“The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate and give voice to their concerns.”

~ Gladwell, 2010

My current research interest is centered around unstructured and instrumental communication on social media. Web 2.0 allows for massively large numbers of individuals across geographical boundaries to communicate with each other. I am fascinated with how individuals are somehow able to attract the attention of others in order to mobilize resources to effect change in the world.

The following lists some of the major theoretical lenses that I use to help understand this phenomenon:

• Social Movements
• Computer Mediated Communication
• Leadership and Social Influence
• Affect Contagion
• Cognitive Diffusion