The Power of the Crowd: How Collective Action is Changing the World
Across human history, groups of regular people banding together as an impassioned "crowd" have accomplished feats of social and political change that no individual could achieve alone. From the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution to the March on Washington during the American Civil Rights movement, collective action has proven itself one of society‘s most potent forces for driving progress.
In an increasingly digitally-connected age, mass crowd power has reached even greater heights. Hashtag movements on social media have toppled dictators during the Arab Spring, sparked lasting conversations on sexual assault with #MeToo, and forced massive corporations to change racist policies in weeks rather than dragging through years of boycotts or lawsuits.
Clearly, when properly harnessed, the crowd is mighty. This article will explore the social science behind collective action, providing evidence of its power while also investigating risks. With case studies and expert analysis, we‘ll learn how groups can channel raw passion into meaningful change.
The Psychology and Power of Crowds
Crowd psychology has long fascinated social scientists. What is it about impassioned groups of strangers, rallying around a common cause or emotion, which enables them to achieve things they never could individually?
Research on the subject flourished in the late 19th century, as massive throngs of people mobilized for worker‘s rights demonstrations across the Western world. Fascinated by the dramatic power of these crowds, early theorists like Gustave Le Bon characterized them as almost animalistic mobs which subsumed individual rationality into a kind of "group mind". He wrote that within crowds, "sentiments, ideas, and feelings seem to acquire exceptional energy" as each person feeds off the shared passion [1].
While early scholars often portrayed crowds as irrational and dangerous, contemporary research recognizes their potential for positive change. Analyzing real-world examples of impactful social movements, experts found most crowd behavior is not wanton chaos but the result of rational, shared grievances against injustice [2]. United by common frustrations and hopes, crowd members self-organize, developing unique capacities greater than any individual.
These emergent crowd capacities spring from humans‘ innate skill at impromptu social coordination with minimal central guidance [3]. Honed by millions of years evolving in groups, people automatically synchronize moods and actions when crammed into dense crowds. Waves of cheers, chants, raised fists, marching feet, or candlelit solemnity can ripple through vast gatherings at a single cue.
Gleaned from individuals but greater than any solo contribution, these swarm behaviors change what crowds can achieve. Angered crowds can swarm targets as destructively as hornets, while at other times they improvise ingenious solutions or forge such powerful bonds that support massive group sacrifice for the cause [4].
For social movements seeking change, six key factors determine crowd power:
- The size and networks of the crowd
- Common grievances and ideals uniting them
- Emotional amplification and solidarity in crowds
- Emergent coordination and problem-solving
- Economic and political leverage of disruption
- Drawing sympathizers to take action
History offers many examples of these six drivers combining with transformative results…
The March on Washington and Reverberations of MLK’s Dream
On August 28th, 1963, over 200,000 Americans flooded the National Mall in Washington D.C. [5]. Gathered to condemn racial injustice and advocate for the civil rights legislation proposed by President Kennedy, they embodied peaceful determination.
Spread between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, crowds gave their rapt attention as Martin Luther King Junior took the podium for the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. His words of hope for equality and justice echoed across downturned faces. Then something incredible happened…
King pushed his prepared remarks aside. He paused, gazing across the endless crowd [6]. Inspiration struck – this enormous, passionate crowd was the perfect vehicle for change. Channeling their yearnings for freedom into rhetoric which shook history, he began:
“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream…”
In what is now considered one of the greatest American speeches, King harnessed the innate psychology of crowds to crystallize national frustrations over injustice into a primal longing, a collective dream of equality [7]. Other activists had given similar speeches with no such impact, but speaking before nearly a quarter-million impassioned souls, King’s dream became power.
The March on Washington illustrated how sheer crowd scale and networks, unified by common grievance, could spark change. King‘s speech channeled crowd passion into a shared vision of dawning justice. These aligned factors compelled President Kennedy to finally issue the full Civil Rights Act of 1964 – enforcing desegregation, protecting voting rights and prohibiting employment discrimination [8].
While the road to equality remained long, the bold collective action of the March on Washingtoncrowd forced national leaders towards that dream at last…
The Global Crowd and Technology: #MeToo’s Viral Justice
Jump forward fifty years, and society witnessed the evolution of collective action for the digital age. Through immense global connectivity, internet-based movements arose which dwarfed any prior social crusade in scale and speed.
In 2006, activist Tarana Burke coined the phrase “Me Too” to promote solidarity among survivors of sexual assault and harassment [9]. This concept spread slowly at first but caught fire eleven years later. The #MeToo hashtag went explosively viral in late 2017 as celebrities shared stories of media mogul Harvey Weinstein’s abuse and rape [10].
Within weeks, the hashtag had reached 85 countries. Google reported search spikes of +5000%. #MeToo tweets increased over 500,000% from 2016 rates. In Facebook’s first big analytics study, over 4.7 million people globally engaged with #MeToo in a single month [11].
This effectively formed an instant “crowd” of millions unified by trauma and hope. Victims publicly shared their long-silent stories, empowering others to speak out. Soon abusers across sectors – from Hollywood to Silicon Valley to politics – faced very public reckonings. Allies decried complicity in systems which had normalized sexual misconduct for so long.
As social networks spread #MeToo worldwide, fluid digital coordination saw activists distill specific demands from raw outrage [12]. Codes of conduct changed, legislation passed. Powerful figures toppled overnight, and social mores truly shifted from the sheer weight of shared catharsis. The viral crowd had swept society by storm.
Yet mega-viral movements like #MeToo also came under fire themselves…
The Double-Edged Sword of Mass Crowds
History provides ample evidence of constructive crowd power, but darker manifestations chilled early crowd theorists for good reason. Unchecked emotion and anonymity can warp solidarity into something dangerous – the anonymity of online spaces only heightening this risk [13].
While deep social frustrations may catalyze important movements, the same psychologies can fuel mob violence, reactionary extremism, and alarmist conspiracies just as easily. If care is not taken to actively reinforce ethics, some crowd behaviors risk causing terrible harm to bystanders, targets, and movements themselves [14].
Take online harassment mobs for example. The same digital networks accelerating collective action for human rights can swarm innocent individuals over false rumors as cruel “pranks”. Even with good intentions, crowds demanding quick action after tragedies may inadvertently direct anger towards marginalized groups.
Viral movements must therefore take active responsibility to minimize harm, as #MeToo attempted by centering survivor narratives. Still, critics noted #MeToo could also enable unaccountable public shaming, casting overly wide nets, or downplaying vital legal principles like due process. Such complex dynamics ever lurk within the DNA of crowds.
The keys are for movements to actively reinforce ethical grounding, transparency, non-violence and care for others’ rights – channeling that incredible collective power towards justice for all. Leaders must dedicate themselves to encouraging empathy, wisdom and constructive action…
The Future of Crowds
Modern connectivity has unlocked crowd power unprecedented in history by sheer scale and coordination speed. In an age of rising authoritarianism across nations, we require ethical collective action more urgently than ever to champion neglected issues and check tyranny.
Already, crowds of coordinated online activists have won victories once unimaginable – from the Arab Spring revolutions to the largest racial justice protests in American history last year. Dedicated collectives like Black Lives Matter will continue forcing overdue social progress.
Yet with such immense power comes immense responsibility. The same tools enabling these advances also carry risks of over-reaction, misinformation, and division. The future will depend greatly on digital crowds learning greater maturity.
The incredible force awakened within kindled crowds means they could steer society’s course for good or for ill. But if movements earnestly commit to the hard work of compassion and wisdom, perhaps the crowd’s dream of lasting justice and human rights may finally prove too powerful to defeat. Our shared fates now depend on it.