Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

potential when you can get that many people together” (Creamer 20). For example, apolitical flash mob could effectively disrupt a campaign speech with coordinatedensemble shouting, or a cultural flash mob might create chalk drawings in front of aschool that has just lost its fine arts budget, or a socially conscious flash mob might meetto distribute blankets to the homeless. The ability to quickly amass large amounts ofpeople is the key to the flash mob and its potential power. While in the past, word-ofmouthcampaigns like the Yippies’ might follow the same model of individuals passingon information to others in their social network, the electronic social network allows thisinformation to pass from one individual to another immediately. Mobile phones permitgroups like Critical Mass to instantaneously disseminate protest strategy. The electronicnetwork allows for more rapid organizing, and flexibility once the action has started.This flexibility is a key element of flash mobs and other similar networkedperformances. Highly adaptable and immediate, networked performances areunpredictable. Any performer may improvise a new tactic or urge others to immediatelychange what they are doing. Thus networked performances like the Yippies’revolutionary action-theater follow the dramaturgy of protest rather than the traditionalWestern agonistic dramatic model. The flash mob, which follows a pre-determinedaction, is only unpredictable to its audience who does not expect a performance toexplode in a public space. Yet its hallmark is the “abrupt eruption of dramatic intensity”that Kershaw considers central to protest dramaturgy. A modified flash mob, in whichparticipants direct themselves during the performance event itself, could fully take220