tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/crowds-20886/articlesCrowds – The Conversation2023-11-24T00:20:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183412023-11-24T00:20:59Z2023-11-24T00:20:59ZTaylor Swift’s Brazil concert was hammered by extreme heat. How to protect crowds at the next sweltering gig<p>Electrifying music concerts and other mass events are increasingly under threat from severe weather events, such as extreme heat.</p>
<p>The tragic <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-22/heatwave-humidity-warnings-follow-brazil-taylor-swift-fan-death/103132476">incident</a> at a Taylor Swift concert in Brazil recently, which resulted in the death of one fan, is a stark reminder of what can happen.</p>
<p>The concert took place in a stadium during a heatwave. Fans lined up for hours outside the Rio de Janeiro venue, with temperatures reportedly over 40°C. With the high humidity, this would have felt like almost 60°C, according to a measure known as the “<a href="https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex#:%7E:text=The%20heat%20index%2C%20also%20known,for%20the%20human%20body%27s%20comfort.">heat index</a>”.</p>
<p>As well as the fatality, fans <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/tours/taylor-swift-concert-goers-struck-with-seconddegree-burns/news-story/e1a597d52f642c46c1a8f45b5c816fdb">reported</a> burns after touching hot metal floors and railings.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/extreme-weather-is-landing-more-australians-in-hospital-and-heat-is-the-biggest-culprit-216440">Extreme weather is landing more Australians in hospital – and heat is the biggest culprit</a>
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<h2>There have been other similar events</h2>
<p>What happened at the Swift concert is the consequence of insufficient preparation for extreme weather conditions during a large-scale event. However, this is not an isolated case. There is a <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/concerts-affected-climate-change-2023-full-list/july-4/">long list</a> of mass gatherings and events affected by extreme weather in 2023. </p>
<p>In August, a <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/beyonce-dc-metro-trains-weather-delays-renaissance-1235689650/">Beyoncé concert</a> in a Washington DC stadium took place during severe weather conditions. This time it was heavy rain and lightning. Attendees were ordered to shelter in place.</p>
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<p>Lightning posed a direct threat to their safety. Those inside the stadium were directed to shelter under covered areas and ramps. Afterwards, several fans were reportedly treated for <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/fedex-field-shelter-in-place-beyonce-concert-renaissance-tour-weather-lightening-rain-cover-thunderstorms-sunday-performance#:%7E:text=After%20a%20shelter,Nov%202023%2011%3A50%3A08%20GMT">heat exhaustion</a>. </p>
<p>The directive to shelter in place could have led to overcrowding in covered areas, potentially increasing the risk of incidents, such as a crowd crush.</p>
<p>Another US example was <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/17-hospitalized-2-go-into-cardiac-arrest-at-ed-sheeran-concert-amid-extreme-heat/4497016/#:%7E:text=,working%20during%20the%20Ed">Ed Sheeran’s concert</a> at a Pittsburgh stadium during a July heatwave. </p>
<p>Some 17 people were hospitalised. Health emergencies included heat exhaustion and two cardiac arrests (when the heart stops beating).</p>
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<h2>We must prepare</h2>
<p>Climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and intense. So risk assessments should include detailed weather monitoring and structural assessments for outdoor set-ups to ensure shade structures, for instance, can cope with crowds.</p>
<p>Contingency plans for a rapid response are also needed. These need to include plans to supply water or protective equipment (such as plastic ponchos) and timely safety directions and information. </p>
<p>Such planning should encompass not just the likelihood of extreme weather but also its potential impact on infrastructure, crowd control and emergency medical responses.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-burning-man-to-woodstock-to-fyre-festival-what-turns-a-festival-into-a-disaster-212859">From Burning Man to Woodstock to Fyre Festival: what turns a festival into a disaster?</a>
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<h2>Artists play a role too</h2>
<p>While the primary onus of safety lies with event organisers and venues, artists can also play a significant role in public safety during extreme weather. So we need to keep them informed about identified potential risks and planned countermeasures.</p>
<p>For instance, artists can influence crowd behaviour positively and prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as a crowd crush. They can appeal for calm or can announce any planned evacuation procedures.</p>
<p>In the most recent incident, Swift <a href="https://www.insider.com/taylor-swift-crew-give-water-fans-during-hot-brazil-concert-2023-11">paused her show</a> to ask crew members to distribute water to fans.</p>
<h2>Be safety aware</h2>
<p>People who attend mass events also need to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753523002345">be aware</a> of the safety issues related to extreme weather and be prepared.</p>
<p>Public education campaigns can help, as can effectively disseminating safety information to empower attendees to make informed decisions.</p>
<p>For instance, an event organiser can send a text message to all attendees to warn of upcoming weather conditions and a reminder to bring water or wear sunscreen. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/astroworld-tragedy-heres-how-concert-organisers-can-prevent-big-crowds-turning-deadly-171397">Astroworld tragedy: here's how concert organisers can prevent big crowds turning deadly</a>
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<h2>We can expect more of these events</h2>
<p>The tragic incident at the Swift concert and similar examples are not isolated but indicate a broader trend. With climate change, extreme weather events will pose a more common risk at such mass gatherings. </p>
<p>So we need to recognise and integrate this into how we plan for, and assess the risk associated with, future events. This is vital to ensure these gatherings remain celebratory landmarks rather than avoidable disasters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Milad Haghani receives funding from the Australian Research Council (Grant No. DE210100440). </span></em></p>One fan died and others reported burns at the Swift concert. And we’re going to see similar incidents at future concerns if we don’t start planning for extreme weather.Milad Haghani, Senior Lecturer of Public Safety, Disaster Resilience & Urban Mobility, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2065662023-06-20T12:29:50Z2023-06-20T12:29:50ZUS national parks are crowded – and so are many national forests, wildlife refuges, battlefields and seashores<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532257/original/file-20230615-27-6ghr32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C18%2C6124%2C4073&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Visitors at Sliding Rock, a popular cascade in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/Fj6MTR"> Cecilio Ricardo, USFS/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Outdoor recreation is on track for another record-setting year. In 2022, U.S. national parks logged more than <a href="https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/National%20Reports/Annual%20Park%20Ranking%20Report%20(1979%20-%20Last%20Calendar%20Year)">300 million visits</a> – and that means a lot more people on roads and trails.</p>
<p>While research shows that spending time outside is <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-perks-of-being-outdoors-backed-up-by-science/">good for physical and mental health</a>, long lines and gridlocked roads can make the experience a lot less fun. Crowding also makes it harder for park staff to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/23016.htm">protect wildlife</a> and <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2020/01/10/men-banned-yellowstone/">fragile lands</a> and respond to emergencies. To <a href="https://www.doi.gov/ocl/overcrowding-parks">manage the crowds</a>, some parks are experimenting with <a href="https://theconversation.com/overcrowded-us-national-parks-need-a-reservation-system-158864">timed-entry vehicle reservation systems</a> and permits for popular trails. </p>
<p>For all of their popularity, national parks are just one subset of U.S. public lands. Across the nation, the federal government owns more than <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42346.pdf">640 million acres</a> (2.6 million square kilometers) of land. Depending on each site’s mission, its uses may include logging, livestock grazing, mining, oil and gas production, wildlife habitat or recreation – often, several of these at once. In contrast, national parks exist solely to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-grand-canyon-changed-our-ideas-of-natural-beauty-56204">protect some of the most important places</a> for public enjoyment.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ddXJpj5C9sgC&hl=en">my work</a> as a historian and researcher, I’ve explored the history of public land management and the role of national parks in shaping landscapes across the Americas. Many public lands are prime recreational territory and are also becoming increasingly crowded. Finding solutions requires visitors, gateway communities, state agencies and the outdoor industry to collaborate. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. public lands are managed for many different purposes by an alphabet soup of federal agencies.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Alternatives to national parks</h2>
<p>The U.S. government is our nation’s largest land manager by far. Federal property makes up <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42346.pdf">28% of surface land area</a> across the 50 states. In Western states like Nevada, the federal footprint can be as large as 80% of the land. That’s largely because much of this land is arid, and lack of water makes farming difficult. Other areas that are mountainous or forested were not initially viewed as valuable when they came under U.S. ownership – but values have changed.</p>
<p>Public lands are <a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/americas-public-lands-explained">more diverse than national parks</a>. Some are scenic; others are just open space. They include all kinds of ecosystems, from forests to grasslands, coastlines, red rock canyons, deserts and ranges covered with sagebrush. They also include battlefields, rivers, trails and monuments. Many are remote, but others are near or within major metropolitan areas.</p>
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<span class="caption">Birdwatchers at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nature-and-bird-photographers-photograph-birds-at-sunrise-news-photo/144084510">Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Many people who love hiking, fishing, backpacking or other outdoor activities know that national parks are crowded, and they often seek other places to enjoy nature, including public lands. That trend intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns and social distancing protocols motivated people to get outside wherever they could. </p>
