In two previous posts I began advancing some thoughts regarding how social media communities are more like crowds.
Webster’s says that a crowd is “a group of people having something in common.” So right off, by using reliable Webster, we see that a crowd does have something in common. Well, use your head. Of course, crowds have something in common. Why else would they come together? Think of any crowd that you have ever been in and on the most basic level there was something that you had in common with every other person there. The purpose of the crowd may have not always been a purpose to be affected by the crowd, such as in a protest demonstration or a picket line. The purpose may have been just to achieve something on an individual basis like a crowd at a concert, to be entertained, or a crowd of people walking down a street, to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner given the physical circumstances presented. Now let’s move on to an assertion that a crowd doesn’t possess leadership. This assertion was put forth in an article by Patrick. The article was entitled “Follow the Herd: How Behavior and Stories Spread Through Online Crowds.”
Again from Webster’s, it says that the word “crowd” is “applied to an assembly of persons . . . and may suggest a lack of order, loss of personal identity, etc.” Okay. So based on Webster’s definition, which I deem a reliable source, I can agree with Patrick here. Crowds differ from communities in that a crowd is a less organized group of persons than is a community. That describes what we see on social sites more accurately.
So what we’ve arrived at here is that online groups really are more “crowd” than they are “community.” From what I’ve just discussed, you can see that online groups are a hybrid between the two, but favoring the crowd side of the “social DNA” rather than the community. I say “favoring the crowd side” because of the lack of order and loss of personal identity factors. They’re big, very big factors in social media, and very dangerous competition for today’s businesses.
Let’s sum up what we have so far regarding groups of people online. What we see online is a virtual crowd with something in common, but they are a faceless group of people, with a lack of order, with little or no personal identity. (There is little personal identity when individuals begin on social media, but it is through avatars and consistent writing voice that people endeavor to establish their own “personal online brand.” Such efforts can contribute to changing a crowd into a community.) And where there are crowds, there is crowd behavior.
That’s the “piling on” that we often see in social media.
interesting distinction between the two however i think crowds and communities still work together to achieve a common goal, take protesters for instance, would you call them a crowd or a community?
Protesters being defined as a crowd or community would depend upon their level of organization. The level of community is directly related to the amount of organization in the group.