Change Is Good

Social change can happen through “weak ties” and through “strong ties”, depending on the phenomenon. Reporter Charles Duhigg provides an example about the benefit of “weak ties” in his piece, “From Civil Rights To Megachurches.” He writes, “The power of weak ties helps explain how a protest can expand from a group of friends into broad social movement” (91). By “weak ties” being evident in a community it allows a social movement to come together and make a change. Researcher Helen Epstein studies how “strong ties” created a social change in decreasing the spread of AIDS in Uganda. She explains “…Ugandans are more likely to know their neighbors and live near members of their extended family”(116). Uganda was able to make a change by having close communities and openly sharing stories. Although Duhigg writes about Rosa Parks and The Civil Right Movement and Epstein writes about the AIDS epidemic in Uganda, the two come together and provide examples of how to make a change in the world.