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  3. When a housewife in a working-class district of Mexico City gets fed up with the lack of working lights in her local park, she l

When a housewife in a working-class district of Mexico City gets fed up with the lack of working lights in her local park, she l

admin2015-01-31  49
问题     When a housewife in a working-class district of Mexico City gets fed up with the lack of working lights in her local park, she logs on to Twitter and complains directly to the city’s mayor.
    In an age of incessant digital chat—and in a city of 22 million—this might seem futile. But the mayor, who has more than 600,000 Twitter followers, replies to her complaint within hours. He orders the city’s public works department to take action. Several weeks later, he posts photos of new lights being installed in the park and thanks the woman for bringing the problem to his attention.
    In fact, the mayor’ s Twitter feed reads like a chronicle of life in a metropolis. There are complaints and announcements about garbage collection, crime, traffic lights, construction delays etc. At first glance, it looks like a strange mix of unedited rants by aggravated citizens and upbeat public relations by an ambitious mayor. But a sustained look shows that a surprising number of these virtual conversations follow a cycle— citizen complains, mayor listens, city solves the problem—that until recently would have seemed impossible for an overpopulated and underfinanced metropolis in the developing world.
    In Latin America, Mexico City is not unique. Use of social media is growing at a breathtaking pace across the region. When Facebook passed the 1 billion user mark in October, few people noticed that 19 percent of those users live in Latin America(which only accounts for 8 percent of the world’s population). The governments of virtually all large Latin American cities now use social media to engage with citizens, and smaller cities are quickly following suit. The Inter-American Development Bank recently found that social media is used by governments in 70 percent of the region’s 140 "emerging cities"(those having 100,000 to 2 million residents and above-average economic growth rates).
    Although the press has focused on Latin American presidents who have embraced social media as a potent new channel for old-fashioned political communications, something very different is happening at the municipal level.
    Mayors seem to be betting that by micromanaging urban issues via Twitter or Facebook, they will give voters concrete evidence of their effectiveness in office. This is a risky tactic, of course. Many local governments that find it easy to virtually "engage" with constituents may not have the budgets, the organization, or the staff to actually solve the problems that generate complaints. The result, in that case, could be a voter backlash enlarged, ironically, over the same social media channels.
    I predict that social media will have a highly disruptive but largely positive effect in this context. These technologies will give new vitality to the ancient ideals of participation and accountability.
Why the author thinks the housewife’ s complaints on Twitter is futile?
选项 A、Because the social media is not a formal channel to raise problems.
B、Because the problem is of no big deal.
C、Because no one would notice it in a city of 22 million people. With incessant digital chatter.
D、Because the authorities will not check the complaints on Twitter.
答案C
解析 细节题。本题考查的是作者为什么认为那位妇女在推特上的抱怨是徒劳。可以定位到文中In an age of incessant digital chatter--and in a city of 22 million—thismight seem futile，从这里可以看出在无休止的互联网聊天的时代。在一个两千两百万人口的大城市里，这样做似乎是徒劳无功的，这与C项的意思一致。因此，正确答案是C。
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