<p>The rise of remote work has also fueled a <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/subcounty-metro-micro-estimates.html">population shift</a> toward smaller Western towns with access to open space and good internet access for videoconferencing. Popular remote work bases like Durango, Colorado, and Bend, Oregon, have become known as “<a href="https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/economy/2023-04-25/analysis-population-growth-across-large-swath-of-western-u-s-returns-to-pre-pandemic-levels">Zoom towns</a>” – a fresh take on the old boomtowns that brought people west in the 19th century. </p>
<p>With these new populations, gateway communities close to popular public lands face critical decisions. Outdoor recreation is a powerful economic engine: In 2021, it <a href="https://headwaterseconomics.org/economic-development/trends-performance/outdoor-recreation-economy-by-state/">contributed an estimated US$454 billion</a> to the nation’s economy – more than auto manufacturing and air transport combined. </p>
<p>But embracing recreational tourism can lead local communities into the <a href="https://headwaterseconomics.org/outdoor-recreation/amenity-trap/">amenity trap</a> – the paradox of loving a place to death. Recreation economies that fail to manage growth, or that neglect investments in areas like housing and infrastructure, risk compromising the sense of place that draws visitors. But planning can proactively shape growth to maintain community character and quality of life. </p>
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<h2>Broadening recreation</h2>
<p>People use public lands for many activities beyond a quiet hike in the woods. For instance, the Phoenix District of the federal Bureau of Land Management operates more than 3 million acres across central Arizona for at least <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/recreation-activities/arizona">14 different recreational uses</a>, including hiking, fishing, boating, target shooting, rock collecting and riding off-road vehicles. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/in-latest-skirmish-of-western-land-wars-congress-supports-mining-and-ranching-73032">Not all of these activities are compatible</a>, and many have not traditionally been rigorously managed. For example, target shooters sometimes bring objects like old appliances or furniture to use as improvised targets, then leave behind an unsightly mess. In response, the Phoenix District has <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/recreation-activities/arizona/recreational-shooting/phoenix-sites">designated recreational shooting sites</a> where it provides targets and warns against shooting at objects containing glass or hazardous materials, as well as <a href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/blm-sued-target-shooting-protected-arizona-sonoran-desert-monument-nra-11350232">cactuses</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A poster warns recreational shooters against using glass bottles as targets." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532246/original/file-20230615-16452-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Shooting at targets that contain glass or hazardous materials can contaminate nearby land.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/2o1LPtV">BLM</a></span>
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<p>Skiing also can pose crowding challenges. Many downhill skiing facilities in the West operate on public land with permits from the managing agency – typically, the U.S. Forest Service. </p>
<p>One example, <a href="https://bogusbasin.org/">Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area</a> is a nonprofit ski slope 16 miles from Boise, Idaho. Demand surges on winter weekends with fresh powder, creating long lift lines and crowded slopes. </p>
<p>The mountain is open for 12 hours a day, and Bogus Basin uses <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/sps-andruscenter/re-creating-public-land-recreation/">creative pricing structures</a> for lift tickets to spread crowds out. For example, it draws younger skiers with discounted night skiing and retired skiers during the week. As a result, the parking lot only filled up once in the 2022-2023 season. </p>
<p>Local governments can help find ways to balance access with creative crowd management. In Seattle, King County launched <a href="https://trailheaddirect.org/about/">Trailhead Direct</a> to provide transit-to-trails services from Seattle to the Cascade Mountains. This approach expands access to the outdoors for city residents and reduces traffic on busy Interstate 90 and crowding in trailhead parking lots. </p>
<p>Other towns have partnered with federal land agencies to maintain trail systems, like the <a href="https://www.ridgetorivers.org/">Ridge to Rivers</a> network outside Boise and the <a href="http://fmtn.org/843/Outdoor-Recreation-News">River Reach trails</a> near Farmington, New Mexico. This helps the towns provide better nearby outdoor opportunities for residents and attract new businesses whose employees value quality of life. Creating corridors from the “<a href="https://www.blm.gov/national-office/public-room/strategic-plan/connecting-communities-blm-recreation-strategy-summary">backyard to the backcountry</a>,” as the Bureau of Land Management puts it, can help create vibrant communities.</p>
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<h2>A less-extractive view of public lands</h2>
<p>For many years, Western communities have viewed public lands as places to mine, log and graze sheep and cattle. Tensions between states and the federal government over federal land policy often reflect state resentment over decisions made in Washington, D.C. about local resources.</p>
<p>Now, land managers are seeing a pivot. While federal control will never be welcome in some areas, Western communities increasingly view federal lands as amenities and anchors for immense opportunities, including <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/sps-andruscenter/re-creating-public-land-recreation/">recreation and economic growth</a>. For example, Idaho is <a href="https://gov.idaho.gov/pressrelease/jfac-advances-governors-recommendation-for-outdoor-recreation/">investing $100 million</a> for maintenance and expanded access on state lands, mirroring federal efforts.</p>
<p>As environmental law scholar Robert Keiter has pointed out, the U.S. has a lot of laws governing activities like logging, mining and energy development on public lands, but there’s <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3862057">little legal guidance for recreation</a>. Instead, agencies, courts and presidents are developing what Keiter calls “a common law of outdoor recreation,” bit by bit. By addressing crowding and the environmental impacts of recreation, I believe local communities can help the U.S. move toward better stewardship of our nation’s awe-inspiring public lands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Wakild has received past funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>Crowding is increasingly affecting all kinds of public lands. Adjoining communities need to find ways to manage it, or risk harm to the attractions that make them a destination.Emily Wakild, Cecil D. Andrus Endowed Professor for the Environment and Public Lands, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1939812022-11-10T12:13:01Z2022-11-10T12:13:01ZSeoul Halloween crush: understanding the science of crowds could help prevent disasters – here’s how<p>When I was a teenager, the 1980s felt like a decade of disasters. We watched a terrible human cost being paid live on TV in a series of football-related disasters. </p>
<p>I saw bodies stretchered away on advertising hoardings at <a href="https://theconversation.com/hillsborough-disaster-a-revealing-analysis-of-the-language-in-witness-statements-161715">Hillsborough</a> stadium in Sheffield, the back-and-forth terrace skirmishes at <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-32898612">Heysel</a> in Brussels that prefaced a fatal crush, a man walking calmly out of the burning stand at <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-61399583">Bradford</a>, his entire body ablaze. Crowd catastrophes dominated my youth. </p>
<p>Much of my work as a computer scientist has focused on modelling complex systems made up of many interacting components. These may be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jan/06/featuresreviews.guardianreview8">DNA molecules</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/engineered-bacteria-are-helping-us-add-memory-to-living-computers-62835">bacteria in a dish</a>, social insects, or even people. </p>
<p>Decades after Hillsborough, after working at the University of Liverpool and hearing first-hand accounts of the horrors of that day, my colleagues and I turned our attention to the problem of crowd crush. Our <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0028747">first paper on this topic</a> considered how we might detect crush in computational simulations of crowds.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about one fundamental question: what’s wrong with our understanding of crowds? The answer, it turns out, is a lot. </p>
<p>This was highlighted, once again, by the recent tragic events on Halloween in <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/east-asia/seoul-halloween-crush-south-korea-stampede-video-b2214792.html">Seoul, South Korea</a>. The death toll stands at 156, with hundreds more injured, and the investigation is still under way. But this disaster brings several important points into sharp focus.</p>
<h2>Crowd disasters are almost always preventable</h2>
<p>South Korean authorities have already <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/01/seoul-halloween-crowd-crush-south-korea-itaewon-police-response">admitted to failures</a>, but this is relatively unusual. Apart from the potential legal ramifications, it’s not always obvious who has responsibility for keeping crowds safe, as in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/31/asia/seoul-itaewon-halloween-mourning-memorial-intl-hnk/index.html">Seoul</a>, where a crush happened outside the context of an organised event. </p>
<p>A year after the Astroworld, Texas, incident in which 10 people died, <a href="https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/2022/11/03/a-year-after-astroworld-festival-deaths-no-clear-answers-on-accountability/">arguments are still raging</a> about who was responsible. Although South Korea, <a href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg142.htm">like many other countries</a>, has guidelines for the planning and safe delivery of large events, this carries with it the assumption that there will be an identifiable organiser.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A very busy Tokyo street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494488/original/file-20221109-21-luwui3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cities are getting bigger and busier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perati Komson/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That wasn’t the case in South Korea. Police were deployed to perform their usual traffic, crime and public order functions, but there appears to have been no high-level plan in place to deal with a large influx of people into <a href="https://www.wunc.org/2022-10-31/heres-why-seouls-itaewon-district-was-so-packed-ahead-of-the-deadly-crowd-surge">the Itaewon district</a>, and early warning signs were either <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63481769">missed or ignored</a>. </p>
<p>Proper planning is absolutely key to public safety. Authorities need to anticipate potential risks, not just for specific events, but wherever large numbers of people are likely to gather. Calculating the safe capacity of spaces, anticipating crowd flows, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2058802X.2019.1594138">dynamically assessing the size of crowds</a> and ensuring that safe capacities aren’t exceeded on the ground are the bare minimum that should be done. </p>
