Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Strength of Weak Ties (Gladwell & Lehrer)

Malcolm Gladwell, in his piece on online social networks entitled Small Change - Why the revolution will not be tweeted, states that while "high-risk activism ... is a "strong-tie" phenomenon, [...] the platforms of social media are built around weak ties". Hence, "[the organization of social media] makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact".

Heavily citing a classical paper by Granovetter from 1973, Jonah Lehrer objects this "denigration of weak ties in social activism" on his Frontal Cortex Blog.

Great food for thought!

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Addendum 05/10/10: Adding to the discussion on the power of social media is this talk by Clay Shirky from 2007

Monday, September 13, 2010

Walt Disney & Salvador Dalí - Destino (via Ley)

"Destino is a short animated cartoon released in 2003 by The Walt Disney Company. Destino is unique in that its production originally began in 1945, 58 years before its eventual completion. The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí..."

Info taken from wikipedia (cf. also imdb).