Two of my Northeastern colleagues and I analyze the fallout from the House Democrats’ #NoVoteNoBreak sit-in over gun legislation. It’s a golden oldies get-together: one of my colleagues, Bill Fowler, was a professor of mine back in the day; and the piece was pulled together by Thea Singer, with whom I worked at the Boston Phoenix 25 years ago.
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I thought that one of the lessons from the role of social media in the Arab Spring was that such public dissemination of protest is a step — an important step but only one step in a path toward the goal. I think there is recognition that further steps in the campaign for greater gun safety measures in this country include voting for members of Congress who share that point of view, for example. At least in this country, in contrast to the countries who had been under dictators for years, we have infrastructure for taking next steps. So while social media brought the protest to the people in both cases, I am more hopeful that in this case we can more effectively and successfully build on the step it has provided.