revolutionary literacy

So what is the state of the debate on whether or not the revolution will be tweeted?

It rages on of course.

I agree with @navalang that a great addition is to be found here in this blog post, Knowing and Unknowing the Egyptian Public, by @zunguzungu.

His argument, if I read him correctly, is that generalizations about how social movements are developed and how they become effective are not helpful in describing the internal rationality of any specific movement or event.

If, as Malcolm Gladwell argues, the success of the American Civil Rights movement can be attributed to strong links among activists and a well-developed hierarchy there is nothing that says that the next, equally effective, civil rights movement could not start with weak ties and a flattened hierarchy.

He goes further to suggest that Western generalizers are reluctant to learn the specifics of movements because they are reluctant about losing their power to create the official story.

We live in an era we can get glimpses of the different ways the stories are being framed. We can read and listen to and watch mainstream media reports side-by-side with what we learn from our fellow "citizen journalists" on Twitter and You Tube. The official analysts can help us organize the information but our own critical literacy skills are forced into high gear as we try to understand the context and the content. These are fine times to be hanging around this little blue planet.