Malcolm Gladwell Small Change Rhetorical Analysis

All in all, Gladwell helps paint a picture of what’s said to be behind the locked door of the subconscious. He uses repetition and rhetorical questions to stress how thin-slicing plays a crucial part in our world. The power of our minds are limitless but Gladwell is still searching for the key to unlocking the truth of our unconscious

An ineffective device used by Gladwell was his use of repetition of evidence and failure to acknowledge counterexamples by forcing the reader into thinking that Gladwell’s theory is the only one possible to be correct. The lack of acknowledgment towards counterexamples thrusts the audience into thinking that Gladwell’s opinion is the only viable one. “Philip Norman, who wrote the Beatles biography”, “nonstop show, hour after hour”, “Here is John Lennon”, and “playing all night long” are examples of repetition of evidence because the author already established that the

Rhetorical questions appear throughout the book, allowing Gladwell to emphasize key points of his message and to interact with the reader in a way that they understand. Rhetorical questions are often used as transitions which introduce the next concept. While wrapping up his chapter about prejudice from subconscious

To start with, Gladwell uses ethos, an appeal to ethics, as a device to effectively explain how

Gladwell carefully constructs his argument by offering the real life story of Bernie Goetz. Gladwell uses this example in order to provide a

Gladwell sends a very strong message about how social media cannot cause a major revolution in society; likewise, Baron is sending across the same message. Revolutions continue even after the internet is shut down. As crowds gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Baron describes how they “continued to grow during the five days that the Mubarak government shut down the internet” (330). The crowds increased in size without the help of social media. Somehow, word got out and people came to support the cause. Also, Baron brings into realization that Americans are too involved in the world of social media. Americans fail to realize all of the news that they are missing because they “can’t seem to survive without the constant stimulus of digital multitasking” (Baron 330). American citizens are too busy tweeting about what they ate for breakfast to worry about the hungry that is going on overseas. They depend on social networking to tell them the news rather that picking up a newspaper and reading about what is going on in their country or maybe even overseas in a different country.

In his article “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, published in the New York Times on October 2010, Malcolm Gladwell looks closely into the notion of social change and the different means to achieve it. He makes a clear distinction between traditional activism, which implies sacrifices and physical devotion, and current activism, based on social networks. The writer considers that “social media can’t provide what social change has always required” (Gladwell, paragraph 1).

“Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” by Malcolm Gladwell focuses on previous examples of activism that occurs with and without the use of social media. The first event he talks about is the Greensboro, North Carolina sit in. To sum of the event, 4 African American college students were denied service. During this time the Civil Rights Movement was taking place, so the African American community were fighting against being segregated and discriminated everywhere they went. This event was used in Gladwell’s favor to show that this event happened without the help of social media. Gladwell uses the story of a person in need of a bone marrow transplant to explain how thousands of people got to sign up for the campaign. The simple

In Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Small Change: The Revolution will not be Tweeted” There is an example of large-scale change which caused by the social media there was Twitter revolution at Moldova, Iran in 2009. People started to use Twitter as a tool for protest the government and it became a huge change. This could be possible because people could argue with more confident when they stand up against government through the Social Media. The Malcolm Gladwell’s response about this kind of social event was “Social media, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making I easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns” (Paragraph 7, Gladwell) Also he called

Gladwell uses strong anecdotes and studies to prove all the claims he presents throughout his book. He explains he evidence well and ties everything back to the point he is trying to prove. This helps further understand Gladwell’s argument. But, even though Gladwell uses multiple anecdotes and studies to support his claims, the problem that is faced is that he merely suggests his sources are correct but never

Malcolm Gladwell’s article "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted" raises a significant question about the prospective contribution of web-based social networking to the advent of progressive social movement and change. Gladwell bold declaration that "the revolution will not be tweeted" is reflective of his view that social media has no useful application in serious activism. Contrasting various elements of the “high-stakes” lunch-counter protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1960’s with the “low-stakes” activism achieved through social media, Gladwell concludes that effective social movements powerful enough to impose change on longstanding societal forces require both “strong ties” among participants and the

The main argument of the Gladwell in this article is that social media is not effective in “high-risk” activism because it lacks strong bonds and hierarchical command structure. Although he agrees that social media can bring a “limited” change which has far less consequences than the “high risk” activism and do not require a higher level of commitment. He thinks that social media is not an effective enemy of status quo.

Gladwell uses many rhetorical modes to prove his central claim, whether they be examples, comparing and contrasting two success stories, and etc, but out of all of them the one that Gladwell uses the most is process analysis. By using this mode Gladwell brings out the best points of his arguments over and over. In every chapter Gladwell uses this mode to break down the story in such as way that the reader understands how the central claim fits into that specific success story. The other modes are also well used but this one dominants over all of them as it is used to describe everything from the success of a hockey team to Gladwell’s own success, thus making process analysis the

As a logical consequence, Postmes and Brunsting (2002) reasoned that the Internet is changing society because people's cognitive processes, triggered by access to information and communication, replace the strong social ties that traditionally underpin committed activism. In simpler words, in the past, humanity used the herd instinct as the main driving force behind committed forms of activism. Thanks to the Internet, we climb another step or three on the evolutionary ladder, and simply do away with the herd instinct and replace it with reason. The argument, if put this way, does not sound particularly strong. What can be taken away is that social media is still evolving, that social media changes the way we – or most of us communicate, that social media is used in social and political activism, and that the Internet increases quantitative if not qualitative access to information.

According to Dictionary.reference.com, activism is the policy or action of using campaigning to bring about political or social change. A huge campaign that is well known across the world, the Civil Rights Movement, was brought about by Martin Luther King, Jr. King risked his life everyday to ensure justice and equality for the African American race. “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell gives insight on how activism is more effective than social media, especially from one scenario at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Gladwell points out his strong belief of what activism can do for a society rather