I decided to type in social change into a google search to see what I got. I stumbled across a plethora of TED talks. TED talks offer a large amount of information from specialist all over the world on different issues. There were about 100 different videos on different social change issues. The one that caught my eye was Zeynep Tufekci’s talk on online social change movements. In our commentary it explains about social change research and whether or not this particular research could be taken as good or bad. Tufekci talks about how social change is not spread and organized online and how it was implemented before the technology age.
I thought this video was interesting because it goes back to our communication through email paper and communication in general in applied social psychology. Tufekci talks about the civil rights movement back in the 1950’s and how quickly work spread of a protest and there was no social media available. When Rosa Parks was arrested word spread within two days of the arrest by pamphlets that were handed out by different civil rights groups. Pamphlets used to be the main form of social communication when the internet wasn’t around. Pamphlets helped spread ideals of the rebels before and during the American Revolution. Now we can use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram ect. . . Tufekci then goes on to explain how protests can start within a matter of hours due to today’s social media. She uses Turkey as her primary example on multiple occasions.
So which one is more effective? Today’s social change or pre-internet era social change? I would argue that they have strengths and weaknesses. Modern social media can provide speed while old school pamphlets can facilitate organization. With modern social media thousands of people get information in a matter of seconds and along the way information can change just as quick. With pamphlets and paper there is no room for miscommunication since there is only one shot at organizing something.
An important part of social research is how it is spread. In different countries news outlets are completely controlled by the government hence why social media has become so important with social change because the governments cannot control what is posted on Facebook and the others now they can block these sites and or block internet access. Again, this goes back to how important communication is and how we communicate is also important.