246 Part 3 Group and Organizational Communication
THINK
ABOUT
THIS❶ Many social move-
ments benefit from social
networks, but is it fair to
credit electronic communi-
cation with bringing about
social change? How did
groups like the American
civil rights movement
organize demonstrations?
If these groups relied on
technology, does that
make them smart mobs?
❷ In an effort to quell
uprisings in Egypt in 2011,
the Egyptian government
blocked citizens’ access
to the Internet, yet protests
continued. What does this
say about the pervasive
nature of electronic com-
munication? What does
it say about the role of
electronic communication
in causing and fueling
action?
❸ What is the social value
of a flash mob? Is it just
something fun that tech-
nology makes possible, or
might there be important
effects for the participants
or the audiences?
❹ Is a smart mob really a
group, as defined in this
chapter? If not, what is it?Smart Mobs: What Flash Mobs and Political Protests
Have in Common
In 2014, more than four thousand straphangers in New York City—and countless
others in twenty-five countries around the world—boarded mass-transit trains in
their boxers, briefs, or bloomers for a coordinated “no pants subway ride” (Improv
Everywhere, 2014). A seemingly spontaneous dance performance also erupted
in 2014 among passengers at a train station in Shanghai—it was to celebrate the
Chinese new year and renew interest in Chinese folk traditions. In 2011, Occupy
Wall Street demonstrators converged on New York’s Zuccotti Park to protest
economic policies that they felt were deepening the divide between rich and poor.
What do these stories have in common? They’re all examples of smart mobs:
large groups of individuals who act in concert, even though they don’t know each
other, and who connect and cooperate with one another, at least initially, via elec-
tronically mediated means (Rheingold, 2002). But smart mobs have two important
additional characteristics that a generic social network lacks: a shared goal and
a finite time frame (Harmon & Metaxas, 2010). Like all electronic social networks,
smart mobs are grounded in a shared desire for communication and rely on af-
fordable devices that offer instantaneous communication. Simply communicating
is not enough to make a smart mob—there must be a tangible goal that is orga-
nized via mediated communication and achieved quickly and effectively.
There’s a difference, of course, between a social movement and an absurd,
pants-free subway ride. The latter is what has come to be called a flash mob—
a form of smart mob in which people come together for a brief public act that
may seem pointless or ridiculous. Even if the goal, often entertainment or artistic
expression, seems not-so-smart, flash mobs are still smart mobs: through tech-
nology the participants are organized and quickly mobilized to carry out their col-
lective act. Political protests, on the other hand, are largely comprised of activists
who may already be connected and organized but use technology—including
smart mob demonstrations—as tools for making their political or social goals
more visible (Conover et al., 2013). In fact, the term smart mob was first identified
in 2001, when calls for protest in the Philippines spread via text message, gather-
ing more than a million people to a nonviolent demonstration in Manila within four
days. Largely hailed as the world’s first “e-revolution,” the Manila protests quickly
and peacefully brought about the resignation of President Joseph Estrada.
In the years since, social media–fueled revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and
other Middle Eastern nations—sometimes referred to as “Twitter Revolutions” by
media pundits—have bolstered the notion that electronic communications are
somehow responsible for modern social movements. This is, most likely, an over-
simplification: social movements are usually the culmination of frustrations that
have been building for many years, which come to a pinnacle when activists begin
to organize. Malcom Gladwell points out that one of the most dramatic political
demonstrations in American history started with just four African American college
students asking for service at a “whites only” lunch counter in Greensboro, North
Carolina, on February 1, 1960; within a month, the sit-ins had spread throughout
the South—all without a single text or tweet (Gladwell, 2010). But, even then, the
existing media played an important role: newspaper photos of those first four stu-
dents printed in the Greensboro Record inspired others to join them.WIREDFORCOMMUNICATION