Smart Mob

Smart mob is a form of flash mobs with political or ideological message. These past few years, common among others, globalization critics organizational form of protests and referred to a short, seemingly spontaneous crowd on public or semi- public places, which differs from the flash mob in the meaningfulness of doing. It is a form of self- structuring social organization through technology -mediated, intelligent emergent behavior.

Overview

The concept was developed by Howard Rheingold in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution presented. According to Rheingold Smart Mobs are an indication of the development of communication technologies.

These growing technologies include internet access, computer-mediated communication such as Internet Relay Chat and wireless devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants. Using methods such as peer -to -peer networks and pervasive computing is changing the way in which people can organize and share information. A smart mob is a group that, in contrast to the usual connotations of a mob behaves intelligently and efficiently, because it combines an exponentially growing network. One reason for the rise of smart mobs are the ever decreasing cost of increasingly powerful microprocessors.

The appearance of such interaction phenomena in complex non-linear systems is referred to as emergence. Hakim Bey calls these forms of action Temporary Autonomous Zone.

A technical variant is the Radio Ballet, a first set out in Hamburg in 2002, the form of street protest or the intentional confusion of passers-by. The actors perform a radio with it and get through this instructions on how to behave. The participants are asked to wave about to dance, walk around hunched over or lie down on the floor.

Examples

Smart Mobs have contributed in 2001 to the fall of Manila under suspicion of corruption President Joseph Estrada - wherever appeared the infamous politicians, organized Smart bullies quickly demonstrations. Barely an hour after the latest news have been spread over corruption, a text message was forwarded: (Go 2EDSA, wear black). It appeared thousands of black-clad protesters in public places.

On September 8, 2007, a nationwide Smart Mob took place against rail privatization. In more than 50 cities in total attended by more than 2,000 people, said the alliance path for all with.

In Iserlohn, there was a software error at a gas station in January 2008, which had cost three cents a liter for fuel. The customer immediately informed friends, it was the gas station a damage over 10,000 euros.

In the Critical Mass cyclists come to common exits to their presence on the road to show.

Reception

Warren Ellis wrote a 12-part comic book series called Global Frequency at Wildstorm. In this he describes a hidden operating non-governmental organization, which is based on the concept of smart mobs. Even the pilot of a television series was filmed.