follow us 
Berkman Klein Faculty Associate, Zeynep Tufekci joins us to talk about her new book, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest.
To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.
Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture—and offer essential insights into the future of governance.
About Zeynep
Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill at the School of Information and Library Science with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Sociology. She is also currently also a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She was previously an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research revolves around the interaction between technology and social, cultural and political dynamics. She is particularly interested in collective action and social movements, complex systems, surveillance, privacy, and sociality. 
Employers today are demanding more and more of employees’ time. And from campaign barbecues to the blogosphere, workers across the United States are raising the same worried question: How can I get ahead at my job while making sure my family doesn’t fall behind?
Heather Boushey argues that resolving work–life conflicts is as vital for individuals and families as it is essential for realizing the country’s productive potential. The federal government, however, largely ignores the connection between individual work–life conflicts and more sustainable economic growth. The consequence: business and government treat the most important things in life—health, children, elders—as matters for workers to care about entirely on their own time and dime. That might have worked in the past, but only thanks to a hidden subsidy: the American Wife, a behind-the-scenes, stay-at-home fixer of what economists call market failures. When women left the home—out of desire and necessity—the old system fell apart. Families and the larger economy have yet to recover.
But change is possible. Finding Time presents detailed innovations to help Americans find the time they need and help businesses attract more productive workers. A policy wonk with working-class roots and a deep understanding of the stresses faced by families up and down the income ladder, Heather Boushey demonstrates with clarity and compassion that economic efficiency and equity do not have to be enemies. They can be reconciled if we have the vision to forge a new social contract for business, government, and private citizens.
