Acceleration and Personalization

In the article “Social media and activist communication,” Thomas Poell and José van Dijck define two key concepts. Acceleration is defined as a “transformation [that] greatly speeds up the exchange of information between activists,” (529) due to the rise of social media and its incredible speed and reach as compared to traditional media. The second concept, personalization, is defined as a phenomenon, also connected to the rise of social media, that “implies that individuals’ own narratives rather than collective identity frames become important in activist mobilization and communication processes.” (532)

I mentioned in my post on Wednesday’s discussion board that I was having trouble connecting these abstract concepts to reality. However, since discussing and contemplating them further, I think I understand better, and I’ve found a post that I believe exemplifies both:

This tweet concerns David Beckham’s controversial recent partnership with Qatar for the World Cup. It demonstrates acceleration because it relates to a current event that is trending right now but probably won’t be remembered in a few months. This kind of mass, real-time discussion of a current event wasn’t really possible before social media. Second, it demonstrates personalization because it is concerned with the actions of one individual person (David Beckham). It does implicate him within the human and animal rights movements but is still focused on the individual and his actions in isolation. The entire discussion of personalization seems deeply connected to an ongoing debate I see in many movements (including animal rights but also environmentalism, gun control, and more) which is: who should bare the responsibility for solving this issue, individuals or the government and corporations?