<p>Fundamentally, it’s important to learn from previous incidents, and ensure that put proper plans are always in place. It will be difficult and expensive, but the cost of doing nothing is far worse. So long as people want to gather in large numbers, there will be risks, and we cannot afford the luxury of simply hoping for the best. </p>
<h2>Inaccurate language causes problems</h2>
<p>Many media outlets automatically referred to the incident as a “<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/at-least-120-dead-after-stampede-during-halloween-festivities-in-itaewon-south-korea-12733277">stampede</a>”. This is one of the most persistent misunderstandings about the crowd. It brings to mind a herd of animals, and we’re almost conditioned into thinking that when a crowd disaster happens, it’s because people panic and trample on others in a desperate race to escape from something. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13669877.2022.2049622">But that hardly ever happens</a>. Stampede is a massively problematic term, both because it’s inaccurate, and because it implies that victims are somehow to blame. And it contributes to the ongoing “panic” myth that crowds are somehow “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crowd-control/">mad, bad, and dangerous to know</a>”.</p>
<h2>Life’s becoming more urban</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s likely that another disaster on the scale of Seoul will happen in the near future. As life becomes increasingly urbanised, we need to understand the crowd more than ever. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241565271">Some projections</a> claim that, by 2030, 60% of the world’s population will live in cities. Already a commuter nation the size of Sweden and Portugal combined flows in and out of Tokyo <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1317406/japan-commuter-number-by-greater-metropolitan-area/">every working day</a>. </p>
<p>As more people move into cities, we will have to think hard about how people move around and how they should be safely managed. Urban design and planning processes already embed insights from crowd science but, more broadly, societies also need a much more integrated approach to crowd management.</p>
<p>We need to understand groups of people as complex, dynamical systems made up of human “parts” interacting with one another and with their environment, and move beyond the tired narratives of “mob”, “stampede” and “panic” that unfortunately still dominate discussions of crowds. This will require further support for an inter-disciplinary approach that draws on physics, computer science, social psychology, sociology, criminology, policing and politics. </p>
<p>Our wider society needs to understand crowds much more deeply, in terms of how they work on a social level, how they can make our cities more enjoyable places to live, and how they can bring with them resilience, security, and improvements in wellbeing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martyn Amos has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a project on enhanced evacuation drills. </span></em></p>A better understanding of how crowds work is vital as more of the world’s population move to cities.Martyn Amos, Professor of Computer and Information Sciences, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1431212020-08-04T11:40:26Z2020-08-04T11:40:26ZCoronavirus: using crowd simulation to encourage social distancing<p>As Europe faces a resurgence of coronavirus, having loosened strict lockdowns, one of the most important policy questions is how people can safely social distance in crowded places. Our ability to accommodate maximum safety and capacity has been greatly reduced during the pandemic, raising concerns about the future layout of public spaces.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.uu.nl/staff/RJGeraerts">My research and development</a> group at Utrecht University along with start-up <a href="https://www.ucrowds.com">uCrowds</a> have deployed a crowd simulation framework to help manage groups of people in this new world of public space under coronavirus. </p>
<p>The software allows users to create and run models for simulating realistic crowd behaviour, including how people move around a space and how they avoid collisions within environments. Simulations are run in realistic environments to study the effectiveness of their methods.</p>
<h2>How does the software work?</h2>
<p>Simulated pedestrians in the software do not move around randomly; they have one or more destinations. They can either be alone or in groups.</p>
<p>One relatively recent addition we have made is that a certain percentage of the simulated people take up more space, for example those who are travelling in small, social groups. The pedestrians then walk to their destinations in a realistic manner, avoiding other people and obstacles.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JZ0C7m8ym_8?wmode=transparent&start=54" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>We modelled the way people move in the simulations using 13 years of data on how real people move. We collected some of this from students who carried trackers while walking across hallways and other spaces. We also conducted experiments with groups of students at festivals, where much larger groups of people moved alongside each other. </p>
<p>Since our model is based around individuals and social groups, we have now been able to add effects of social distancing. All their interactions lead to the kinds of emergent behaviours we are observing in real crowds. Examples include lane formation (pedestrians following the people who walk in front of them when crowds got too busy), pressure waves, and more anticipation because individuals are trying to keep a greater social distance between one another. </p>
<h2>Practical applications</h2>
<p>How do we use this information to help with coronavirus planning? Crowd simulation models can be scaled up immensely. If you have a sufficiently fast computer, our simulation engine can simulate up to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/314159-roland-geraerts/">550,000 people in real time</a>. </p>
<p>The software can also make projections: for example, if you simulate 20,000 people, you can fast forward the simulation to 35 times the actual speed. That means that the software can also look into the future and warn officials to close off access routes in areas that are becoming too busy. </p>
<p>If governments use this kind of software, they can send text messages to people’s mobile phones to direct pedestrians to take other route options to their destinations. A pilot project is running at <a href="https://www.rssb.co.uk/Insights-and-News/Blogs/real-time-digital-twin-of-St-Pancras-station-and-journey-to-create-an-emotion-optimised-railway">St Pancras railway station</a> in the UK which demonstrates this technology. </p>
<p>The software has been previously used for the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in 2015, which brought 800,000 spectators to Utrecht. Simulations in a virtual Utrecht supported the municipal government in planning the surroundings of the cycling course and testing the prognoses for the <a href="https://www.uu.nl/en/news/virtual-polka-dots-predict-spectator-flows-for-grand-depart">flows of the spectators</a>. One of the scenarios included computing the maximum number of individuals that would safely fit on a square. When this number was reached in reality, the entrance to this square could be safely closed in time. </p>
<h2>Simulating social distance</h2>
<p>We have recently updated the simulation to reflect the social distancing measures in place in the Netherlands which require people to <a href="https://www.government.nl/topics/coronavirus-covid-19/tackling-new-coronavirus-in-the-netherlands">stay 1.5 metres apart</a>. </p>
<p>The simulation does not simply set the minimum distance between simulated people to 1.5 metres, but takes into account the fact that people make imperfect estimations. Even the fact that people are becoming tired of coronavirus measures and are hence paying less attention to distancing is considered. The software also simulates groups containing members of the same household, which are moving closer together.</p>
<p>As the pandemic unfolds, this model can be used to get insights in the daily operation of train stations, airports, high streets or even festivals in this new 1.5-metre world. By simulating crowds at this distance, we hope to contribute to helping open up the economy in these bizarre times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roland Geraerts is with Utrecht University and is founder of uCrowds. He receives funding from The Dutch Research Council (NWO). </span></em></p>By using computer crowd simulations, we can figure out how large numbers of people can move around public space while maintaining social distancing.Roland Geraerts, Assistant professor in Computer Science, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1426432020-07-30T20:03:01Z2020-07-30T20:03:01ZFriday essay: make some noise — the (forbidden) joy of crowds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349848/original/file-20200728-23-yotw6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Regi Varghese/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I live in what was one of the noisiest city precincts, pre-pandemic, in the country — Surfers Paradise — golden lit, white noise jewel of the Gold Coast. </p>
<p>The pandemonium vibe both natural and man-made, big waves crashing right up to the edges of the cityscape competing with the clangour of human joy and the human stain. My front yard — the azure Pacific and my backyard, Orchid Avenue, home to shiny super clubs, old bolt holes rebranded or new kids on the block, clubs that never even got to open, neon signs glittering more than their insides, the newest — Asylum — flashing on and off in a peculiar reminder of where we have ended up. </p>
<p>Usually Surfers is pumping. There are sirens all the time, a thousand scooters and every form of stupid kart, hired out to families from down south who take over the joint like there is no bedtime in paradise.</p>
<p>Horns, kids in pools, Lamborghinis and Skylines doing laps, gangs of skateboarders cruising the Esplanade, the wide concrete swathes host to their tricks and a kilometre-long market running every second evening, the unofficial motorbike convention rolling in on Saturday nights to chew the fat, hen’s nights in Hummers. 20,000 visitors a day. Middle Eastern families, kids from Logan, Chinese entourages, posses of French, Spanish and Argentinian gods and goddesses. Silence here isn’t normal. That’s why when the pandemic hit, it was next level eerie. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349854/original/file-20200728-27-1em4cmk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A crowd of schoolies from another epoch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Phillips/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the first of May I took a stroll through the streets, even though I probably wasn’t supposed to. Well past the Cinderella hour, I saw not a single soul. Not even the kebab shops and the convenience stores placed at handy ten meter intervals were alight, no bored strippers leaning up against fake marble pillars, not one car moving, only cop cars, lined up in a shiny, stagnant row outside the police station. </p>
<p>Some might venture this was an improvement, but for a renegade like me who doesn’t mind the volume dialled up to 50, the scene was more post-apocalyptic than any previous version of Surfers. It was, in a word — boring. I say this in full acknowledgement of the seriousness of what’s become the global Corona horror show. The lives lost and the lives yet to go down the economic fallout drain. </p>
