Crowd manipulation

For other uses, see Manipulation.

Crowd manipulation is the intentional or unwitting 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.[1] This practice is common to religion, 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. If propaganda is "the consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group",[2] crowd manipulation is the relatively brief call to action once the seeds of propaganda (i.e. more specifically "pre-propaganda"[3]) 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 (such as a political demonstration or a congregation or a camp meeting) in real time.[4] 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.[5][need quotation to verify]

Crowd manipulation differs from crowd control, which serves a security function. Local authorities use crowd-control methods to contain and disperse crowds and to prevent and respond to unruly and unlawful acts such as rioting and looting.[6]

  1. ^ Adam Curtis (2002). The Century of the Self. British Broadcasting Cooperation (documentary). United Kingdom: BBC4. Archived from the original on 2010-03-19. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  2. ^ Bernays, Edward L. (1928). Propaganda. Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing (published 2004). p. 52. ISBN 978-0970312594.
  3. ^ Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965): 15.
  4. ^ Le Bon, Gustave (1895). The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Translated by [unknown]. Courier Corporation (published 2012). ISBN 978-0486122083. Retrieved 26 July 2021. The French Revolution ... had among its remote factors the writings of the philosophers, the exactions of the nobility, and the progress of scientific thought. The mind of the masses, thus prepared, was then easily roused by such immediate factors as the speeches of orators ....
  5. ^ Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Kindle Edition, Book I, Chapter 1 (Ego Books, 2008).
  6. ^ John M. Kenny; Clark McPhail; et al. (2001). Crowd Behavior, Crowd Control, and the Use of Non-Lethal Weapons (Report). The Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies, The Pennsylvania State University. pp. 4–11.