say you want to tweet a revolution?
Malcolm Gladwell, in the New Yorker, weighs in today on the social media – revolution debate, asking critical questions to unpack our assumed celebration of social media technologies' contribution to democratic, anti-authoritarian, populist, 'liberation' movements. His point, that revolutions, require committment, and social cohesion amongst their advocates, is important to consider in this debate. We all of course are well aware of the over-hyped, celebratory discussion of Twitter's use within Iran, yet Gladwell astutely points out that most of the Tweets actually came from abroad and were in the English language, which most Iranian dissenters do not speak. Moreover, Gladwell extrapolates that distributed social media technologies support 'weak ties', invoking the classic work of my former mentor at Stanford, brilliant sociologist Mark Granovetter These technologies can scale rapidly because they require little committment (e.g; saying yes to a friend request, 'liking' a page on facebook) versus movements such as those in the civil rights era where there was a sustained committment to a cause that uprooted other life committments, and put the 'committer' potentially in a precarious position. It's easy to conjure up images of protesters being beaten in the civil rights movement, as they were in Iran, and realize that this is a different type of activity than the less intensive tweeting or friend-requesting of someone via a social media site. Gladwell's larger point is that social media technologies generate networks, which are by definition, anti-hierarchical, loosely connected, easily flexible, and resistant to obliteration. Revolutions require not just committment (strong ties) but also hierarchical forms of organization, which are close to impossible in their achievement via networked ecologies.
Here's where Gladwell takes the wrong exit. It's hard for me to think about revolutions without remembering the incredible Battle of Algiers film, which apparently the CIA studied when the government was deciding to take the curious step of invading Afghanistan. The success of the resistance network in Algiers was its horizontal structure. There was no point of centrality that could be attacked to then take down the overall network. Classic studies of effective movements of this sort have been conducted by the Rand Corporation, for example, in their research on Information Wars and Networks. Examples as these show that even if Gladwell is correct in that networks largely lack organization, they certainly are difficult to stifle, as we see throughout history around examples of guerilla, distributed wars.
What is notable in the Algerian example is that this effective movement was not hierarchical, but a coordinated network! And that these networks are actually extremely well organized. Organization and decentralization thus need not be mutually exclusive, though of course in some cases they may be (as did indeed seem to be the case in the iran example as well). Thus, perhaps Gladwell is making the mistake of comparing apples and oranges by contrasting most uses of social media (which are passive, require little commitment and are indeed weak ties) with the committment and organization needed within successful revolutions.
Instead, I would suggest that some elements of social media *can be utilized* to generate and cement ties and coordination between those committed to the revolutionary cause. Moreover, by spreading awareness via weak ties, other social roles can be defined and filled, perhaps by some individuals less strongly committed the cause but important in terms of their positions within the network (hit the 'donate here' button!). This is exactly what my colleague Adam Fish and I uncovered in our analysis of oppositional political bloggers in Kyrgyzstan (Internet Authorship in Kyrgyzstan: Social and Political Implications). We found that while it was not the medium itself that 'tweeted revolution', it did serve a purpose of refining a message and philosophy, and most importantly connecting a small but influential group of activists. It was the strong, not weak ties, associated with social media, that made the difference.
Finally, when considering organization and social roles, it's hard not to mention Wikipedia. What makes Wikipedia continue to thrive and function is not just its ability to tap into weak ties but the smaller set of strong-tied social leaders within the system. Social roles emerge on this site without prior organization, from the contributors who author, to technical editors, to those that fight vandalism.
Social media thus lies at the heart of both sides of the network. It can generate the weak-tied awareness that then enable social roles and associated organization to emerge out of a complex, seemingly disorganized network. Or it can empower a smaller group of coordinated activists to hone their message, cultivate their strategy, and then reach out to larger groups of potential followers. It's clear that while twitter is not 'the message', it still remains a viable social tool that can contribute to politically powerful events.
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Ramesh, I really enjoyed reading this response.
It's interesting to me how much the horizontal model that you connect to 'Battle of Algiers' parallels how Steven Classen describes the civil rights movement in Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles Over Mississippi TV 1955-1969. Classen joined our Civic Engagement research group meeting this morning and suggested that Gladwell is revising history by erasing the horizontal networking that contributed to the civil rights movement.
Looking forward to your upcoming visit to USC! — I think this material would be a great topic for discussion.
It does seem that Gladwell oversimplifies network theory in this article, which is surprising given that in The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference (2000) he demonstrates a fairly solid understanding of networks as complex systems. I agree with your point, Ramesh, that networks can be coordinated and well-organized without being hierarchical. To this point, in the classic article “The structure and function of complex networks” (2003), Mark Newman describes features common to different types of networks, one of which he identifies as community structure. Techniques of cluster analysis may be used to extract the community structure of networks, revealing for example how “software networks might reflect functional units” or how “communities in food webs might reflect subsystems within ecosystems” (Newman, 2003, p. 18). Such functional units or subsystems, which provide meaningful structure in the absence of top-down control, are precisely what allowed the Armée de Libération Nationale to wage a disciplined and effective war. Thus, it seems that Gladwell gets hung in something of a false dilemma by drawing too stark a contrast between hierarchical and non-hierarchical (or centralized and decentralized) networks.
