In this week’s New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell, author of, among other titles, Blink and The Tipping Point considers the nature of social activism and argues that social media tools are not reinventing activism.

He argues that to compare campaign engagement via social media such as Twitter with the courage of ‘true activists’, giving the civil rights movement as an example.

“Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools” he argues.

Naturally, the debate is taken up in the New Yorker’s Room for Debate. Well worth a visit to read the full article and the resultant debate.