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Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:00 AM

Twitter won't bring down Ahmadinejad

The real action in Iran is in the streets. Social media is documenting the revolution -- not leading it

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Friday, June 19, 2009 11:10 AM

On Twittering and Twits

The "Twitter-spark" igniting the flames of revolution has wrongly emerged in recent days as the dominant lead-in to stories on the recent social upheval in Iran. It seems so odd that the credit has gone, as Mike Madden so rightly points out, to this technology, almost to the exclusion of actual issues and events and the individuals who have participated in them. Why is it that the only way we as Americans can identify with the struggles and aspirations of others is by co-opting their "moment" with inane observations about our possible contributions to it, through a communication platform that has thus far been used for delivering to the world the often inarticulate banalities of self-promoting C-level celebrities and future-hungry politicians?

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