<p>But those memes circulating about us all heading into the apocalypse in our bathrobes and lounge-wear captured something of the inertia and restlessness we were feeling. A void of interaction has you questioning the meaning — of everything. For what are we left with without each other, without the crowd? Without the teeming masses that sometimes drive us crazy or even to despair? It is a world without the sounds we make. The good, the bad and the ugly. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350094/original/file-20200729-15-1mh10ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The teeming masses … last year’s Melbourne Cup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vince Caligiuri/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Solitude as a choice</h2>
<p>At first, I kinda liked the holes COVID-19 had buried me into. I’ll dance on a table until 3am but then I’ll want to disappear and think about it for, well, at least seven days. Most writers are like this. On the spectrum between hedonists and hermits. (The modernists more firmly in the latter pack — but I guess you can empathise with a mistrust of crowds in the 20th century.) The herd, the groupthink, rubs right up against the grain. A sentiment exemplified by Carl Jung when he said, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jung might have been onto something but perhaps his take is only part of the story. Crowds can be lowest common denominator and maddening, but when the pandemic hit, I realised solitude is only preferable when it’s a choice. </p>
<p>Musos and sports stars generally love crowds — they know how important they are, hometown advantage, ticket sales, energy. When the AFL opened up to crowds again in July, the Twittersphere erupted in gratitude. People had “tears in their eyes” and the roar was “awesome”, “beautiful”. “I vow to never take genuine crowd noise like this for granted ever again,” said one fan.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349850/original/file-20200728-35-1d7ww2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A footy crowd returns to Adelaide on July 25 this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Mariuz/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We didn’t want cardboard faces in the seats, cameramen trying to avoid the sweep of empty grandstands. We wanted “proper crowds” not fake ones, where our joy and rage got dubbed in for our consumption. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349858/original/file-20200728-23-1yh77lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We didn’t want cardboard faces in the seats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Just like ‘boom!’</h2>
<p>I was supped on crowds as a kid, and the best, most terrifying, glorious mass to be in was a sellout Queensland State of Origin crowd at Lang Park, when the beer was full strength, before they banned glass. A hallowed ground nicknamed the Cauldron, because its original intimate configuration resembled a pot, a hive where the intensity of the crowd could strike fear into the hearts of the opposition.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/footy-crowds-what-the-afl-and-nrl-need-to-turn-sport-into-show-business-139471">Footy crowds: what the AFL and NRL need to turn sport into show business</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Lang Park was paganistic, with the steam rising and the baying for blood, always on the verge of violence but not quite tipping over because the passion wasn’t just about sport, the passion was political. Queenslanders making a point. </p>
<p>Early era Brisbane Broncos and Maroons player Paul Bowman summed it up. “We’re battlers, we’ve always got to scrap for what’s ours and what we deserve. I think there’s a lot of Queenslanders with that attitude. Southerners […] probably think about us as second-class citizens.”</p>
<p>He went on to describe the crowd at Lang Park as “unbelievable”. And almost every other player who ran out onto that paddock in a Maroon jersey has had something to say about it too. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349849/original/file-20200728-25-vi7sds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maroons fans cheer during a State of Origin Game in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Glen Hunt/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Former Origin star Gavin Allen: “The crowd was louder than any crowd I have played in front of. This crowd was just out of control.” </p>
<p>And Steve Renouf, known as one of NRL’s greatest centres and a Queensland Origin legend. “You walk out there, and they said it just really hits you and it does, the crowd is just like ‘boom’!”</p>
<h2>Ephemeral power</h2>
<p>You never forget those moments when you become part of something bigger than you, something stronger, louder and fiercer, something outside of your control. A crowd can exhilarate the ephemeral power in us. </p>
<p>French polymath <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gustave-Le-Bon">Gustave Le Bon</a> captures some of this unnameable force when he says, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Crowds display a singularly inferior mentality; yet there are other acts in which they appear to be guided by those mysterious forces which the ancients denominated destiny, nature, or providence, which we call the voices of the dead, and whose power it is impossible to overlook, although we ignore their essence. It would seem, at times, as if there were latent forces in the inner being of nations which serve to guide them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I got older that desire for a collective merging shifted — same stadiums, different offerings on the menu — mosh pits of thousands slivering and snaking to the Prodigy or Beastie Boys or Ministry, hive mind of their own, where the point was to fling yourself into other bodies and be carried away by them, where a multitude became one, sweat and spit flying and sometimes blood, in unbridled proximity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349851/original/file-20200728-35-3auhrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The point of the mosh pit was to fling yourself into other bodies and be carried away by them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Philbey/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, distrust of the crowd has always been elitist. Crowds change things: temperatures, moods, security levels. And they end things: reigns, wars, ideological creep. Conversely, they can also signify these things or generate them, hence our uncomfortable relationship with validating a war cry.</p>
<p>One thing’s for sure, right now, a crowd anywhere in any form is asking for trouble — but in essence that’s what crowds are for. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349857/original/file-20200728-15-1sz9o1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">East Berlin residents waiting to cross into West Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in November 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/inside-italy%E2%80%99s-covid-war/12464132">Italy’s War on Covid</a> documents the day-to-day struggles of Dr Francesca Mangiatordi, ER Director of the Cremona Hospital in the north of Italy, one of the hardest hit regions in the world.</p>
<p>We bear witness to the unbearable choices she had to make between ventilating the young or the old, the hand of her co-worker’s son pressed up against the pale yellow glass on a door his mother is isolating behind. Nurses stripping off their anti-viral gear staring at their over-tired faces in the mirror. Mangiatordi’s young son in very enthusiastic Italian, comparing her to Captain America. She is a warrior and at the end of the doco, when her unit has regained some semblance of normality she says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I believe the moment we can say there is no risk of contagion, everyone will let out a thunderous roar. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She would know. </p>
<h2>A roar of relief</h2>
<p>It’s Saturday night on the May Day long weekend and my partner and I are bored. Usually a long weekend signals the need for veranda gatherings and the city gets hit with all kinds of trippers. But the city is quiet, no parties in the towers, no cars on the roads and the most exciting thing you’re allowed to do is walk down the street to pick up your takeout.</p>
<p>We collect the food but don’t head back right away. We can’t deal with it — we want air and other people’s faces, so we take a seat at one of the public tables set into the ground. The old couple in the expensive looking but worn coats sit two tables away from us, the man pushing his much frailer wife in a wheelchair. He locks the wheels, lays out their fillet of fishes, upturns the small packets of fries, gets out a jar of mayonnaise from his backpack, unscrews the lid, puts two neat dollops on the cardboard lids. A little picnic just like the one we’re having in a largely abandoned mall. </p>
<p>And when the fireworks go off and all our faces are lit up in golds and pinks and purples and my heart is pumping as the explosions rip through me like welcome gunshots, I don’t expect it. The council deciding to go ahead with their usual May Day celebrations without telling anyone. And that’s probably a good thing. Because those giant shots of dangerous chemicals and stars from the barges set out in the ocean are just the start.</p>
<p>The roar that comes next is all people, hundreds of bodies pooling out of high rises flouting the rules and acting purely on instinct, running almost desperate, towards the sound. </p>
<p>Hundreds more join them on verandas above us, screaming out in solidarity and relief, rattling their cages, the gunpowder in the air flicking a switch. Moments before, the buildings had seemed so desolate and lifeless. Now they appear to be covered in human lichen, spreading and calling out in whatever ways they can. We’ve seen similar outpourings all around the world, because this is the only way a crowd can be now, forbidden, illicit or socially distanced on separate balconies. </p>
<p>Italians belting out opera from flung-open windows, a stalled Spanish Armada banging pots and pans in a frenzy, whole neighbourhoods in the US breaking into song for the essential workers and high-rise captives in Surfers Paradise, screaming into a lit up sky. In two months time, Ukrainian band O.Torvald would take this force of circumstance one step further, staging a vertical concert, where every seat was a balcony, a hotel full of paying punters, watching over them as they play. Even when we’re spaced apart, we need the noise we make together to feel alive. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G7rIWEqx_EM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The old couple don’t really bother looking, just keep dipping their chips into the mayonnaise they brought themselves. Not really fussed. Maybe they’ve lived through something bigger than this after all. </p>
