My group was assigned to argue for the Dean resolution, which we initially found to be quite difficult. We were arguing that social media inhibits socio-political change, which we all personally disagreed with. However, having to debate the resolution changed our perspectives quite a bit.
I still disagree with the generality of the resolution, however, my mind has been opened to other perspectives. Having to argue a position that I disagreed with forced me to back my ideas up with solid logic and reasoning. I have gotten to the point where I am in complete agreeance with everything that my side argued but I do not agree with the resolution. I completely agree with the ideas of dismissal and everything about messages being lost, but I do not think that they override the full power that social media has to offer. The magnitude of the other side’s arguments was greater than our own, but our arguments were still valid. I still believe that social media is powerful, but arguing our side made me realize that it is not as powerful as I once thought it was.
Listening to the other debate also made me realize the difficulty of our resolution. Their resolution was the complete opposite to ours and we could clearly see the struggle that the opposition faced in arguing their side. Without a doubt, that group had the hardest task of all. They had to argue a notion that no one agreed with, but unlike my group, their reading didn’t support their side so they truly had nothing to go off of. The Dean reading at least gave us many ideas and starting points to branch our arguments out from, but they had to start from scratch. The main focuses of the two debates enlightened the disparity between the topics discussed in the two readings. The Castells debate was a lot more about enabling discourse, while our debate was more about the validity of the discourse.
Both proposition teams had it slightly easier because the readings supported our positions and gave us many points. Between the opposition teams, the Castells team had a much harder task than the Dean team as their position was inherently harder to debate, therefore furthering the idea that social media does indeed enable socio-political change.