Reading: from Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, chapter 1: It Takes a Village to Find a Phone
The website Evan Guttman created is still up (though it looks like he’s taken down Sasha Gomez’s picture). Are you interested in knowing more about the story? Here’s a link to the New York Times account. I’d like to know how you felt reading about it. Were you, like Shirky, troubled or like Evan did you find the story pleasingly just? How did you feel about Evan, about Sasha? Does Sasha being 16, Puerto Rican or a single mother matter to how you feel about the story? What are other examples you can think of of viral organizing or flash mobs? How do you think someone makes an event like this happen?
Shirky ends his telling of the story with the question “What happens next?” What do you think has happened with social media over the past few years?
And here’s an article by Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker arguing a different viewpoint. Will the revolution be tweeted?
(Note: You don’t have to answer all these questions. Just choose something to write about. See you Wednesday.)