Contemporary Understanding of Riots: Classical Crowd Psychology, Ideology and the Social Identity Approach (2016)
Stott, Clifford (Author)
Drury, John (Author)
Public Understanding of Science
Volume: 26
Issue: 1
Pages: 2-14
This article explores the origins and ideology of classical crowd psychology, a body of theory reflected in contemporary popularised understandings such as of the 2011 English ‘riots’. This article argues that during the nineteenth century, the crowd came to symbolise a fear of ‘mass society’ and that ‘classical’ crowd psychology was a product of these fears. Classical crowd psychology pathologised, reified and decontextualised the crowd, offering the ruling elites a perceived opportunity to control it. We contend that classical theory misrepresents crowd psychology and survives in contemporary understanding because it is ideological. We conclude by discussing how classical theory has been supplanted in academic contexts by an identity-based crowd psychology that restores the meaning to crowd action, replaces it in its social context and in so doing transforms theoretical understanding of ‘riots’ and the nature of the self.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Renny Thomas;
(2020)
Brahmins as scientists and science as Brahmins’ calling: Caste in an Indian scientific research institute
(/isis/citation/CBB328224315/)
Book
Ann-Janine Morey;
(2014)
Picturing Dogs, Seeing Ourselves: Vintage American Photographs
(/isis/citation/CBB818895674/)
Book
Blaszczyk, Regina Lee;
(2009)
American Consumer Society, 1865--2005: From Hearth to HDTV
(/isis/citation/CBB001201132/)
Book
Ingrid H. Tague;
(2015)
Animal Companions: Pets and Social Change in Eighteenth-Century Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB079105085/)
Book
Caterina Guenzi;
(2021)
Words of Destiny: Practicing Astrology in North India
(/isis/citation/CBB318179740/)
Book
Ian McGonigle;
(2021)
Genomic Citizenship: The Molecularization of Identity in the Contemporary Middle East
(/isis/citation/CBB092609489/)
Book
Thomson, Mathew;
(2006)
Psychological Subjects: Identity, Culture, and Health in Twentieth-Century Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB000773679/)
Article
Anna Jabloner;
(2019)
A Tale of Two Molecular Californias
(/isis/citation/CBB907999916/)
Article
Carlos López-Beltrán;
Abigail Nieves Delgado;
Sandra P. González-Santos;
Vivette García-Deister;
(2022)
The Heredity Matrix: Genetics and the Understanding of Mestizaje, Health, and Belonging in Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB464443070/)
Book
Mark Jackson;
(2021)
Broken Dreams: An Intimate History of the Midlife Crisis
(/isis/citation/CBB483736678/)
Article
Kamiel Mobach;
Ulrike Felt;
(2022)
On the Entanglement of Science and Europe at CERN: The Temporal Dynamics of a Coproductive Relationship
(/isis/citation/CBB148934545/)
Article
Aaron Panofsky;
Joan Donovan;
(October 2019)
Genetic ancestry testing among white nationalists: From identity repair to citizen science
(/isis/citation/CBB869271385/)
Book
Pittenger, Mark;
(2012)
Class Unknown: Undercover Investigations of American Work and Poverty from the Progressive Era to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB001214618/)
Book
Eugenio Lecaldano;
(2021)
Identità personale: Storia e critica di un’idea
(/isis/citation/CBB940829141/)
Article
Crossland, Rachel;
(2013)
“Multitudinous and Minute”: Early Twentieth-Century Scientific, Literary and Psychological Representations of the Mass
(/isis/citation/CBB001320816/)
Article
Jean-Philippe Martinez;
(2019)
Beyond Ideology: Epistemological Foundations of Vladimir Fock's approach to Quantum Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB957810528/)
Article
Kendig, Catherine;
(2011)
Race as a Physiosocial Phenomenon
(/isis/citation/CBB001250032/)
Book
Alicia Puglionesi;
(2020)
Common Phantoms: An American History of Psychic Science
(/isis/citation/CBB698438603/)
Book
Keith Wailoo;
(2021)
Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette
(/isis/citation/CBB653382427/)
Book
Mark Solovey;
Christian Dayé;
(2021)
Cold War Social Science: Transnational Entanglements
(/isis/citation/CBB237888537/)
Be the first to comment!