With the rapid development of technology, internet usage is no more a privilege of specific groups of people; itโs rather like a public good that everyone can have access to. Such development surely brought multiple advantages, such as faster communication, quicker connection, and easier access to information. However, some say that these changes are bringing up new conflicts and problems that have never existed before. In the article called "Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted", the author introduces historical incidents to show the different forms of activism that the internet can stimulate, numeric values to statistically show the impacts of the internet, and words with strong connotations to demonstrate the societyโs different atmosphereโ all in order to efficiently show how current society is facing a new form of revolutions and it stimulates civil disobedience.
Firstly, the author talks about the historical incident to show the unprecedented forms of activism that the internet can create. The author claims that the Twitter revolution was a new type of revolution that utilized Twitter to rebel against the government. Considering this form from the historical lens, itโs possible to say that such a revolution had a significant influence on Iranโs society because the activism was about the 2009 Iranian election, in which some people rebelled against not just any government but the president, the most powerful leader in the country. Such an example efficiently shows that the faster connection through the internet can allow people to cause social disobedience even in the field of politics. Moreover, the author uses the example of the Greensboro lunch counter in order to mention how the protests that occurred in the past were different from the activism associated with social media. This allows the author to juxtapose the different circumstances that occurred due to the internetโs development, therefore efficiently claiming how society is facing a new form of revolution that can lead to civil disobedience.
Secondly, the author uses numeric values to statistically show the impacts of the internet. The author claims that nearly twenty-five thousand people tried to help a patient who needs a bone marrow transplant. Moreover, the author lists numbers to show how people donated money through SNS. What authors suggested are all very large numbers, and these couldnโt have been achieved without the internet that allows fast communication. Such numbers show that people can easily get together through the internet and work for the same goal. Considering that the audience of this article is the unspecified groups of people, such big numbers can easily imply significance without further explanation or assessment. Therefore, while these pieces of data donโt show the signs of civil disobedience, they show the pure function of the internet, which can always be used as a new form of protest to quickly cause social disobedience according to the userโs intention and purpose.
Finally, the author uses words associated with strong connotations for portraying the societyโs different atmosphere that is aroused due to the internet. For example, the author uses the word โneverโ while explaining Shirkyโs argument to show how the cell phone incident that Shirky went through couldnโt have happened in the pre-internet age. If we consider that the authorโs exigence is to let people be aware of such an issue, such words can clearly grasp peopleโs attention. In contexts, such words clearly show the distinction of the social atmosphere: these days, even crimes are happening in a way that is faster and more difficult to catch. In a society that is occupied by a completely different atmosphere, itโs likely to say that people can naturally follow a similar way to cause active measures of opposition against the government or any other forms of authority.
To summarize, the authorโs usage of historic pieces of evidence, numeric values, and strong words all work in a different way to show the impacts of the internet on what current society is facing and how it can lead to different forms of civil disobedience. Therefore, it remains important for humans to utilize the internet in a positive wayโ if itโs used for the public good, itโs one of the best products of scientific development.
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Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
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