Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest

Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist and associate professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, is a prolific scholar and a frequent contributor to many high profile popular-writing venues, including The New York Times. She's delivered two TED talks, those highly polished mini-lectures on an ecstatic range of topics packaged into compelling and consumable lunch-break-long videos that begin with an exploding supernova (or is it a firing neuron) and the phrase IDEAS WORTH SPREADING. In a moment when academics are being constantly reminded of the value of “working in public” and “maintaining our personal brands,” Tufekci is an excellent scholar and a master at keeping…