Twitter Activism?

In light of recent events, I recalled an article we read at the beginning of the semester we read the Biz Stone article of Twitter and Activism.  Recently a number of YouTube videos went viral of Rutgers head basketball coach shoving players, throwing basketballs at point blank range, kicking them, shoving them, as well as calling his players offensive slurs.  Apparently, videos of this were first shown to the Athletic Director from a former staff member of the basketball team, where he showed them to the AD all the way back in December.  The Athletic Director suspended the coach for 3 games, but did not inform the public as to why.  In a public statement he said it was because a violation of the universities code. 

Because minimal action was taken, the former member of the Rutgers basketball staff then took the video to ESPN and put it on YouTube.  After the story was put on ESPN’s broadcast 3 days ago, social media, Twitter specifically, blew up.  People everywhere, including professional athletes such as Lebron James tweeted about how the Rutgers coach should indefinitely be fired from this.  After viewers and readers of the story tweeted their outrage, and the story received so much media coverage, the Athletic Director decided to fire head coach Mike Rice.

 Just like the Biz Stone article, more and more people had a “fever” to participate in the action.  Through twitter people had a voice, which they wouldn’t have otherwise had without the use of social media.  Originally when the video hadn’t gone viral in December the AD chose to suspend the coach.  After it blew up on social media, he was essentially forced to fire the coach if he did not want to face public scrutiny.  Twitter and social media gave the rest of the general public a voice in this decision, without it, I think the decision to fire the head coach would have played out much differently.