How Luther Went Viral

The following takes a look at "How Luther Went Viral" and in this sense also helps to spread the original article (from the economist) and send it viralling off into the darkness -- er, "cloud."

While the author draws a neat
parallel
between social activism in the 1500s
and the riots in Arabic countries
in 2011
based on people making connections through new and growing social media
of their times, he seems content

to shine a light on Luther’s progress and to
reiterate the adage that “History repeats itself” by stating “History tells us
that there is nothing new under the sun.”

Even though we have newer technology

by which these connections were
made for the riots in 2011

(the internet, tv, social media like Facebook and Twitter),
these are simply comparable to the older technology when it was new in the 1500s:

cheap pamphlets, crude political/religious drawings, and easily learned ditties.

From both, people of geographic disparity learned that others shared their views,

and this created a growth and an impact for change to occur.

The author ends his brilliant discussion

-- of Luther’s use of media and propaganda to flame the passions of the common people --

with a mediocre stab that seems more intent at ending the article than saying anything:

that they “do not just connect us to each other: they also link us to the past.”

How this links us to the past (other than being a parallel) is not part of the article.

Even Hitler used media and propaganda,

and the new media he used was FILM.

Seems this was a clever idea on how
to showcase the author’s knowledge of Luther.
If one wants to know more about the riots of 2011 (not much was
mentioned of them in the article), there is a link below this one to another
Economist.com article. It’s located
under “Religion” rather than “Politics.”

One is further provided choices to “LIKE” this on Facebook (4k so far),
“TWEET” this on Twitter (3890 so far, so perhaps the same 4k),
Comment on it (40 so far),
Email, Print it, or Reprint it (with permissions).
One can also recommend it on the Economist (504 so far),
reddit (unknown), Google +1 (199 so far), and
LinkedIn Share it (857 so far).

I would say this article has not gone viral yet.

Given that it was first published/posted in Dec 2011, it’s not likely to get much more attention, but it is a possibility. (Here's one post that might help that, eh?)

And, yes, the author likened Luther’s popularity and his movement to “going viral.”