Malcolm Gladwell's "Small Change" - A Critical Analysis

Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted. The New Yorker. Retrieved from
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

In his article Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell, author of several bestselling psychology books, discusses the impact of social media on protest movements. He suggests that social media's focus on weak social ties keeps it from being an effective tool for organizing high-risk political protests, as these type of movements require very strong social ties in order to give the protesters a feeling of solidarity and purpose. Gladwell continually refers throughout his paper to the story of the Greensboro Four, a group of black protesters who protested against racial inequality in North Carolina.

By starting the paper off with a detailed account of the Greensboro protests, Gladwell is able to draw the reader in before introducing his main topic. The Greensboro tale is woven in throughout his paper, alternating with sections discussing the impact of social media in modern protest culture. By juxtaposing a successful protest which took place before the creation of social media with current examples of protests involving social media, he is able to draw comparisons between the organizational methods developed in both cases and their effectiveness in creating a strong protest. The different sections of the text are marked by a large drop capital which allows the reader to transition smoothly from one topic to the next while creating structure in the paper. Gladwell takes an informal tone throughout this article, using contractions like “can't”, and “they'd”. This tone was likely chosen to appeal to his desired audience, as a simpler, less formal tone lends itself well to newspapers, making articles much easier to read when in a hurry, and the satirical tone he takes at the end is memorable enough to keep the reader thinking about the topic after they finish reading.

Gladwell is not an expert on the topic on which he writes, so he refers constantly to the work of other, well-known researchers to back up his points. This lends his ideas authority without having to rely on his own Ethos, and creates a very convincing paper.

This article is extremely well written. It flows nicely from one topic to the next and presents a strong argument pulled from a wide variety of credible sources. Gladwell's writing style makes his ideas accessible to a wide audience while remaining both interesting and intelligent. I would recommend this article to anyone who wishes to learn about the impact of social media on society, or anyone interested in the logistics of modern activism.