Some people are having a debate about whether social media are playing an important role in political unrest in the Middle East. Two of the people involved in the debate share the goal of being important public thinkers, so the issue is getting more attention than it should. But if you’re still reading, here’s the score.
First, Malcolm Gladwell of the New Yorker, overtaken by events in the Middle East, defended his September article disparaging the significance of Twitter and Facebook by saying that social media have been largely irrelevant to the upheavals there. Next, David Rieff of The New Republic attacked “cyber-utopian techno-babble,” arguing everyone’s too excited about social media and should take a much more pessimistic view of the world.
At work here are two brands attempting to advertise amid the coverage of the Middle East unrest. Gladwell, the Contrarian, once argued that publicist Lizzie Grubman likely drove into a crowd of revelers due to “pedal error” though the facts eventually showed otherwise. Rieff, the Pessimist, has rarely seen a turn of events that was not dark, sad and viewed by most others with dangerous naivete.
In the world of facts, things are a little simpler. Young opponents of the ruling regimes in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere have used social media to organize protests against lack of economic opportunity and curtailed political freedom. There isn’t any question whether social media played a role in helping that opposition evade the repressive efforts of the regimes: they did. Nor is there any question whether social media, rather than underlying social grievances, were the cause of the revolutions: they weren’t.
Andrew Sullivan does a thorough job tearing up Gladwell’s arguments here. Clay Shirky does a more polite job here: where Gladwell says there is no “problem” being solved by the use of social media in the Middle East, for example, Shirky points out, somewhat obliquely, that successful repression of political organization has really been a problem and that social media have helped address it. No one has yet bothered to counter Rieff’s argument because it starts as an attack on the relevance of social media, then declares social media “matter a lot”, then says things are bleak. Who can argue against that?
Best to get your fact-based analyses elsewhere.