Crowd manipulation is the intentional use of techniques based on the principles of crowd psychology to engage, control, or influence the desires of a crowd in order to direct its behavior toward a specific action.
This practice is common to politics and business and can facilitate the approval or disapproval or indifference to a person, policy, or product. The ethicality of crowd manipulation is commonly questioned.
Crowd manipulation differs from propaganda although they may reinforce one another to produce a desired result. Propaganda is “the consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group”.
Crowd manipulation is the relatively brief call to action once the seeds of propaganda (i.e. more specifically “pre-propaganda”) are sown and the public is organized into a crowd.
The propagandist appeals to the masses, even if compartmentalized, whereas the crowd manipulator appeals to a segment of the masses assembled into a crowd in real time. In situations such as a national emergency, however, a crowd manipulator may leverage mass media to address the masses in real time as if speaking to a crowd.
FUNCTION AND MORALITY
The crowd manipulator engages, controls, or influences crowds without the use of physical force, although his goal may be to instigate the use of force by the crowd or by local authorities.
Prior to the American War of Independence, Samuel Adams provided Bostonians with “elaborate costumes, props, and musical instruments to lead protest songs in harborside demonstrations and parades through Boston’s streets.”
If such crowds provoked British authorities to violence, as they did during the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, Adams would write, produce, and disperse sensationalized accounts of the incidents to stir discontent and create unity among the American colonies.
The American way of manipulation may be classified as a tool of soft power, which is “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments”.
The verb “manipulate” can convey negativity, but it does not have to do so. According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, for example, to “manipulate” means “to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage.”
This definition allows, then, for the artful and honest use of control for one’s advantage. Moreover, the actions of a crowd need not be criminal in nature.
EDWARD BERNAYS
It is crowds rather than isolated individuals that may be induced to run the risk of death to secure the triumph of a creed or an idea, that may be fired with enthusiasm for glory and honour.
Such heroism is without doubt somewhat unconscious, but it is of such heroism that history is made. Were peoples only to be credited with the great actions performed in cold blood, the annals of the world would register but few of them.
Edward Bernays, the so-called “Father of Public Relations”, believed that public manipulation was not only moral, but a necessity. He argued that “a small, invisible government who understands the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, rules public opinion by consent.” This is necessary for the division of labor and to prevent chaos and confusion.
“The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion”, wrote Bernays.
He also wrote, “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”
Being right in the sense of being correct is not sufficient to win. Political technology determines political success. Learn how to organize and how to communicate.
In brief, manipulators with different ideologies can employ successfully the same techniques to achieve ends that may be good or bad.
CROWDS AND THEIR BEHAVIOR
In order to manipulate a crowd, one should first understand what is meant by a crowd, as well as the principles that govern its behavior.
A crowd as “a numerous collection of people who face a concrete situation together and are more or less aware of their bodily existence as a group. Their facing the situation together is due to common interests and the existence of common circumstances which give a single direction to their thoughts and actions.”
Crowds may be classified according to the degree of definiteness and constancy of this consciousness. When it is very definite and constant, the crowd may be called homogeneous, and when not so definite and constant, heterogeneous.
A crowd may display behavior that differs from the individuals who compose it. These collective works contribute to the refuted many of the stereotypes associated with crowd behavior as described by classic theory.
GUSTAVE LE BON
Gustave Le Bon proposed that French crowds during the 19th century were essentially excitable, irrational mobs easily influenced by wrongdoers. He postulated that the heterogeneous elements which make up this type of crowd essentially form a new being, a chemical reaction of sorts in which the crowd’s properties change.
Under certain given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it.
The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics.
Le Bon observed several characteristics of what he called the “organized” or “psychological” crowd, including:
1. submergence or the disappearance of a conscious personality and the appearance of an unconscious personality (aka “mental unity”). This process is aided by sentiments of invincible power and anonymity which allow one to yield to instincts which he would have kept under restraint (i.e. Individuality is weakened and the unconscious “gains the upper hand”);
2. contagion (“In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest.”); and
3. suggestibility as the result of a hypnotic state. “All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined by the hypnotizer” and the crowd tends to turn these thoughts into acts.
In sum, the classic theory contends that:
• Crowds are unified masses whose behaviors can be categorized as active, expressive, acquisitive or hostile.
• Crowd participants are given to spontaneity, irrationality, loss of self-control, and a sense of anonymity.
MODERN THEORY
Critics of the classic theory contend that it is seriously flawed in that it decontextualises crowd behavior, lacks sustainable empirical support, is biased, and ignores the influence of policing measures on the behavior of the crowd.
In 1968, Dr. Carl J. Couch examined and refuted many classic-theory stereotypes in his article, ‘Collective Behavior: An Examination of Some Stereotypes’.
