The Strength of Weak Ties in Revolutions
Social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, are perhaps the largest examples of networks with weak and strong ties. These networks are also the largest platforms for social activism and change. This article examines the use of strong and weak ties in social activism and comes to a startling conclusion. The author suggests that weak ties drive most societal change. The author explains that strong ties in small groups form cliques and fragmentation amongst the largest social movement, which inhibits progress. Weak ties, on the other hand, are able to unify every person in a movement to a common goal, belief, or leader. The author goes on to attribute Martin Luther King Jr.’s success to his ability to form weak ties with hundreds of congregations of people.
Many of the ideas that the article put forward are also found in Mark Granovetter’s 1973 paper “The Strength of Weak Ties.” This paper primarily focused observing how information and jobs frequently arrived from weak ties, rather than strong close friends. However, the paper also expanded that idea to social change and arrived at the same conclusion: weak ties serve to unify a movement. It is still unknown whether the weak ties on social networks such as Twitter are equivalent to the weak ties between Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers. Nonetheless, they will certainly be the center of the next revolution.
http://www.wired.com/2010/09/weak-ties-twitter-and-revolutions/