Monday 12 March 2012

According to Malcom Gladwell, a well-known author in the area of social media, social media are built around weak ties and real social change can never come from loose networks of people that do not know each other. Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?



I believe that social media definitely has the potential to bring about real social change, and it already has with the use of social networking sites. It has helped change the way people think about social interactions. Social media has a great way of getting up to date news on important events that happen around the world. When people update their facebook status or tweet about disasters or charities in other countries it brings awareness around the world. 
Many facebook users have a lot of friends and it is just easier to get the word out by sharing or liking a cause than picking up the phone and calling all of your friends. If regular ordinary people use social media in a good way it can bring real change to everyone’s lives. Recently this youtube video called KONY 2012 has brought a lot of attention to the mainstream American social media, in a matter of 48 hours it got over 50 million views. It was a video that inspired millions to fight the cause and donate money to help stop child soldiers in Uganda. Videos like this can just show you how important social media is to us these days and how much it can help. 
Non-Profitable originations use facebook also to get people to ``like`` their cause to get online donations. Many famous celebrities don’t realize how powerful social media is and how they can also use it to help out. By using twitter they can post a link and millions of their followers can see and raise awareness to really make a change. Obviously social media can bring negative effects to how people view life by posting bad reviews or talking rubbish, but if we use it the right way we can all make a difference for a better community.