Notes on Power

Stanley Milgram's study of Obedience is the most famous social science study of power and authority. Like the later Zimbardo prison experiment, it shows that ordinary people are capable of brutality in social contexts where such behavior is expected and appears legitimate. Milgram's finding that distance from the victim is an important variable in people's willingness to torture others has implications for computerized social interactions. As computer-mediated communications distances people from direct contact with one another, we may expect higher levels of oppressive behavior using computerized forms of coercion.

On the other hand, the collective power of bloggers, p2p file sharers, and other online people may produce some as yet unobserved forms of collective behavior, such as the world transforming non-violent protest movement pioneered by charismatic leaders such as Mahatma Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

King's I Have a Dream speech: video audio text transcript in html or pdf

Ordinary people can start social movements. In 1960 four college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter and started the sit-ins of the U. S. Civil Rights Movement.

See also: Solidarity, the social movement that brought down the Soviet Union, and the Falun Gong movement protesting in China.