Dean’s article focuses primarily on how the presence of social media and how its excessive use is, effectively not an efficient platform for promoting sociopolitical changes in societies. Throughout my preparation for the in-class debate on the topic of whether or not social media inhibits sociopolitical change, I knowingly read Dean’s article with the idea that I would be arguing for this prompt. While I do agree with some aspects of Dean’s article, I still have some opposing ideas. As a result of the debate and being able to hear the opposing role as well as the debate about Castell’s article, my opinion has stagnated in between the two arguments simply because I see how there are different outcomes in every situation.
While on one hand, I argued in the debate that social media is a circulation of information that no individual takes seriously and only contributes to that circulation to be a part of the majority, I have also come to realize that in opposition, there are many different scenarios where social media has made a positive impact on certain sociopolitical changes. Before hearing the other side of my debate as well as the other group’s, I had read the chapter of the article with one mindset. However, in doing this, I also began to question it afterwards. One example of this would be when I questioned how important social media is for communication and furthermore how all of this was done before the presence of social media and the internet existed.
While both debates gave me insight into the relationship between social media and sociopolitical change, there were a lot of points that unveiled different perspectives on the topic. Seeing as how Dean and Castell have very different views with respect to social media and its impact, I was able to notably identify and consider all sides before I could finalize my opinion. I was able to consider how on one hand, according to Castell, social media connected all individuals, bringing societies closer together versus how according to Dean, those connections made through online platforms were merely strategies for people to share their possibly ungenuine ideas and boost their egos while ultimately creating a pool of information that was not taken seriously.
Overall, I think that the debate gave me a great amount of insight on the topic and while neither debate prompted me to choose one specific side, I have come to a conclusion that it simply depends on the timing, situation and people to establish whether or not social media is an effective way of creating sociopolitical change.