Research topic: The impact of social media on social movements
Hwang and Kim’s article examines how social media encourages participation in social movements. The study involved surveying young adults mainly college students. The media investigated were traditional media, the Internet and social media. How the media was used was measured by the time of use and the dependency of each medium. The level of social movement participation was measured by the intention to participate and the level of actual participation. The results showed that those who use and depend more on social media have higher intention to participate and a higher level of actual participation in social movements. Therefore, participation was …show more content…
The article used inductive reasoning because journal articles and case studies were reviewed in order to create a theory based on the impact of new ICTs on social movements. It also disproved the theory that new ICTs created social movement when in reality older ICTs proved more useful in the cases discussed.
This article helps in understanding that new media isn’t the only ICT that is creating social movements. This article gives the perspective of countries with limited internet capabilities and shows how traditional media can do very well in influencing social movements.
Sorour and Dey’s article observed the role of social media in developing countries. The article reflects and compares on social-media-led movements in Egypt and Bangladesh. It was revealed that in both cases, social media led to these mass social uprisings thus causing changes in socio-political dynamics. It was also revealed that social media effected proceedings in real life and vice versa. Social media also may be used in a negative way as it can be abused by political leaders to be used as a tool to provoke violence. However, since both countries studied were developing, internet capabilities were limited. Only middle and upper class civilians had access to social media. Therefore, it was presented that social media can limit the voices of the masses due to the lowered internet capabilities among the lower