Before the debate, as a member of the assessing team, I read the Dean’s article to find evidence for both FOR and AGAINST perspectives. I actually used to believe that social media is a kind of platform that enforces sociopolitical change, but when I was reading the Dean’s article, I found out it was easier to provide evidence for the FOR side, for the reason that Dean actually, in her whole article, emphasizes on how social media inhibits sociopolitical change. For example, as for the technology fetishism, people believe that they are contributing a lot online—making their opinion known by others, while they actually do not have the ability to change legislation or start a revolution (Dean 31-32). As for the AGAINST side, Dean actually focuses on American politics, but we, as assessors, argue that whether it is true when applied to the international environment.
During the Dean’s debate, it is undeniable that both teams give abundant examples and strong arguments. As for the FOR side, they provide recent examples such as Ice Bucket Challenge. And the AGAINST side, they mention the Me Too, which is a perfect example to support that social media actually does make a huge change, but in my opinion, they go off the topic a little bit for the reason that they have put too much emphasis on the argument that social media has raised social awareness rather than made any substantial changes.
As for the Castell’s debate, I realize that Castell actually supports social media for the reason that social media help to inform the world about the Egyptian Revolution. But Castell seems to only focus on a small area in the world—Egypt. I think the main difference between Dean’s article and Castell’s article is that Dean puts her emphasis on the US politics while Castell puts his emphasis on the Egyptian Revolution. Different emphasizes and different examples used in these two articles help to support the completely different opinions of Dean and Castell.
After the debate, I believe that social media actually have an important role in the socio-political change, no matter positive or negative. Social media function as a perfect platform for people to know and share their opinions about the sociopolitical events. But it is still obvious that social media only raise our awareness, and it is difficult to change the sociopolitical environment dramatically just by commenting or following others online.
Reference
Dean, Jodi. “Ch.1.Technology: The Promises of Communicative Capitalism.” Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics. Duck University Press, 2009. 19-48.