#dresscodePM,

It will surprise no one who knows me that I do not have a Twitter account - in fact I can count on one hand the number of times that I have even texted someone. It is not that I am a near Luddite, I just can not figure out how using Twitter will enhance the quality of my life. As well, as a number of my former students are aware - I remain unconvinced that social media is all that it is cracked up to be especially if one is trying to create some form of social change.  However there is no doubt that there are times when such forums as Twitter can be a fun way to protest.

Take for example #dresscodePM. Twitter users are using it to mock Mr. Harper's desire to control what Muslim women wear during the citizenship ceremony.  Asking Mr. Harper if their attire is appropriate for work, to legislate that kids need to wear raincoats or whether they look Canadian enough is a humorous way for some Canadians to express their belief that their Prime Minister has (once again) over-stepped his bounds and proven how out of touch he is with the values of some many Canadians. It is the sort of thing that not only will make it to the figurative front page of various news sites in Canada but it will probably reach the media in other countries as well.

Such spontaneous activities do, in my mind, two things. One it reminds us that there are thousands and thousands of relatively young people out there who accept that not everyone looks, acts or dresses like them and that is the way it is suppose to be. The second thing such activities do is to remind people that they are allowed to criticize their leaders. In fact mocking leaders is a time honoured tradition. How what such activities do not do is generalize into any action.

There is no guarantee that just because primarily young people (PEW) take the time to send a sardonic or witty 140 character response to an issue that catches their attention, that they will vote in the next election. It is equally as unpredictable that even if they did vote, that they would vote for a political party other than the Conservatives. Sending a Twitter is a fun thing to do and it certainly has the potential of raising awareness of a particular issue, but the real question is how to take those concerns and translate them into action.

Those who are enthusiastic about social media will argue that without social media such social movements as the Arab Spring, Idle No More, Occupy Now or more recently the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong would never have got off the ground. And they are probably right. At least some of the thousands and thousands of people who gathered in town squares or marched down the various thoroughfares of the world, may never have known about those demonstrations without social media. But none of those brief lived social media generated events effected either long term change or even created any sort of organization that would have some sort of ongoing impact upon the society that generated them. Certainly in the Middle East - all of those countries that demanded change have reverted back to the autocratic, authoritarian style governments of the past. Some might even argue that some of the countries are worse off now than they were before the magical Arab Spring. In North America - the rich are continuing to get richer and at least in Canada, the poorest of the poor are embarrassing over represented in our First Nations communities.

I think social media is great fun and provides for its users an easy way to both stay in touch and to distribute knowledge. I think it is great that people are "talking" about important issues. But until someone figures out a way of taking that interest and shaping into a social movement that will do something other talk, change will not occur.  Francesca Polletta's, a sociologist who has studied social movements and intentional communities, wrote a book titled Freedom Is an Endless Meeting. She perhaps should have titled  her book - Democracy is Bloody Hard Work and the Work Never Stops. Getting people out to participate in a march down Main Street is the easy part, getting them out for the second or third march is a bit harder. It becomes even harder in most of Canada where only a fool would think about occupying a park in Mid January.  But the really hard part is getting people to sit down and have conversations again and again until viable solutions are created.

Saying the world sucks and making sure that lots of people know it is a good first step  - but it is the steps after that one that will lead to change.