SOCC44
Collective Behaviour
Lecture 4
2 October, 2013
Midterm
1. Goode Chapter 1 to page 38
2. Chapter 2 to page 73
3. Chapter 3
4. Locher
Midterm is 5-8 Short Answer Questions (some shorter than others)
Very specific questions, feel free to write in first person
Cover all lectures and readings
1. Define Collective behaviour, spontaneous, unstructures, institutional. Second
part going to give a scenario and ask if the scenario is collective behaviour or
more specifically if it has a high contact of collective behaviour.
Collective Behaviour
- Relatively spontaneous unstructured extra institutional behaviour of a fairly
large number of individuals.
- It is not a really specific definition
- It is relatively spontaneous and unstructured
- For example, is the collection of people in a classroom collective behaviour?
No it is not. Is driving collectively on a highway collective behaviour? No,
because it is a conventional behaviour, there is nothing really spontaneous,
you are part of a crowd and a group but it is not collective behaviour. What
happens if there is an accident, and people ran from their car, this would be
collective behaviour. This is spontaneous, there is a type of structure to it, the
structure is often time chaos, it can be institutionalize and there can be
institutional responses.
- One of the interesting thing about collective behaviour is the
spontaneousness, the fact that it erupts in comparison to everyday behaviour
- Most behaviour is not classic collective behaviour
- Difference between conventional behaviour and collective behaciour is a
matter of degree. Collective behaviour is becoming a grey area
- A lot of everyday behaviour falls in a sort of grey area, yes our day is taken up
by usually everyday behaviour and there is collective behaviour. But a great
deal of our behaviour is in a sort of grey area. It is this grey area that
interests us, and tells us things about social forces, about media, technology
and so on.
- This is particularly true because of technology. Technology has changed
people’s conception of space and time.
- There is a lot of things with digital media, and a sense of consciousness has
change concerning space and time. - Technology has changed our consciousness and challenges some of our
collective behaviour
2. Describe the public and crowd distinction, this includes four different types
of crowds and then secondly going to ask how this distinction, public and
crowd in terms of physical proximity how that distinction is blurred. How
crowds no longer has to rely on physical proximity. For example acting
crowd, best example is cyber bullying.
The Public and the Crowd (Tarde) p. 21
- There is a difference between the public and crowd
- The public is scattered and diffuse only connected through a common
interest
- The crowd compact, members are in close physical proximity
- Traditionally there are four types of crowds
- Casual- people who just happen to be in the same place at the same time
- Conventional- are in close proximity but they tend to have a common
purpose. A lecture for example
- Expressive- this is like conventional but expressive goes further and instea
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