<p>And when the noise dies down, almost as quick as it came, we tidy up in ways which I’m hoping mirror the old couple’s ways and we wish them good evening, making our way home with the rest of the crowd, the revellers who’d busted out and the thousands of ghostly silhouettes in the high rises all around us. Slinking back into a long night of solitary confinement — tails between our legs — but at least we’re smiling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142643/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Breen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A crowd can exhilarate the ephemeral power within us. Whether a packed stadium or a mosh pit, crowds brought us together in ways that were more than physical.Sally Breen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401292020-07-29T12:20:18Z2020-07-29T12:20:18ZAs the NBA and MLB resume, how might empty seats influence player performances?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349670/original/file-20200727-35-141iuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5441%2C3633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager warms up as cutouts of fans 'look on.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Giants-Dodgers-Baseball/82fc086de8444f97b90abdf7e72261cd/10/0">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Baseball and basketball might be returning, but the <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boo%20birds">boo birds</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0O88TQQ--o">thunder sticks</a> will have to wait ‘til next year.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29530941/source-blue-jays-play-home-games-buffalo">Save for the Toronto Blue Jays</a>, baseball teams have begun playing in their regular stadiums without fans. Meanwhile, all NBA games will be played inside the <a href="https://africa.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29520530/the-very-best-nba-bubble-activities">Orlando bubble</a> before empty crowds.</p>
<p><a href="https://csunsportpsychlab.wordpress.com">For sport psychology researchers like me</a>, this is an extremely rare opportunity: We can see what happens when fans disappear for an extended period of time. Almost like a controlled experiment, it will be possible to compare the outcomes of games with and without fans, with all other things being approximately equal. We’ll even be able to compare fan-less home stadium games, like those starting up in baseball, to fan-less neutral site games, like in the NBA.</p>
<p>For these reasons, it might be possible to see the extent to which fans and stadiums play a role in an oft-debated aspect of sport psychology: home field advantage.</p>
<h2>Home sweet home</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-really-causes-home-field-advantage-and-why-its-on-the-decline-126086">Despite evidence that it’s diminished a bit over time</a>, the advantage of playing at home – whether on a field, court or ice – is definitely real.</p>
<p>In 2019, <a href="https://www.nfl.com/standings/">52% of NFL games</a> were won by home teams. In the NBA, prior to the pandemic pause, <a href="https://www.nba.com/standings">55% of games were won</a> by the team playing at home.</p>
<p>In college sports, the advantage for the home team can be even more stark. SEC conference football games were won by home teams <a href="https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/conferences/sec/2019-schedule.html">61% of the time</a> in 2019. For the ACC conference in men’s basketball in 2020, <a href="https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/conferences/acc/2020-schedule.html">it was 63%</a>.</p>
<p>And yet the source of that advantage has never really been identified. Analysts have attributed it to a variety of factors. Some say <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/01/24/study-finds-jet-lag-for-mlb-players-enough-to-erase-the-home-field-advantage/">the away team struggles because of travel fatigue</a>. Others think it’s because <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/football-insider/wp/2012/10/18/home-field-advantage-is-real-but-its-not-because-of-the-12th-man/">the home team has a certain familiarity with the field</a> – the playing surface in football or the park dimensions in baseball. Some claim <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-really-causes-home-field-advantage-and-why-its-on-the-decline-126086">it’s because the referees and umpires are influenced by the crowd</a> and are thus biased in favor of the home team, or that <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp8105.pdf">stadium sounds and a jeering crowd can get in the heads of opposing players</a>.</p>
<p>Psychology researchers have also puzzled over the cause of home field advantage. </p>
<p>Psychologist Robert Zajonc <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1715944?seq=1">proposed a theory called social facilitation</a>, whereby a performer’s “arousal” increases in the presence of others. In this context, arousal means that you care more about what you’re doing when you’re being watched. For athletes, it implies that they’ll be more motivated when there’s a crowd. And if the crowd is supportive, this might “facilitate” a better performance from the athlete. </p>
<p>But since then, others have <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Routledge_Companion_to_Sport_and_Exercis/1zUsAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">reported</a> that the effects of social facilitation in studies of sports have tended to be weak. And there are some who <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-really-causes-home-field-advantage-and-why-its-on-the-decline-126086">believe that the crowd has nothing at all to do with performance</a>.</p>
<h2>Home field advantage on pause?</h2>
<p>We’ll have to see what happens over the course of the baseball and basketball seasons. But <a href="https://www.soccerstats.com/homeaway.asp?league=germany">the Bundesliga</a>, Germany’s top soccer league, began playing without fans back in the middle of May, and players have noted that something seems to be missing during these games.</p>
<p>“The stadium is always full at Bayern, and it’s really amazing,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/bayerns-kimmich-less-emotional-but-calmer-in-fan-free-games/2020/06/04/bc43e862-a65e-11ea-898e-b21b9a83f792_story.html">Bayern Munich midfielder Joshua Kimmich said</a>. “You feel more when you score a goal. It’s more emotional when there are fans.”</p>
<p>I know from <a href="https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jsep/31/5/article-p583.xml">my own research</a> that heightened emotions aren’t necessarily helpful. They can cause you to overthink a situation or become nervous. But they can also improve performance if you’re feeling particularly in control and confident. The latter feelings can, in fact, lead to better-than-usual, clutch performance.</p>
<p>So what happens if we remove the fans in the stands, but everything else stays about the same? </p>
<p>Before the pandemic, Bundesliga home teams had won 107 games, lost 100 and tied 63 times. Excluding the ties, this win-loss percentage for home teams – 52% – was comparable to those in other leagues, translating to a modest home-field advantage.</p>
<p>When play resumed without fans, Bundesliga home teams fell apart for the first six weeks: Their win-loss percentage was an embarrassing 29%. Outlets like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/sports/soccer/soccer-without-fans-germany-data.html">The New York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.espn.com/soccer/german-bundesliga/story/4107639/bundesliga-suggests-home-advantage-a-thing-of-the-past-in-empty-stadiums">ESPN</a> noticed, and ran articles wondering if, without fans, home-field advantage had vanished.</p>
<p>But then the results started to shift in mid-June. Over the final three weeks of the season, Bundesliga home teams’ winning percentage surged to 63%. </p>
<p>Right around then, the other European leagues began play. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.soccerstats.com/latest.asp?league=england">England’s Premier League</a> home team winning percentage before the pandemic was 60%; since restarting, their success rate has been nearly identical: 59%. Before the break and with fans, <a href="https://www.soccerstats.com/latest.asp?league=spain">Spain’s La Liga</a> home teams’ win-loss rate was 66%; afterward, it’s been a respectable 56%. Home teams in Italy’s <a href="https://www.soccerstats.com/latest.asp?league=italy">Serie A</a> have actually been more successful so far without fans – 57% – as compared with before, when they won 52% of home games before packed stadiums.</p>
<p>It seems the early struggles of home teams in the Bundesliga were more of an outlier.</p>
<h2>It’s all a matter of perception</h2>
<p>So maybe outlets were too quick to attribute home-field advantage solely to the presence of the fans. Based on this preliminary data out of Europe, the advantage seems to be preserved, even in empty stadiums. </p>
<p>Could it be that even without fans, players still believe they have an edge at home?</p>
<p>Sport psychologists have studied how athletes’ perceptions of their environment can influence performance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="German soccer players fight for the ball in an empty stadium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349681/original/file-20200727-23-3x46f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A June soccer match between FC Cologne and Eintracht Frankfurt during the German Bundesliga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Germany-Soccer-Bundesliga/612a315acd614363b308826d2db46308/2/0">Rolf Vennenbernd/Pool via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://web.b.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=01627341&AN=3016204&h=MKjmtwkiDlbNqPQ6y4BUGwu%2f31V4VG83uLuVe%2bZqxcfPq05e7P2t7Li38FyeUtv%2bL0ygG5olevmSLn2CdPG%2bog%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d01627341%26AN%3d3016204">A survey by psychologists of female college basketball players</a> suggests that athletes perceive their team’s collective efficacy – or confidence as a group – to be greater at home.</p>
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<p>So it’s entirely possible that players interpret their home stadium environment as more comfortable, regardless of whether or not there’s a crowd. This perception leads to more confidence among the players at home, which may be the root cause of the home advantage.</p>
<p>In other words, the advantage might not necessarily come from the cheers or the refs. It’s simply the belief that playing at home makes you play better that gives you an edge.</p>
<p>Back when the Premier League was considering a plan to restart the league at neutral sites instead of home stadiums, <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/soccer-watford-chief-opposed-premier-095918729.html">Watford CEO Scott Duxbury objected</a> to the proposal. “We are now told we cannot play our remaining home games at Vicarage Road and the familiarity and advantage that brings,” he complained.</p>
<p>Maybe Duxbury was right about the advantage of familiarity, after all – even when there are no fans in the seats.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on August 10, 2020 to reflect new results from the European soccer leagues mentioned.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Otten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It will be possible to compare the outcomes of games with and without fans, giving new insights into the relationship between fans, home-field advantage and clutch performances.Mark Otten, Professor of Psychology, California State University, NorthridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1396622020-06-02T20:06:20Z2020-06-02T20:06:20ZWhy does crowd noise matter?<p>Sporting codes are restarting as part of easing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. In Australia, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-29/rugby-league-returns-from-covid-19-shutdown/12298446">the NRL season has just restarted</a>, the AFL <a href="https://7news.com.au/sport/afl/afl-restart-date-revealed-c-1038201">will resume on June 11</a>, and Super Netball <a href="https://thewomensgame.com/news/2020-super-netball-and-constellation-cups-confirmed-548760">will return on August 1</a>. </p>
<p>But, to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, there’s one crucial ingredient missing: crowds.</p>
