For the debate I was against the Dean’s argument which was that social media does not inhibit socio political change. I was happy to debate on this side because I personally did not agree with Dean and her opinion. I do believe that social media does not stop change from happening and actually helps it. When reading the article I could understand where Dean was coming from however due to the article being written in 2004 before social media was really relevant, made her argument, now many years later, very weak. I think if she wrote the article now her opinion would be different. There are so many real life examples such as the #METOO movement, the Egyptian revolution, #Oscarsowhite etc that go against what she writes. She says that because there is so much information out there on the internet individual’s opinions can get lost. To some extent this can be true, but most of time if someone has an important and powerful message to share people will take interest. I knew going into the debate I needed to be passionate about my points as I was delivering the closing statement. I would need to make the final stance and let the judges know are argument was strong. I discussed the success of popular hashtags and how they have brought attention to issues that were previously swept under the rug. I personally believe that our against side was stronger because we actually gave real world examples that people can relate to and are familiar with. I tried to make my closing statement dramatic in order to really shock the audience and get them to really hear that Dean simply does not understand social media nowadays. In fact I feel like I may have a better gage on social media than Dean and I have no academic qualifications! Overall the debate was very eye opening for me and helped me better understand how to present an argument and argue against it. I was happy to participate in this exercise because I had never debated before and knew it would be a great experience for me.