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Social Network Analysis and Mining
Published in: Social Network Analysis and Mining 1/2021

01-12-2021 | Review Paper

Flash mob: a multidisciplinary review

Authors: Samer Al-khateeb, Nitin Agarwal

Published in: Social Network Analysis and Mining | Issue 1/2021

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Abstract

Since the year 2003, the term “flash mob” has been studied in various disciplines and was referred to by various media outlets to describe various events. The term "flash mob" originally meant to describe a phenomenon in which a group of people assembles in a public space, perform a seemingly random act, then quickly disperse. This phenomenon was expected to die just like other types of public performances, e.g., the eighties' raves. However, this phenomenon is still alive and became widespread in various forms. Since this phenomenon was new, mentioned in the media, and depended on technology, it is unwise to assume that everyone knows its exact meaning. Many traditionalist flash mobbers become concerned that the global diffusion of flash mobs has diluted their original meaning. So, in this summative, chronological, and by topic literature review article, we explore the disciplines in which this term was used; then investigate its various forms and propose the term “Mob” to be the root term so we can categorize its various forms (branches) and eliminate ambiguities; and prove that this phenomenon still exists. Finally, we try to shed light on what is missing from the literature and what needs to be studied in the future with regard to this topic.
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Appendix
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Footnotes
1
The "Rave" is a movement that originated in England in the 1980s and moved to the USA early 1990s. The movement featured "acid house" parties that usually involve acid house music, drug use such as methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDMA), and held in places like aircraft hangars, warehouses, or barns (“Raves/Raving” 2021).
 
2
It’s worth noting that the anti-globalisation movement which appeared at around the end of 1999 (Warner 2005) is one of the first protest movements to use mass mobilization and mobile communication to create an organized collective action amongst participants (Nicholson 2005; Gore 2010; Molnár 2014; Shawyer 2008).
 
4
Google Trends is a website by Google that shows information about the popularity of search queries across various regions and languages since January 1, 2004 (“Google Trends” 2006, 2021).
 
5
Grey literature is “the unpublished, non-commercial, hard-to-find information that organizations such as professional associations, research institutes, think tanks, and government departments produce” (Shannon 2020).
 
6
Adaptive self-assembly systems are systems that can change their behavior according to the change in the environment (Bruni et al. 2015). In such a system, which has a set of components already working, the system can find a new state that is better suited (e.g., in terms of its non-functional properties, for example, performance, reliability, and cost) for the change in the environment. There are several examples of self-assembly systems such as self-driving cars, web-server systems, unmanned underwater vehicles (Thomas 2020).
 
7
Watch the video: http://​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​Cs0s_​K1IIAg (accessed on June 20, 2021).
 
9
CRT: “is a clinical test used to evaluate the circulatory status of patients” (Alsma et al. 2017).
 
10
Interobserver Agreement (IOA) is "one of the most commonly used indicators of measurement quality in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and it is the degree to which two or more observers report the same observed values after measuring the same events" (Gilmore, MSW, and read 2015).
 
11
Branded flash mobs are events that are organized by companies to advertise their service, product, etc.
 
12
"Derived from flocks of birds or shoals of fish" (Brejzek 2010).
 
13
Dada is an art movement that started in Europe in the early twentieth century (Trachtman 2006).
 
14
Happening is an art event that was influenced by Dada. The term was coined in the 1950s by the American artist Allan Kaprow (Wainwright 2019).
 
15
Sense-making is a process in which humans go through to seek information that will help him/her in understanding what is going on in the world surrounding them or in other words fill their cognitive gaps (Heverin and Zach 2012).
 
16
The Youth International Party (Yippie) is a group of people who invented various forms of playful protests in the late 1960s against the Vietnam War (Gore 2010).
 
17
The 40 days season in which millions of Chinese citizens worldwide travel back to China to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families as part of their culture (Yiming 2015).
 
18
Content-based laws discriminate "against speech based on the substance of what it communicates" while content-neutral laws "applies to expression without regard to its substance" (Hudson 2009).
 
19
Brandenburg test was established in 1969 as a result of the Brandenburg (a leader of a Ku Klux Klan group) v. Ohio case, which prevent the government from punishing inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" (Legal Information Institute 2021a, b).
 
20
Atomized Flash Mob: a group performs the same activity, does not interact with each other, has no political intent, and disperse within 10 min (Molnár 2014).
 
21
Interactive Flash Mob: a group in which participants interact with each other and usually last for more than 10 min disrupting urban public spaces (Molnár 2014).
 
22
Performance Flash Mob: a group that has a stated artistic intent (e.g., to promote performance, an exhibition, or an artist), performs in outdoor spaces, and consists of a large group of strangers as opposed to a few artists in the role of professional provocateurs (Molnár 2014).
 
23
Political Flash Mob: a group gathers in a specific place to make a political point but without protesting, it is different than the smart mob in that it adopts guerilla-type tactics and an element of absurdity, e.g., gathering in a place and eating and eating ice cream in front of the police (Molnár 2014).
 
24
Advertising Flash Mob: a group staged by professional advertising agencies perform in quasi-public commercial spaces such as shopping malls to promote a company, a service, or a product (Molnár 2014).
 
25
Renrou Sousuo: is an event that started in 2001 in China in which individuals are recruited online or offline to identify non-moral individuals and try to punish them (usually by exposing their identity) because the law did not count their non-moral act as a crime (Tsou 2015).
 
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Metadata
Title
Flash mob: a multidisciplinary review
Authors
Samer Al-khateeb
Nitin Agarwal
Publication date
01-12-2021
Publisher
Springer Vienna
Published in
Social Network Analysis and Mining / Issue 1/2021
Print ISSN: 1869-5450
Electronic ISSN: 1869-5469
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-021-00810-7

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