<p>To provide atmosphere in the absence of people, broadcasters are experimenting with canned crowd noise, much like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-laugh-even-if-it-is-fake-a-history-of-canned-laughter-134070">laugh tracks used in sitcoms</a>. Last weekend the NRL unveiled its fake audience noise, drawing a <a href="https://twitter.com/i/events/1265956270839750659?s=13">mixed response from viewers</a>.</p>
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<p>Germany’s top soccer league <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/fake-crowd-noise-bundesliga-afl-tv-broadcast/12295010">has been using it for weeks</a>, and the English Premier League, which returns on June 17, is even considering <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league-project-restart-fifa-20-fake-crowd-noise-a4455766.html">borrowing crowd noise from EA Sports’ popular soccer video game FIFA</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">EA Sports’ popular FIFA soccer gaming franchise is famed for its fake crowd noise.</span></figcaption>
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<p>But why do we care so much about crowd noise, and why do many of us feel we need it?</p>
<p>It’s because it bonds us with members of our tribe, provides us a sense of connection, and acts as a psychological cue for when to pay particular attention to the action, like a goal opportunity. Without it, sport just doesn’t seem as exciting.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-spit-to-scrums-how-can-sports-players-minimise-their-coronavirus-risk-139034">From spit to scrums. How can sports players minimise their coronavirus risk?</a>
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<h2>We bond over sport</h2>
<p>Following a team brings a sense of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780203728376/chapters/10.4324/9780203728376-14">connection</a> with others who follow the same team. That sense of <a href="http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hortonr/articles%20for%20class/baumeister%20and%20leary.pdf">belonging is an incredibly powerful motivation</a> for people - it drives our thoughts and our emotions. And following a team is an <a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/football-matter-life-and-death-%E2%80%93-or-it-more-important">emotional experience</a>. We share the highs when they win, and the lows when they lose.</p>
<p>Spectators may not even play the sport they watch, but still refer to <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.322.6919&rep=rep1&type=pdf">“us” and “we” when talking about their team</a>, and use “they” and “them” for the opposition. And when the crowd supporting our team is the one making all the noise, it drives home that sense of connection.</p>
<h2>Crowd noise is a cue</h2>
<p>For a couple of rounds of competition, before the COVID-19 suspension, we saw games of AFL where we could actually <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/20/no-crowd-no-atmosphere-only-footy-as-afl-season-makes-muted-bow">hear the players yelling to each other</a>. When they scored, the only noise was from the players themselves. It sounded similar to watching an amateur match at the local park. Even the most tense moments, or heroic efforts, were somehow not as exciting without the crowd.</p>
<p>That’s because crowd noise is a cue for spectators. We know something exciting has happened when the crowd goes nuts. When a game comes down to the last few minutes, and the scores are very close, the crowd noise adds to the tension. When <em>my</em> team is getting cheered on, I share in the excitement with others like me - <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/11/sports/sports-psychology-it-isn-t-just-a-game-clues-to-avid-rooting.html">my tribe</a>. It seems the broadcasters are reflecting this by increasing the volume of fake crowd noise during exciting moments.</p>
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<p>Without crowd noise, we just don’t get the same level of excitement, because we’ve <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08838151.2019.1568806">learned to link excitement with crowd noise</a>. You can have the most amazing players, with so many things to cheer on, but the only noise you’re likely to hear will be from whoever is watching with you in the lounge room (and maybe your neighbour if they’re watching too).</p>
<p>If we’re not sharing the moment with everyone, we’re missing out on that sense of belonging.</p>
<h2>Crowds also influence players and referees</h2>
<p>The most important factor in home ground advantage <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527002515595842">appears to be the crowd</a> (though some argue that the home crowd advantage <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02640410400021559?mobileUi=0&journalCode=rjsp20">used to be larger</a> than it is now).</p>
<p>Most teams have their own home ground, but in some cases, two or more teams might share a home ground. When they’re playing against each other, one team is still designated as home, and the other as away. Neither team has to travel far, and both teams are familiar with the stadium’s quirks, but the designated “home” team will have a more sympathetic crowd. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527002515595842">A 2015 study</a> used this exact scenario at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles to find that essentially the entire home advantage between two teams comes down to the crowd effect. So crowd noise can support players, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/it-feels-all-wrong-a-player-s-view-of-footy-without-a-crowd-20200318-p54bho.html">and spur them on</a>. </p>
<p>Further, home crowd noise has also been found to have an effect on <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=24626">referees, umpires and judges</a>. Teams appear to be <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17852675/">less likely to receive yellow cards in soccer</a> when playing at their home ground, because of the home crowd’s impact on referees.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20733209/">A 2010 study</a> found referees used crowd noise as a cue when making decisions such as whether to give a yellow card for a foul. </p>
<p>The home crowd is more likely to be loud for fouls against their own team, rather than fouls their team has committed against the opposition. Because crowd noise is strongly associated with exciting action, and fouls are exciting, referees may not even be aware they’re using crowd noise as a cue. Further, they may just want to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17852675/">appease the home crowd</a>.</p>
<h2>Sport won’t be as exciting without crowds</h2>
<p>I distinctly remember the moment when Nick Davis kicked <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvH5yPHOaVg">that goal</a> with 5 seconds to go to defeat the Geelong Cats and send the Sydney Swans into a 2005 preliminary final. The crowd went nuts and I loved sharing that moment with everyone. I belonged.</p>
<p>But if something like that happened this year, and there was no crowd to see it and cheer it on, would it be as exciting? I doubt it.</p>
<p>And that’s precisely why fake crowd noise is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/fake-crowd-noise-bundesliga-afl-tv-broadcast/12295010">on TV</a>. It might feel forced, and <a href="https://twitter.com/i/events/1265956270839750659">some people might not like it much</a>, but at least there’s just a little bit more excitement with it. With any luck, we won’t have to worry about it for too long.</p>
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<p><em>This article is supported by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/partners/judith-neilson-institute">Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>This article was amended on June 3, 2020. It originally referred to the Sydney Swans advancing to the grand final after defeating Geelong. The team actually advanced to a preliminary final.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Russell is a member of the International Gambling Think Tank. This Think Tank is an international network of researchers, policy makers, service providers and interested others collaborating to advance understanding of gambling and to reduce gambling-related harm. He works in gambling research, with a particular interest in sports betting, and has received funding to examine topics such as wagering advertising and its effect on peoples' betting behaviour, as well as sports betting more generally. He has not received any funding into this specific topic, and discloses no conflicts of interest.</span></em></p>Why are sport broadcasters using fake crowd noise? It might be because crowd noise can help us bond with our tribe and acts as a psychological cue for when to pay attention.Alex Russell, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1256762019-11-15T10:24:29Z2019-11-15T10:24:29ZThe psychology of riots – and why it’s never just mindless violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301617/original/file-20191113-77326-ugjqfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fanning flames.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/the-joker-to-guy-fawkes-why-protesters-around-the-world-are-wearing-the-same-masks-126458">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It seemingly can happen anywhere – and at any time. From <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-this-is-the-age-of-dissent-and-theres-much-more-to-come-52871">London</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/hong-kong-protesters-shouldnt-pin-hopes-on-outsiders-to-solve-their-impasse-with-beijing-125693">Hong Kong</a>, apparently peaceful cities can sometimes erupt suddenly into widespread, and often sustained, unrest. But what role does psychology play in this? And can it explain how, why and when crowds turn to violence?</p>
<p>The recent film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGVQLHvwOY">Joker</a> tells the bleak story of how a mentally ill loner, Arthur Fleck, becomes the infamous comic book villain – and inspires a riotous popular movement. In the film, the stage seems well set for a riot. Gotham City is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/28/he-is-a-psychopath-has-the-2019-joker-gone-too-far">depicted as</a> “… a powder keg of lawlessness, inequality, corruption, cuts and all-round despair”.</p>
<p>But is the crowd protesting this – or acting as a mindless mob? As commentator Aditya Vats has <a href="https://medium.com/@adityavats/understanding-joker-a-psychological-view-90da73bfd557">pointed out</a>, the film appears to reflect the views of the 17th-century philosopher <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/hobbes_thomas.shtml">Thomas Hobbes</a>, who argued that society has a drive towards chaos and destruction. In the film, Fleck is portrayed as the individual who unleashes these apparently innate tendencies when he brutally kills first three wealthy young bankers – and then a TV talk show host live on air. Subsequently, thousands of rioters in clown masks are shown rioting, looting and killing, seemingly inspired by his actions.</p>
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<p>This is a simple, and popular, representation of real-world crowd violence. But does it accurately reflect the true psychology underpinning “riotous” behaviour?</p>
<p>There are three “classical” <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Mobs-Englishmen-Myths-realities-ebook/dp/B006654U9U">theoretical explanations</a> of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/nov/18/mad-mobs-englishmen-2011-riots">the crowd</a> that endure in the popular imagination. The first, “mad mob theory”, suggests that individuals lose their sense of self, reason and rationality in a crowd and so do things they otherwise might not as an individual. </p>
