For last Thursday’s debate session, my group and I took the position arguing against Castells resolution which states that sociopolitical change is enabled by social media. My specific role in the debate was to provide a convincing closing statement in order to reiterate my group’s strongest points in an attempt to drive our argument home. My position after first reading Castells chapter on the Egyptian revolution was general agreement with Castells resolution, but due to the position which I was required to take up for the debate, I was forced to think more critically and pick apart Castells points in order to create strong points against Castells resolution. Finding the ability to be critical of and find holes arguments which I agreed with would be crucial if I were to develop a strong closing statement. As a result of the necessity of finding arguments against Castells resolution, my perspective on the whole matter is now slightly more neutral than before, but I remain in agreement with the resolution for the most part. I believe that my perspective would have changed in a more drastic manner if the task of arguing against Castells resolution was a less difficult of a task.
Overall, I would say that my viewpoint on social media’s role in sociopolitical change was not significantly impacted despite having argued against my original opinions. Although my thoughts were slightly changed, partaking in my own debate and listening to the other somewhat strengthened my original thoughts on the matter. From participating in Thursday’s debate session, notable differences between the Castells and Dean resolutions were made clear to me. For example, where Castells tends to use examples such as the Egyptian Revolution to present his ideas, Dean tends to use ideas more often to push her case. One of the ideas which she presents is the idea that social media often spreads political misinformation which as a result slows down social media’s effectiveness on sociopolitical change. This specific idea from Dean really stood out from the rest to me and was one of the only strong arguments, besides the ones which my group had used, which played a role in slightly shifting my viewpoint on this whole matter away from mostly agreeing with Castells, and towards a slightly more neutral position.
While my task of arguing against Castells resolution did force me to be open to new perspectives on the matter, my new opinions in favour of the resolution still heavily outweigh my new ones against it. I found that through preparing for, participating in, and observing these debate sessions, my knowledge related to the subject of social media’s influence on sociopolitical change was significantly expanded. Each group did a fantastic job in putting forward their arguments while each offering unique standpoints related to their topics of debate.