Encyclopedia of Sociology

CROWDS AND RIOTS

and conventional audience. More often than not,
however, protest crowds, large-scale victory cele-
brations, and riots do not grow out of convention-
al gatherings but require the rapid convergence of
people in time and space. McPhail and David
Miller (1973) found this assembling process to be
contingent on the receipt of assembling instruc-
tions; ready access, either by foot or by other
transportation, to the scene of the action; schedule
congruence; and relatively free or discretionary
time. It can also be facilitated by lifestyle circum-
stances and social networks. Again, the ghetto
riots of the 1960s are a case in point. They typically
occurred on weekday evenings or weekends in the
summer, times when people were at home, were
more readily available to receive instructions, and
had ample discretionary time (Kerner 1968).

The focusing of attention typically occurs
through some ‘‘keynoting’’ or ‘‘framing’’ process
whereby the interpretive gesture or utterance of
one or more individuals provides a resonant ac-
count or stimulus for action. It can occur sponta-
neously, as when someone yells ‘‘Cops!’’ or ‘‘Fire!’’;
it can be an unintended consequence of media
broadcasts; or it can be the product of prior plan-
ning, thus implying the operation of a social
movement.

COORDINATION OF CROWD BEHAVIOR

Examination of protest demonstrations, celebratory
crowds, and riots reveals in each case that the
behaviors in question are patterned and collective
rather than random and individualistic. Identifica-
tion of the sources of coordination has thus been
one of the central tasks confronting students of
crowd behavior.

Earlier theorists attributed the coordination
either to the rapid spread of emotional states and
behavior in a contagion-like manner due to the
presumably heightened suggestibility of crowd
members (LeBon [1895] 1960; Blumer l95l) or to
the convergence of individuals who are predis-
posed to behave in a similar fashion because of
common dispositions or background characteris-
tics (Allport 1924; Dollard et al. 1939). Both views
are empirically off the mark. They assume a uni-
formity of action that glosses the existence of
various categories of actors, variation in their be-
haviors, ongoing interaction among them, and the

role this interaction plays in determining the direc-

tion and character of crowd behavior. These

oversights are primarily due to the perceptual trap

of taking the behaviors of the most conspicuous

element of the episode—the main task perform-

ers—as typifying all categories of actors, thus giv-

ing rise to the previously mentioned ‘‘illusion of

unanimity’’ (Turner and Killian 1987).

A more modern variant of the convergence

argument attributes coordination to a rational

calculus in which individuals reach parallel assess-

ments regarding the benefits of engaging in a

particular task activity (Berk 1974; Granovetter

1978). Blending elements of this logic with strands

of theorizing seemingly borrowed from LeBon

and Freud, James Coleman (1990) argues that

crowd behavior occurs when individuals make a

unilateral transfer of control over their actions.

Such accounts are no less troublesome than the

earlier ones in that they remain highly individualis-

tic and psychologistic, ignoring the extent to which

crowd behavior is the product of collective deci-

sion making involving the ‘‘framing’’ and ‘‘reframing’’

of probable costs and benefits and the extent to

which this collective decision making frequently

has a history involving prior negotiation between

various sets of crowd participants.

A sociologically more palatable view holds

that crowd behavior is coordinated by definition

of the situation that functions in normative fash-

ion by encouraging behavior in accordance with

the definition. The collective definition may be

situationally emergent (Turner and Killian 1987)

or preestablished by prior policing strategies or

negotiation among the relevant sets of actors (Del-

la Porta and Reiter 1998; Snow and Anderson

1985). When one or more sets of actors cease to

adjust their behaviors to this normative under-

standing, violence is more likely, especially if the

police seek to reestablish normative control, and

the episode is likely to be labeled as riotous or

mob-like.

Today it is generally conceded that most in-

stances of crowd behavior are normatively regulat-

ed, but the dynamics underlying the emergence of

such regulations are still not well understood em-

pirically. Consequently, there is growing research

interest in detailing the interactional dynamics

underlying the process by which coordinating un-

derstandings emerge and change. Distinctive to