a legacy combination for a Democratic President. All of that has led to a spate of negotiation advice from the liberal punditocracy advising the President how he can better defend progressive policy aims -- as though the Obama White House deeply wishes for different results but just can't figure out how to achieve them. Jon Chait, Josh Marshall, and Matt Yglesias all insist that the President is "losing" on these battles because of bad negotiating strategy, and will continue to lose unless it improves. Ezra Klein says "it makes absolutely no sense" that Democrats didn't just raise the debt ceiling in December, when they had the majority and could have done it with no budget cuts. Once it became clear that the White House was not following their recommended action of demanding a "clean" vote on raising the debt ceiling -- thus ensuring there will be another, probably larger round of budget cuts -- Yglesias lamented that the White House had "flunked bargaining 101." Their assumption is that Obama loathes these outcomes but is the victim of his own weak negotiating strategy. I don't understand that assumption at all. Does anyone believe that Obama and his army of veteran Washington advisers are incapable of discovering these tactics on th
Johann Höchtl

Why Dunbar's Number is Irrelevant | Social Media Today - 0 views

www.socialmediatoday.com/...169132

dunbar number SNS irrelevant facebook twitter

shared by Johann Höchtl on 29 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Dunbar's number it basically says that the most amount of people that you can maintain stable social relationships with is 150
  • Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
  • Morten Hansen's fantastic book on Collaboration in which he states that the real value of collaboration and of networks doesn't come from strong relationships and networks but from weak one's. 
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