Should we Tweet the Revolution?

In his essay, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, Malcolm Gladwell talks about social media platforms and how they influence masses of people. Even though social media platforms can cause massive change, Gladwell says that social media wouldn’t have been successful in the civil rights movement, as compared to the example that he gives about donating bone marrow.

                Out of the 3 different appeals that we learned (Logos, Pathos, and Ethos), I think that Gladwell has good ethos when he’s writing this essay. Ethos is the author’s appeal and how we see him and I think that Gladwell does a good job doing that. On page 312, we see a little short biography of Malcom Gladwell where it says that he’s a writer for the New Yorker, has written 3 books, and was one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. Just within these few sentences we see that he’s very accomplished and successful.

                Outside of this short paragraph, Gladwell uses Ethos, right at the start by giving a historical example of the Woolworth’s sit-in. Besides the Woolworth’s sit-in, Gladwell also cites multiple writers and scholars throughout his essay. One of the first people that Gladwell cites is Golnaz Esfandiari from Foreign Policy, where she stated that despite what some say, there was not a twitter revolution during the 2009 Iranian presidential election. This contributes to his argument because Gladwell believes that social media platforms don’t really contribute to revolutions of this scale, while Esfandiari says that since many Americans were the ones tweeting it didn’t really make a difference in Iran.

                Gladwell cites another source that helps build his ethos. Gladwell cites Doug McAdam on page 318, where McAdam brings up the “Strong-tie” concept that was prevalent during the civil rights movement. This was because activist had strong personal connections to the civil rights movement, as opposed to today’s social media platforms where people’s online friends can closely resemble acquaintances in real life. This contributes to his ethos because it shows that this strengthens his argument by saying that social media would not work in a civil rights movement type of revolution.

                In the 3^rd and last part where I think Gladwell builds his ethos is when he shows that social media can make a difference, when he uses the example from The Dragonfly Effect about the bone marrow transplant on page 320. Gladwell says that because there were low stakes in what was being asked of the people on social media (bone marrow testing) more people participated and spread the message to all of their followers. This helps because this example is not a “strong-tie” like the civil rights movement, but a “weak tie” movement, which is what Gladwell believes that social media was made for.

                Overall, Gladwell has good ethos in this essay because he constantly brings up different examples to support his argument from different sources to show that he is knowledgeable in the subject.