Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites would not exist without the people who are apart of them. We, as the contributors to these sites, make these sites worth joining and reading. I feel that with this weeks reading that social networking can contribute a lot to riots and protests. Facebook and Twitter make is so easy to get a message out to a large population efficiently and quickly. With these events and groups it is likely that people will show up and there will be protest. It is crazy how much power that not only the internet but new media can have on the world.
'that these digital tools are simply, well, tools, and social change continues to involve many painstaking, longer-term efforts to engage with political institutions and reform movements.' (Morozov, 2011) I agree with Morozov as he acknowledges that these digital tools, even though they are simply tools, do play a part in orchestrating massive events such as protests and riots. Like I said earlier, without the people contributing to social networking sites, there would be nothing on there. Why wouldn't you use these sights to easily let everybody know what is happening. People all around the world has access to this and the sharing of links makes it like a digital word of mouth (which we all know is a very effective way of sharing information).
As we talked about Arab Springs in the lecture, I do believe that without social networking, this wouldn't of been able to be achieved so easily. Social networking is engaging and people are interested in the information that is posted on there by other people in society.
What is more effective? One person protesting an issue or a mass group of people? Obviously the massive group is going to draw more attention and be taken more seriously as it is evident how many people are actually effected by the issue that is being protested. The internet is the best way to accumulate these massive amounts of people and without social networking the results just wouldn't be achieved.
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