How specifically do you define "revolution," Ramesh? This term can be interpreted in many ways. I believe this would help clarify your argument. Thanks.
Also, the link for the Kyrgyzstan piece yielded a blank page. Would love to see it.
hi David, Actually the Kyrgyz piece does link to the next page. If you look on the next page there is a link to the Kyrgyz article. Feel free to email me at srinivasan@ucla.edu if you’d like the paper.
Also, in terms of revolution- I understand your point about the implicit vagueness. I think the better framing would be around ‘political and social movement’. There’s a lot of good work in social movement theory on this issue.
I enjoyed your post, and just wanted to make a comment. The resistance network in The Battle of Algiers was actually hierarchical.
It was a cellular structure though, so that members of the cell could not with accuracy identify other cells or trace the hierarchy. When a member of the cell was apprehended, remaining members and "upward contacts" could reorganize themselves. It is a popular organizational model for resistance movements of many stripes, and I think it was heavily popularized by the Bolsheviks, and later the Third Internationale. Not exactly hierarchy-free! But certainly organized.
Lt. Colonel Philippe Mathieu lays it out in his briefing, about 58:02 into the movie (The emphasis is mine):
"The only information we have concerns the organization's structure. Let's start from there. It is a pyramid organization made up of a series of sections. These sections, in turn, are made up of triangles. At the apex is the Executive Bureau. The military head of the Executive Bureau finds a competent person and names him section head: No. 1. No. 1 finds two others: nos. 2 and 3. This makes up the first triangle. Now Nos. 2 and 3 each select two men: Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7. The reason for these geometrics is that each organization member knows only three other members: the one who chose him and the two he himself chose. Contact is made only in writing. That's why we don't know our adversaries. Because, in point of fact, they don't know each other."
The solution he employs to defeat it is opportunistically using an attack (or faking one) that creates popular support for massive sweeps and so-called "aggressive interrogation." For another interesting and insightful model of inciting and suppressing rebellion simultaneously in order to steer it, you might want to watch Pontecorvo's other classic, Burn!
This model of organization differs significantly from the concept of the network in 4G war, which heavily depends on contemporary communications technology (in Arquilla and Ronfeldt's case study of the Zapatistas, email and fax) and a unifying ideology (A&R, also John Robb of Global Guerrillas, and Castells). Theirs is not necessarily a technological determinism, but certain technologies play heavily in their hypotheses. One criticism of Arquilla and Ronfeldt's work (The Advent of Netwar, and others) is that "they don't get out much." At the very least I would maintain that their arguments and central ideas simultaneously construct a narrative which reaches its ultimate expression in the right now (providence, through technology), and constructs an historical narrative that is basically ahistorical. For instance, one of their main claims for the "new" nature of network organizations is that these types of organizations existed throughout history but could not be sustained. I think they need to look at histories of High Seas Piracy.
Nevertheless, I think these writers have much to say that is interesting and useful, I just wish they would stop making ahistorical arguments that network organization of this type is unprecedented. I think you would agree that History can help us understand network theory.
One of the main questions is: do networks facilitated by social media result in meaningful social change? The example of the U.S. civil rights movement growing from a relatively small and geographically circumscribed event staged by four individuals with “strong ties” is used to illustrate face-to-face networking. The opposition in this case was clearly identified: A highly visual institutionalized racism based on a visual difference in skin color. It could effectively be confronted by a visual event: four young dark-skinned youths at a whites-only lunch counter. The image was effective in the mass media at the time: television and print media. Gladwell notes the militaristic planning aspect of the civil rights movement — an approach that was logical given the clearly-demarcated sides in the struggle. Images are still effective tools, note the power of the iconic image of an Abu Graib prisoner in black hood etc. and the galvanizing effect that image had on the movement against the Iraq war. In contrast, the huge worldwide protests on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq had no effect on the military actions that followed. Gladwell writes, “Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools.” More to the point, causes are (un)limited — freed up — by the technology available to both sides. The action-reaction, offense-defense paradigm no longer holds absolute sway. Police in US cities exercise a spatial reaction to protests, creating penned-in “protest-zones” for demonstrators and enforcing compliance by mass arrests. Activists’ reaction — the resilient network of social media activism — guarantees a geographically dispersed protest that can ebb and flow, flare up and disappear as needed. No centralized leader(ship) to protect — it is the network that must be kept open. Gladwell also notes that the civil rights participants said the sit-downs, etc. were like a fever and that everyone wanted to go. The recognition and nurturing of this desire to participate is one of the strengths of weak-ties networks. In the face of a more and more monolithic and centralized mass media, social media creates a “place” for the expression of the desire to belong and to participate — even if the visual effect isn’t instantaneously apparent, it does create a framework for action (as in the recent Iranian Green Revolution) with ever-ready and organized potential. This, like the media network itself, can be a flexible and creative force that can’t necessarily be organized in a traditional militaristic way.
I think another important part of his argument, and one underthunk, is about the role of the body. While I agree that a body being beaten is a prime example of commitment, I think that most of us in movements understand that a host of organizing strategies, that support, contextualize, and even theorize bodies on the line are part of any social movement (including violent ones). This is where cultural production links to activism and social networks can supplement or network to bodily movements in just this fashion. To me it is the movement in movement that matters: from body to text to room to internet and back again.