Flash Mob vs. Smart Mob II

Howerd Rheingold, author of "Smart Mob"

As already mentioned in my first article, you can differentiate between two types of mobs: First the flash mob, which is an assembly of people and doesn’t make a point of having a deeper meaning. Considered this, a flash mob is very similar to a happening – a term describing artistic performances developed in the 1950s.  Unlike that, smart mobs have political dimensions. Howerd Rheingold – an U.S. social-scientist, writer and critic – invented the concept of smart mobs. In his homonymous book he describes them as a “the next social revolution”. According to the author “smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation”. Compared to the usual behaviours of a mob, a smart mob interacts more intelligent and effective. That is because the participants of this kind of mob have the possibility to build up an effective network with the help of internet and computer-mediated communication. A well-oiled network helps to coordinate attended information and connection to other people.
One of the first examples for a smart mob took place in the Philippines: In 2001 – even one year before Rheingold published his book – a group of people organized a protest movement against the Philippine President Joseph Estrada, who was blamed to be corrupt. The demonstrators coordinated their protest via SMS – with big success: after a short time Estrada was removed from his office!
But smart mobs cannot only be helpful in coordinating protests against unpopular or despotic authorites: The concept of a smart mob also includes the possibility to strengthen democracy even before protest are necessary.  On his webpage SmartMob.com Howerd Rheingold describes how mobile communication – in this case cell phones – can help to monitor elections: In one of his articles Rheingold explains, why “the use of mobile telephones to monitor elections has been effective in countering electoral manipulation and corruption in Africa”. During the elections in western-African country Senegal, a local radio-station equipped their correspondents with mobile phones, to enable them to sent progress reports from where ever they were. According to Rheingold, “the growth of simple communication technologies like cell phones are assisting many states to progress towards open and fair elections in increasingly democratic systems.”
To sum it up: Both, smart and flash mobs, are varieties of the same phenomena. The smart mob – which delivered the roots for both terms – has a political background; the flash mob belongs to a more cultural field.
But both however are a good example for a far-reaching process relative to formations in modern communication: Mobile communication approaches the powerless mass closer to the power – that’s the power of the masses!

Sources:

- wikipedia.org.

-smartmobs.com

Flash Mob vs. Smart Mob I

When you think about a mob the first association and picture that usually come up your mind is an angry group of people – a violent, aggressive and uncontrollable crowd.
But in times of internet and mobile communication a mob can appear in many different facings: Hundreds or even thousands of mostly young people meeting in public places, acting pacifically, enjoying the furore they created just with their own appearance.
Flash mob is the keyword of this new way to gather in a group – the very mob! But what exactly is that – a flash mob. The easiest way to explain, is to quote from the dictionary. As many new expressions linked to the IT-branch also the term flash mob found its way into the dictionaries surprisingly quick after its first appearance 2003 in New York. “A group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse; also called inexplicable mob” so the direct quotation from dictionary.com.
The inventor of the first flash mob, which took place in Manhattan in May 2003, was the journalist and editor Bill Wasik. Via SMS, e-mail or phone Bill Wasik rounded up more than one hundred people in a department store, where they clapped their hands for exact 15 seconds. After that time they left the store without any reaction or explanation for the surprised and perplex employees and customers. Exact these absurdity and purposelessness of the action is emblematic and prototypical for a flash mob. By contrast  is the so called smart mob, which I’m going to look at in detail in my second article. Like a flash mob a smart mob is also a convention of people gathered together via interetn, SMS, ect. But there is one big difference between the two: Unlike a flash mob, a smart mob always has a political or socil background and purpose.
One of the most spectacular flash mobs happened during a cold Saturday in January 2006 in New York’s Grand Central Station – one of the biggest train-stations in the world. More than 200 people – all informed by e-mail, SMS or mobile phone – met in the Main Concourse of the station, where they stopped in their move all in the same time for exact five minutes. With disbelief in their eyes all the other pedestrians walked in-between the groups of human-statues. Because the participants of this flash mob acted like frozen bodies, this act became famous as the Frozen Grand Central. Since today this type of flash mob was copied in many different cities all over the world.

Sources:

- wikipedia.org
- youtube.com
- Spiegel.de
- dictionary.reference.com
- improveverywhere.com