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The Power of the Follower: the Arab Spring and Social Media

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The Power of the Follower: the Arab Spring and Social Media
THE POWER
OF
THE FOLLOWER
SAND011A
MBL 921-S Leadership Assignment II

Group Member Student Number Contribution
Addison, B. 7078-516-3 100%
Bheamadu, A 3285-589-3 100%
Deonarain, N 7288-417-7 100%
Deshmukh, A 7136-472-2 100%
Jooste, D L 7276-682-4 100%
Mahura, S 7300-632-7 100%
Mavimbela, R 7294-314-9 100%
Mnube, M 3326-099-0 100%
Singh, Yashin 3667-383-8 100%
Nkosi, N 7308-888-9 100%
Singh, Yeshvir 7308-490-5 100%
Thuntsane, E 7294-747-0 100%
Mulder, R 7303-318-9 100%
Mkwanazi, S 7288-373-1 100%

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This assignment delves into the changing socio-dynamic landscape given the growing rate of mobile and IT connectivity as well as the growing number of users on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and the like. The recent political uprisings on the African continent have hinted towards the use of social media tools to bring about socio-political change and either directly or indirectly challenge the leadership status quo.

Many have refuted the claims of the impact of social media during the uprisings, such as Malcolm Gladwell who dismisses the relevant importance the media, academics and thought leaders have placed on its ability to influence leader behaviour or bring about any meaningful change (www.newyorker.com, 2010). However, the contrary views outweigh Gladwell’s views and, in our opinion, bare consideration. According to Fleishman (2003) “leadership is an attempt at influencing the activities of followers to willingly cooperate through the communication process toward the attainment of some goals.” The traditional view of leadership is its ability to influence follower behaviour. Thus, this assignment aims to explore the role of neo-social dynamics (social media) to influence leader behaviour, i.e. follower upward management of leaders.

The assignment begins with a case study to determine social media’s


References: b. Reasons Social Media contributed to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution (Chebib, N. & Sohail, R. 2011) 2.4.2 Data Collection 2. Chebib, N. and Sohail, R. (2011): The Reasons Social Media contributed to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution 3 4. Abroms, L. and Lefebvre, R. (2009): Obama’s Wired Campaign: Lessons for public health communication 5 6. Yin, Robert K., Applications of Case Study Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2003a, 2nd 7 8. Yin, Robert K., Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2003b,3rd edition. 10. Rog (eds.), Handbook of Applied Social Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1998, pp. 229-259.
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