<p>The second is that collective violence is the product of a convergence of “bad” – or criminal – individuals enacting their violent personal predispositions together in the same space.</p>
<p>The third is a combination of the first two and is captured in the narrative of Joker: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Mobs-Englishmen-Myths-realities-ebook/dp/B006654U9U">“The bad leading the mad”</a>. To quote from a book on the 2011 English riots <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Mobs-Englishmen-Myths-realities-ebook/dp/B006654U9U">Mad Mobs and Englishmen</a>: that “evil and unscrupulous people – often outsiders or enemies – take advantage of the gullibility of the crowd in order to use them as a tool for destruction”.</p>
<h2>What really happens</h2>
<p>While these explanations are often well rehearsed in the media, however, they do not account <a href="http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/82292/">for what actually happens</a> during a “riot”. This lack of explanatory power has meant that contemporary social psychology has long rejected these classical explanations as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963662516639872">inadequate and even potentially dangerous</a> – not least because they fail to take account of the factors that actually drive such confrontations. In fact, when people riot, their <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/014466601164876">collective behaviour</a> is never mindless. It may often be criminal, but it is structured and coherent with meaning and conscious intent. To address the causes of such violence, we need to understand this.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-this-is-the-age-of-dissent-and-theres-much-more-to-come-52871">Hard Evidence: this is the Age of Dissent – and there's much more to come</a>
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<p>Contrary to expectations, there are actually important boundaries and limits during riots relating to 1) what goes on (and what doesn’t) and 2) what (and who) becomes influential. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/57/4/964/2623988?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Research and modern crowd theory</a> suggest that these behavioural limits of crowd action relate in important ways to the limits of social identification.</p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2420140102">Steve Reicher’s analysis</a> of the 1980 <a href="https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/st-pauls-riots-37-years-17634">St Paul’s “riot”</a>, in Bristol, England. Reicher demonstrated that the crowd’s actions were governed by the individuals’ shared sense of social identity as members of the St Paul’s community. This identity was partly defined by a united opposition to police “aggressors” who symbolically were seen to be attacking the community by raiding the Black and White cafe, an important local hub.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301618/original/file-20191113-77295-ukspt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A street protestor in Kyiv, Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/street-protests-kiev-revolution-263735459?src=c4bad0b2-2a16-4f52-8789-2bfb35912567-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Reicher also showed how this collective identity placed important constraints on what happened during the “riot” – and where. First, there were clear limits on who and what constituted a legitimate target, with only those viewed as being in opposition to the St Paul’s identity – largely, the police – being attacked. Second, there were defined geographical limits – the police were only attacked while they were within the boundaries of St Paul’s and were left alone once they had left.</p>
<h2>Behavioural ‘contagion’</h2>
<p>The St Paul’s study demonstrates that people in riots act according to their assumed social identities and do not behave mindlessly, as if subject to an irrational “group mind”. For example, crowd members described throwing stones at police officers as normative and widespread – “a few bricks went in and then people closed the road and everybody started doing it”. Attacks against other targets, however, were isolated and widely denounced – “a bus … got one window smashed … Everyone went ‘Ugh’, ‘idiots’.” </p>
<p>But why do individual acts of violence spread and “infect” others, inciting them also to riot?</p>
<p>Classical crowd theories, like the narrative of the Joker, suggest that mere exposure to the behaviour of others leads observers to act in the same way. According to this line of thinking, behaviour is spread via a process of “contagion”, transmitted automatically from one person to another. This would mean the mere act of watching the Joker kill live on TV could explain why others turned to violence on the streets of Gotham.</p>
<p>But this notion of behavioural contagion cannot explain the clear patterns and boundaries of precisely what behaviour <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2376">“spreads” and what doesn’t</a>. Why, for example, did the riots that swept England in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14436499">August 2011</a> – and which followed the shooting by police of Mark Duggan – spread from London to some cities, but not others?</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-joker-to-guy-fawkes-why-protesters-around-the-world-are-wearing-the-same-masks-126458">The Joker to Guy Fawkes: why protesters around the world are wearing the same masks</a>
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<p>The answer to this is related to how people construct group boundaries (we are more influenced by fellow in-group members than out-group members) and the extent to which actions are in line with prevailing <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/beyondcontagion/">group norms</a>. As rioting swept across England in August 2011, research suggests that it was those who identified as anti-police that mobilised onto the streets and were subsequently empowered through their localised interactions with the authorities and each other. The targets of their subsequent collective rioting were not random, but focused predominately on the police, symbols of wealth and large retail outlets owned by big corporations.</p>
<p>Seen in this light, the Joker’s actions didn’t merely invoke a Hobbesian dystopia but instead are better understood as unwittingly galvanising a simmering anti-wealth movement brought about by structural inequality and injustice. And based on research on riots in multiple disciplines such as social psychology, history and criminology, the spread of the subsequent unrest would have been far from random.</p>
<p>In a real world Gotham, only those who identified as “anti-wealth” would have been subject to the crowd’s influence during the riots, and only those actions consonant with this identity (for example, attacking and looting symbols of wealth) would have been “acceptable” to the Joker’s foot soldiers. As the riots developed, the apparent disempowerment of the authorities in one location, would have led those who identified as “anti-wealth” in other parts of the city to mobilise onto the streets and take on their erstwhile “common enemy”. </p>
<p>Of course, Joker isn’t real life but its narrative of contagion and random violence is common as an “explanation” of real life. But behind the scenes, with closer <a href="https://figshare.com/articles/Re-reading_the_2011_English_riots_-_ESRC_Beyond_Contagion_interim_report_pdf/7687433">rereading of riots</a>, social psychology can help bust the myth of the irrational mob and begin to explain how the fictional city – as well as countless real ones – can and do transform from tranquillity into widespread and enduring crowd violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clifford Stott receives funding from ESRC ES/N01068X/1</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Radburn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>According to research, a strong sense of social identity and empowerment often dictates how rioters behave.Matthew Radburn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Keele UniversityClifford Stott, Professor of Social Psychology, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1152142019-04-10T02:08:09Z2019-04-10T02:08:09ZA country can never be too rich, too beautiful or too full of people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268484/original/file-20190409-2927-1qy0s7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump isn’t the first to think a country can be full.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/large-group-people-seen-above-gathered-286867178?src=WFmmHaJjt1a_TdP-UPwxpA-1-4">Arthimedes/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Our Country is FULL!” U.S. President Donald Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1115057524770844672">recently tweeted</a>.</p>
<p>He was referring to immigrants, but the rhetorical tweet begs the question: Can a country ever be full?</p>
<p>Economists <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com/">like me have been</a> arguing for centuries about the question but also a closely related one: Is a growing population good or bad? </p>
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<h2>A country’s ‘carrying capacity’</h2>
<p>The first economist to suggest there were limits to how many inhabitants a country could support was Thomas Malthus, who wrote his most famous work, “<a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPop.html">An Essay on the Principle of Population</a>,” in 1798.</p>
<p>Malthus believed that each country had a “carrying capacity,” a maximum number of people it can support. When the population is above its carrying capacity, it is full.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Malthus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus#/media/File:Thomas_Robert_Malthus_Wellcome_L0069037_-crop.jpg">John Linnell/Welcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/carrying-capacity">Carrying capacity</a> is based on environmental factors, such as the amount of food resources that can be grown on land or harvested from the sea. If Malthus were alive today, he would point out there is a fixed amount of oil in the Earth and a <a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2014/Highlights_Farms_and_Farmland.pdf">fixed amount of farmland</a> to grow crops. Sooner or later the <a href="https://peakoilbarrel.com/what-is-peak-oil/">oil will run out</a>, and if population grows without bound, there will not be enough food to feed everyone.</p>
<p>Malthus’ predictions about what happens after a country rises above its carrying capacity were dire: Disease, famine and wars break out to bring the population back down to a sustainable level. In simple terms, Malthus’ theory was that the population in a country cannot grow indefinitely. Death will constrain it.</p>
<p>This harsh conclusion is one of the reasons people began calling economics the “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dismalscience.asp">dismal science</a>.”</p>
<p>Another doomsayer, though not an economist, is author Jared Diamond, whose popular book “<a href="http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Collapse.html">Collapse</a>” showed numerous times in history when population growth led to environmental damage that destroyed a society. The damage occurred because ever-increasing population forced people to move onto marginal or unsafe lands. </p>
<p>Supporters of Diamond’s ideas point out the problems that occur as an ever-growing population builds homes, businesses and farms <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-03-19/historic-midwest-flooding-destroys-homes-blamed-for-3-deaths">in flood zones</a> and seeks shelter in places like the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/06/08/lava-hawaii-volcano-has-destroyed-600-homes-mayor-says/684158002/">sides of active volcanoes</a>.</p>
