Judges' Comments and Results

Debate 1:  MIA vs. Kevin Bacon

Affirmative Constructive:  Rather than parsing the resolution, the only definition of terms is the distinction between social media and  social networks. You talk about politics and IR only—a rather limiting set.  However, these are generally well-supported by sources. The Jakarta embassy example, while interesting, is a social media story and  looks like traditional USIA activity transplanted to Facebook.  Unless they have hundreds of people at the embassy posting full time, it's going to be primarily a one-way medium.  If the Indonesians are talking among themselves, that would be something interesting.  But that's not how the example is framed.  And even if your source says the embassy's Facebook wall is the only source of news about the US for the 18-35 gang, think about the credibility issue:  young people who have access to FB generally have access to a variety of new sources.  Again, all these points would have been stronger if made against a framework definition of important terms.

Negative Constructive: Before jumping into the specifics, you might have taken the opportunity to reframe the debate, as mentioned above.  3 possibilities: social media, or social networks?; definition of terms in the resolution; broadening the set of “organizations” more, although you do introduce Occupy and the Civil Rights Movement. You start out by saying that SNs may hinder success, but do you actually prove that?  And "may hinder" might not be so devastating to your opponents' position.  Too many connections do not necessarily mean a poverty of focus de facto.  And remember, Simon was writing before Google and other powerful search engines were invented.  You are right  that Occupy and the Israeli demos have not yielded results, but is that only because they have no goals or clearly-defined leadership?  They may not be there—yet.  Occupy is spreading daily and internationally, and the growth may well be fed by small-world network connections. And look at the Tea Party (as your opponents did in their rebuttal.) They may have “compelling vision, a solid strategy to achieve the mission, and organizational values.”  (There is some heterogeneity in their goals, but not as much as in that of Occupy) The Tea Party's recent election success is measureable. And their goal may be smaller government and less taxes, but how to make it smaller and which taxes to cut are being debated, and who is their leader? Arguably, they are a network and not an organization. Last, Shirky’s point about social tools don’t create collective action but remove obstacles set up a fairly easy rebuttal. (see next paragraph.)

Affirmative Rebuttal: This is an excellent rebuttal, and your approach, organization, and point-by-point comments more than make up for the missed opportunity to frame the debate at the beginning. The opening gambit of using W2W was risky but interesting.  It set up the rest of your arguments well. (And your opponents did not respond to it in their rebuttal.) Good points, e.g.:the removal of obstacles may have been the single biggest confidence factor in getting more people to participate in the civil-rights movement.  Without the popular support and the message” spreading throughout the network,” the “core of dedicated activists” would not have had the success they did.  Occupy now has a goal. Etc.  And your last point, yet another rephrasing of Herb Simon, was a particularly good closing.

Both sides in this conversation are treating the civil rights movement of the 1960s as if it took place only in whatever social networking media of the day.  But much of the conflict took place in the mass media.  There were images of sit-ins, and widely broadcast video of police beating and sicking attack dogs on non-violent protesters.  The mass media played a role in building political support for the movement, as well as convincing activists that non-violent action could be politically effective.  This was a long struggle taking place in a changing media environment, so there are no easy conclusions to make.  Suffice it to say that there were both social networking, mass media and multi-step flows influencing the outcome.

Negative Rebuttal: The Drezner statement is right, but it also doesn’t mean that they won’t be a success.  Good point about the world will change by 2025, but it would have helped your argument to speculate on how it might change (the EU report on Trunk is only one of many that speculate on this.) And your second point about measurability is a bit confusing; it seems to support what your opponents have said, and what do you mean by “there’s no evidence connections will remain observable over time?”  You could have supplied some yourself by, say, going back 15 years. You summarize your rebuttal by saying “We have no reason to assume it will demonstrably take the upper hand in less than 20 years.”  Well it may not, and your opponents did not go into detail, but a generation of people raised on mobile technology, FB, etc. will be in management and leadership positions by then…think of the ladies of W2W, for instance

On the other hand, the PSI rebuttal is effective.  There is a strategic consideration at work in the flight from international organizations in this case, and the network formed by PSI is not the same set of players as those in the treaty organizations—for a good reason, as you point out. 

The Result: A lot of missed opportunities by both sides, both to broaden the scope by introducing other domains (e.g. business) and to introduce a discussion about the technologies (Affirmative: rapid growth will continue, e.g. Facebook didn’t exist in present form until seven years ago.  Negative: It’s fragile, assailable, and may well level the playing field, with governments being able to use as well as the resistance movements.) A good, spirited discussion nonetheless, on the one hand, the edge could be given to the affirmatives based on the strength of their rebuttal.  But the Cons recovered well in theirs, too.  The result:  a hung jury, so a tie.