Malcolm Gladwell is centrally concerned with social change: how it happens,
why it happens, and how it can be directed or controlled. Yet the following
questions all prompt you to consider not social change per se, but this
particular model of social change—it’s not a question of the
“what” (what happened) but the “why” (why it happened).
The immediate action horizon for all of the following questions, then,
rests within this same realm of ideas: the “problem” to which
you are imagining a solution is not this or that social problem that needs
solving but a model to describe social change in general. That being said,
select ONE of the following assignments:
- Use Gladwell's ideas to explain the famine that Becker documents.
What can the application of these ideas reveal or explain that Becker's
ideas fail to? To answer this question, you will want to apply Gladwell’s
“why” concepts to Becker’s “what” facts
of the famine, but you will also want to examine some of Becker’s
“why” as well.
- Use Gladwell and another theory of social change together
to provide a more complete explanation for the famine. This
question resembles number one, but it asks you to additionally engage
another model of social change. See below for links that will get you
started.
- Gladwell developed his model of social change from epidemiology (specifically
HIV/AIDS). Use Becker first to reveal the limits of a model
of social change based on disease and then to propose an alternate model
based on the events and ideas in Becker's essay. Apply that model to
one of the scenarios we examined in the computer classroom. Unlike
the first two questions that ask you to work with Gladwell’s "why"
and Becker’s "what," this one asks you instead to step
back and look behind and under Gladwell’s concepts. It’s
not about the Power of Context or the Tipping Point and how they do
or do not work when applied to this or that problem; it’s about
ending up with a different set of concepts and terms when you start
from a place other than epidemiological disease. Consider the starting
points offered by Becker: famine, communism, peasant knowledge, false
science, statistics. If you used one of these as a starting point or
metaphor, what terms would you develop and how would they play out in
a real-world example of change?
Rough drafts must be 4 pages long; final drafts must be 5-6 pages
long. Bring a total of 3 copies of your draft to peer revision—I’ll
collect one and your peers will comment on the other two.
Acceptable Forum Threads for Option Three:
- Talking Point: The Terminator for Governor
- Talking Point: Kazaa!
- Talking Point: Phelps Protest
- Talking Point: Iraq
- Go Beyond Thinking: Take the Next Step
- Thought Provoking: SPAM—not limited to the “peddlers of
pornography”…
- Talking Point: Gay Pride(s) + Straight Pride (?)
- Thought provoking: Debate/Case on "under God"...
- Talking Point: HIV/AIDS
Useful Links for All Questions but Especially Number Two:
More on Tipping Points:
- The Word Spy
- tipping point: Another explanation of the epidemiological term
"tipping point," with a good clear example of how it works
in disease and how one small change can create a big difference down
the line.
- The Tipping
Point and How It Works with Blogs: Gladwell's ideas applied to blogging.
- The
Tipping Blog: An example of a blog experiencing the tipping point,
traced back to its beginning.
Power Laws:
- Power
Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality: Introduces the idea of a "Power
Law," which could be used an alternate model of social change.
It also has links under "A Predictable Imbalance" that will
lead you to more sites concerning Power Laws, Zipf, Rule of 80/20, and
more.
Memes:
- Memes.org: good starting point for
an explanation of memetics, which sees ideas as "memes," a
kinf of "mind virus." Also could lead to alternate theories
of social change.
- Meme Central: a second good
starting point for memetics.
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