essay

Imagine that at the start of this semester you were hired as the regional campus coordinator for a social justice organization that was in the process of mobilizing a pivotal campaign. Your job is to hire one student per campus to run the local campaign at his/her college or university. The student needs to perform two central tasks: 1) determine which clubs and organizations might be willing to publicly support the issue and publicize the campaign, and 2) ensure that a core set of people participate in a key campaign event in December. This culminating event will require a significant commitment, as participants need to spend a large amount of time working outdoors in the cold during finals week.

1. Which individual on the map would be best situated to mobilize a successful campaign? Justify your choice by focusing on the pattern of connections on the map. To do that, you should consider how theories of diffusion (“tipping”), and at least two dimensions of network structure (centrality, density, homogeneity, range, redundancy, brokerage, etc.) might impact the sorts of processes that Gladwell and Granovetter view as key to effective mobilizations.

2. Christakis & Fowler refer to the pattern of connections that you addressed in part (a) as the structure of networks. They also emphasize the importance of network function. Drawing on Gladwell’s ideas about stickiness and Christakis & Fowler’s conception of contagion, how do you feel that the types of social ties portrayed on the map and the nature and content of the mobilization effort might affect the campaign’s success? Would you predict that any of the network properties you have discussed so far would operate differently if the recruitment effort centered on getting people to come out to a party that you are throwing off campus to celebrate the success of the campaign? Why or why not?

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