• Crowds are not homogeneous entities but are composed of a minority of individuals and a majority of small groups of people who are acquainted with one another.
• Crowd participants are neither unanimous in their motivation” nor to one another. Participants “seldom act in unison, and if they do, that action does not last long.
• Crowds do not cripple individual cognition and are not uniquely distinguished by violence or disorderly actions.
• Individual attitudes and personality characteristics, as well as socioeconomic, demographic and political variables are poor predictors of riot intensity and individual participation.
ESIM
The ‘elaborated social identity model’ (ESIM) proposes thecomponent part of the self concept determining human social behaviour derives from psychological membership of particular social categories (i.e., an identity of a unique individual).
Crowd participants also have a range of social identities which can become salient within the psychological system referred to as the ‘self.’
Collective action becomes possible when a particular social identity is simultaneously salient and therefore shared among crowd participants.
Stott’s final point differs from the “submergence” quality of crowds proposed by Le Bon, in which the individual’s consciousness gives way to the unconsciousness of the crowd.
ESIM also considers the effect of policing on the behavior of the crowd. It warns that “the indiscriminate use of force would create a redefined sense of unity in the crowd in terms of the illegitimacy of and opposition to the actions of the police.”
This could essentially draw the crowd into conflict despite the initial hesitancy of the individuals in the crowd.
PLANNING AND TECHNIQUE
Crowd manipulation involves several elements, including: propaganda, authority, and delivery.
PROPAGANDA
The crowd manipulator and the propagandist may work together to achieve greater results than they would individually. According to Edward Bernays, the propagandist must prepare his target group to think about and anticipate a message before it is delivered.
Messages themselves must be tested in advance since a message that is ineffective is worse than no message at all.
Direct propaganda, aimed at modifying opinions and attitudes, must be preceded by propaganda that is sociological in character, slow, general, seeking to create a climate, an atmosphere of favorable preliminary attitudes.
No direct propaganda can be effective without pre-propaganda, which, without direct or noticeable aggression, is limited to creating ambiguities, reducing prejudices, and spreading images, apparently without purpose.
In Jacques Ellul’s book, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes,it states that sociological propaganda can be compared to plowing, direct propaganda to sowing; you cannot do the one without doing the other first.
Essentially sociological propaganda aims to increase conformity with the environment that is of a collective nature by developing compliance with or defense of the established order through long term penetration and progressive adaptation by using all social currents.
After the mind of the crowd is plowed and the seeds of propaganda are sown, a crowd manipulator may prepare to harvest his crop.
AUTHORITY
The manipulator may be an orator, a group, a musician, an athlete, or some other person who moves a crowd to the point of agreement before he makes a specific call to action.
Prestige is a form of “domination exercised on our mind by an individual, a work, or an idea.” The manipulator with great prestige paralyses the critical faculty of his crowd and commands respect and awe.
Authority flows from prestige, which can be generated by “acquired prestige” (e.g. job title, uniform, judge’s robe) and “personal prestige” (i.e. inner strength).
Personal prestige is like that of the “tamer of a wild beast” who could easily devour him. Success is the most important factor affecting personal prestige. Le Bon wrote, “From the minute prestige is called into question, it ceases to be prestige”.
Thus, it would behoove the manipulator to prevent this discussion and to maintain a distance from the crowd, lest his faults undermine his prestige.
APPLICATIONS
POLITICS
The political process provides ample opportunity to utilize crowd-manipulation techniques to foster support for candidates and policy. From campaign rallies to town-hall debates to declarations of war, statesmen have historically used crowd manipulation to convey their messages.
BUSINESS
Ever since the advent of mass production, businesses and corporations have used crowd manipulation to sell their products. Advertising serves as propaganda to prepare a future crowd to absorb and accept a particular message.
Edward Bernays believed that particular advertisements are more effective if they create an environment which encourages the purchase of certain products. Instead of marketing the features of a piano, sell prospective customers the idea of a music room.
The entertainment industry makes exceptional use of crowd manipulation to excite fans and boost ticket sales. Not only does it promote assembly through the mass media, it also uses rhetorical techniques to engage crowds, thereby enhancing their experience.
FLASH MOBS
A flash mob is a gathering of individuals, usually organized in advance through electronic means, that performs a specific, usually peculiar action and then disperses. These actions are often bizarre or comical—as in a massive pillow fight, ad-hoc musical, or synchronized dance. Bystanders are usually left in awe and/or shock.
The concept of a flash mob is relatively new when compared to traditional forms of crowd manipulation.
The use of flash mobs as a tool of political warfare may take the form of a massive walkout during a political speech, the disruption of political rally, or even as a means to reorganize a crowd after it has been dispersed by crowd control.
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