Even when activists are able to get their messages out, they have trouble galvanizing people to actually take action. The sentiments that gain the largest audiences often contain religious elements, according to Mansour Al-hadj, who is a director at the Middle East Media Research Institute. "The message by itself without any religious element in it, wouldn’t work in the long run,” he says. "The activists’ accounts on Twitter and Facebook are very active and they have a lot of followers, but they cannot drive masses,” he says, because their sentiments are more moderate. Laced through media coverage of the Arab Spring was what turned out to be the naïve hope that people were inherently, unequivocally good and that unleashing their collective consciousness via social media would naturally result in good things happening. But it turns out that consciousness was not so collective after all. The tools that catalyzed the Arab Spring, we've learned, are only as good or as bad as those who use them. And as it turns out, bad people are also very good at social media. Militant groups like the Islamic State have been reported to recruit converts using Facebook and Twitter and use encrypted communications technology to coordinate attacks. What reasons does the author give to support the claim that it is difficult for a message to move people to take action? Select two options. an opinion from an expert on what types of messages inspire people to make changes a description of how the Islamic State and other militant groups fail to effect change an explanation of why social media messages that are not extreme are sometimes ineffective a quotation from an expert on why postings without religious elements work in the short term a clarification that social media outlets such as Twitter generally help create positive changes
Question
Even when activists are able to get their messages out, they have trouble galvanizing people to actually take action. The sentiments that gain the largest audiences often contain religious elements, according to Mansour Al-hadj, who is a director at the Middle East Media Research Institute. "The message by itself without any religious element in it, wouldn’t work in the long run,” he says. "The activists’ accounts on Twitter and Facebook are very active and they have a lot of followers, but they cannot drive masses,” he says, because their sentiments are more moderate.
Laced through media coverage of the Arab Spring was what turned out to be the naïve hope that people were inherently, unequivocally good and that unleashing their collective consciousness via social media would naturally result in good things happening. But it turns out that consciousness was not so collective after all. The tools that catalyzed the Arab Spring, we've learned, are only as good or as bad as those who use them. And as it turns out, bad people are also very good at social media. Militant groups like the Islamic State have been reported to recruit converts using Facebook and Twitter and use encrypted communications technology to coordinate attacks.
What reasons does the author give to support the claim that it is difficult for a message to move people to take action? Select two options.
an opinion from an expert on what types of messages inspire people to make changes a description of how the Islamic State and other militant groups fail to effect change an explanation of why social media messages that are not extreme are sometimes ineffective a quotation from an expert on why postings without religious elements work in the short term a clarification that social media outlets such as Twitter generally help create positive changes
Solution
The author provides two reasons to support the claim that it is difficult for a message to move people to take action:
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An opinion from an expert on what types of messages inspire people to make changes: Mansour Al-hadj, a director at the Middle East Media Research Institute, states that messages without religious elements do not work in the long run. This suggests that for a message to inspire action, it needs to contain elements that resonate deeply with the audience, such as religion.
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An explanation of why social media messages that are not extreme are sometimes ineffective: The author mentions that despite having active accounts and many followers, activists struggle to drive masses to action because their sentiments are more moderate. This implies that messages need to be extreme or radical to galvanize people into action.
Similar Questions
Which quotations from the excerpt provide evidence to support the claim that governments have responded to criticism delivered through social media? Select three options. “Security forces arrested three people who administered nearly two dozen Facebook pages.” “It [Egypt] also detained activists who had been involved in prior protests.” “Facebook’s Free Basics service . . . had offered free Internet services to Egyptians on mobile phones.” “More than 3 million people had signed up for the program in just two months.” “Meanwhile Turkey has made 805 requests for tweets to be removed since 2012.”
Five years ago this week, massive protests toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, marking the height of the Arab Spring. Empowered by access to social media sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, protesters organized across the Middle East, starting in December 2010 in Tunisia, and gathered together to speak out against oppression, inspiring hope for a better, more democratic future. Commentators, comparing these activists to the US peace protesters of 1968, praised the effort as a democratic dawn for an area that had long been populated by autocracies. In a photo collection published by the New York Times a few months later, Irish writer Colum McCann wrote: "The light from the Arab Spring rose from the ground up; the hope is now that the darkness doesn’t fall.” The darkness has fallen. Half a decade later, the Middle East is roiling in violence and repression. Activists are being intimidated into restraint by governments that are, with the exception of Tunisia, more totalitarian than those they replaced, if any government as such really exists at all. Meanwhile, militants have harnessed the same technology to organize attacks and recruit converts, catapulting the world into instability. Instead of new robust democracies, we have a global challenge with no obvious solution. The Arab Spring carried the promise that social media and the Internet were going to unleash a new wave of positive social change. But the past five years have shown that liberty isn't the only end toward which these tools can be turned. Activists were able to organize and mobilize in 2011 partly because authoritarian governments didn’t yet understand very much about how to use social media. They didn’t see the potential, says NYU professor of politics Joshua Tucker, a [principal] investigator at the Social Media and Political Participation Lab at New York University. "There are a lot of reasons the people in power were slow to pick up on this,” he adds. "One of the things about not have a free press is it is harder to learn what was going on in the world.” Which statement best evaluates the evidence in this excerpt? The author uses verifiable facts and expert testimony to support her argument effectively, but the excerpt would be stronger if she deleted references to a past protest. The author uses specific data, reasons, and quotations to support her argument effectively, but the excerpt would be stronger if she included eyewitness testimony or personal stories. The author uses quotations and data about historical instances to support her argument effectively, but the excerpt would be stronger if she included verifiable facts. The author uses eyewitness testimony and personal stories to support her argument, but the argument would be stronger if she deleted the quotations from experts.
Does the activity on social media respect the human value and dignity of others as reflected in Christian values?
Does the activity on social media respect the human value and dignity of others as reflected in Christian values?
Step 1: Read the articles Can Twitter claim the #MeToo movementLinks to an external site. (Koscof 2018) and Going viral: What social media activists need to knowLinks to an external site. (Ghobadi 2018) for a bit of background for this discussion scenario.Step 2: Consider the following small-scale research overview:Topic – Social Media Activism.Focus – Hashtag movements.Broad question – To what extent is Twitter an effective platform for social activism and protest?Step 3: Create a specific research question using this overview and choose a research methodology that you think would be the best approach for the question. (NB: An effective method will assist in the generation of knowledge to answer the research question.)
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