<h2>The more, the wealthier</h2>
<p>Many other economists hold the opposite view and argue population growth fosters economic progress, which means an ever-growing amount of goods and services.</p>
<p>Some of the early work was done in the 1990s by the late <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5941.html">Julian Simon</a>. He stressed the idea that a growing population is advantageous because it means more researchers, inventors, thinkers, writers and creative people contributing to economic growth.</p>
<p>These kinds of ideas were expanded by people like Harvard development economist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118405">Michael Kremer</a>, who suggested it takes a critical mass of people for advanced societies to develop. Societies with high population densities are the most dynamic and most productive, while societies with low densities are not.</p>
<p>The reason why large populations are good is straightforward. Few ideas come from people who are isolated. Numerous people who are together in close proximity produce more ideas because they learn from each other and compete.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2010/12/23/growth-is-good">Proponents of population growth</a> <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/features/population-growth-offers-huge-benefits-324002.html">point out</a> most of the new ideas and products come from cities like New York City, London and Paris. The places brimming with ideas are dense, crowded major urban centers teeming with people. These major cities <a href="https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2015/03/magnet-cities.pdf">act as a magnet for people</a> with talent who are then able to thrive.</p>
<h2>Far from full</h2>
<p>When Malthus kicked off the debate over population, the U.S. had about 4 million people. Today the U.S. has almost <a href="https://www.census.gov/popclock/">330 million</a>.</p>
<p>This dramatic growth has caused neither collapse nor devastation in the U.S.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, economists, politicians and others will continue to worry that sooner or later that population growth will outstrip the ability of humans to invent ways to sustain it. </p>
<p>My personal belief, after traveling <a href="https://u.osu.edu/zagorsky.1/2014/08/07/capsule/">to exceptionally dense cities</a> and many <a href="http://blogs.bu.edu/zagorsky/">rural areas of America</a>, is that the U.S. is not close to full and that barring immigrants will only <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-a-stronger-economy-give-immigrants-a-warm-welcome-73264">stymie economic growth</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When President Trump declared the US full, little did he know he was wading into a centuries-old economic debate.Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior lecturer, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1143292019-03-27T14:43:12Z2019-03-27T14:43:12ZPeople’s Vote march: when it comes to crowds, history shows it’s not all about size<p>The recent People’s Vote march demanding another say on Brexit in London has re-opened the debate about attendance figures which surfaces every time there is a mass protest. The argument hinges on a correlation between magnitude and success – protesters <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47678763">claim a million people marched</a> while others have sought to <a href="https://fullfact.org/europe/peoples-vote-march-count/">discredit such claims</a>. But my ongoing research into 19th-century crowds who demanded electoral and social reform suggests that attendance figures play a much smaller part in the impact of mass protest than the impression of the power they symbolise.</p>
<p>During a crisis over British political reform in 1831-32, a series of meetings were held at Newhall Hill, a disused sandstone quarry in Birmingham. At stake was a conversation about extending the right to vote and the entitlement of industrial cities to return MPs to Westminster. </p>
<p>Birmingham was part of the constituency of Warwickshire where just 400 men were entitled vote. An alliance between an empowered working class and an aspirational middle class came together to lobby for radical change. The Birmingham Political Union, led by politically astute banker Thomas Attwood spearheaded the Newhall Hill meetings – the first of which, <a href="http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=AX%2f309%2fVol.10%2f64660&pos=4">held on October 3, 1831</a> to “Petition the Lords to Pass the Reform Bill”, claimed an attendance of 80,000.</p>
<p>At Westminster, the traditional party dichotomy between Whigs and Tories at the time was exacerbated by internal party divisions about whether and how to achieve reform. The situation was not dissimilar to today’s constitutional crisis over Brexit, though there were undeniable differences. In 1832, for example, the impasse was between the Lords and the Commons, rather than between the government and parliament. At one point, during what’s been called the “May Days” crisis of 1832, King William IV accepted the resignation of the prime minister, Charles Grey, in favour of the Tory Duke of Wellington only to reappoint him two days later without an election even taking place.</p>
<p>Newhall Hill attendance was <a href="http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=AX%2f309%2fVol.10%2f64665&pos=9%20%20%20%20http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=AX%2f309%2fVol.10%2f64661&pos=1">reported</a> as 100,000 on May 10 and an implausible 150,000 on May 7. A final meeting on May 16 to celebrate Grey’s reinstatement was said to have drawn <a href="http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=AX%2f309%2fVol.10%2f64663&pos=6">50,000</a>. Then, as now, these figures were challenged, with <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL97971W/James_Mill_and_the_art_of_revolution">magistrates suggesting</a> a maximum capacity of 30,000. My ongoing PhD research roughly corroborates this at nearer 40,000.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266073/original/file-20190327-139374-1mdn0n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A meeting of the Birmingham Political Union during May 1832 at Newhall Hill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_May#/media/File:Benjamin_Haydon_-_Meeting_of_the_Birmingham_Political_Union.jpg">Benjamin Haydon via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But regardless of figures, the Newhall Hill meetings were perceived to be persuasive demonstrations of power. They were acknowledged by Grey as having been influential during the reform crisis, and historian E P Thompson <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Aoapz_ry-BkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=making+of+the+english+working+class&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH4vyhm6LhAhVMVRUIHd3ZA8gQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=immense%20assemblages&f=false">attributed</a> the “triumph” of the 1832 Reform Bill at least in part to the “well-ordered proceedings, extended organisation, and immense assemblages of people” in Birmingham. </p>
<p>But the victory was a Pyrrhic one. Although Attwood was subsequently returned to parliament as one of two MPs for the newly created Birmingham constituency, the Reform Act failed to deliver the vote to the ordinary working man as only those with property could vote. Further acts of parliament in 1867 and 1884 gradually extended the franchise until finally <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/case-study-the-right-to-vote/the-right-to-vote/birmingham-and-the-equal-franchise/1928-equal-franchise-act/">in 1928</a>, all men and women over 21 had the vote. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-brexit-brought-britains-constitution-to-the-brink-114239">How Brexit brought Britain's constitution to the brink</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Power of anticipation</h2>
<p>At other times during the struggle for electoral reform the power of the crowd was paramount. It’s been 200 years since the Peterloo massacre, as depicted in Mike Leigh’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4614612/">recent film</a>. Again, the reported figures for the crowd were contentious and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29592399/An_examination_of_the_crowd_size_at_the_Peterloo_Massacre_QRS_Essay">my ongoing research</a> suggests that attendance may have been 35,000 rather than the 60,000 recorded. This means the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hL4zAAAACAAJ&dq=michael+bush,+the+casualties+of+peterloo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjM69z1pKLhAhWCsXEKHZT0DCgQ6AEIKDAA">654 recorded injuries and 17 deaths</a> represent a higher percentage of the total than previously thought. But the fact that the country is still talking about Peterloo 200 years later demonstrates the extent of penetration of the political power it signified.</p>
<p>The anticipation of a large crowd can be just as powerful as the aftermath. The Great Chartist Meeting at Kennington Common on April 10, 1848 was expected to be such a serious threat that the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4swKO3M8iO8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=chase+chartism+a+new+history&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis1v_apaLhAhXwShUIHYZnA2kQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=solent&f=false">Royal Family was evacuated to the Isle of Wight</a>. London was subjected to a military lockdown with 8,000 troops billeted to defend key buildings with provisions laid-in for a ten-day siege. There were 4,000 police on hand to defend the bridges and 80,000 special constables were enlisted. </p>
<p>This show of force may have been the reason why the attendance didn’t meet expectations which by my calculation didn’t exceed 25,000, meaning the Chartists were seriously outnumbered. But they managed to convince the state that their arguments had a seriously potent reach. Although most of them didn’t live to see their objectives realised, within 80 years all but one of their <a href="http://www.chartistancestors.co.uk/six-points/">six points</a> had been achieved.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1053664662787637249"}"></div></p>
<p>Today, as in the 19th century, the vote is not the only way ordinary people engage with national decisions and hold leaders to account. Marching collectively in shows of power such as the People’s Vote march continues a long tradition of orderly mass protest asserting legitimate demands via the power of political persuasion. But focusing on whether attendance reached one million is missing the point. Just as in the 19th century, modern political crowds are demanding to have their voices heard by the legislature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Dave Steele does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lessons from the British 19th century protests over electoral reform about the significance of crowd sizes.Dr Dave Steele, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1121692019-02-27T19:20:20Z2019-02-27T19:20:20ZTen tips for surviving a crowd crush<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259945/original/file-20190220-148530-n9kvr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C40%2C3017%2C1964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 2010 "Love Parade" festival in Germany.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Arne Müseler </span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 24, 2010, more than a million dancing partygoers converged on an industrial zone in Duisburg, in Eastern Germany. They were attending the Love Parade, one of the most popular music festivals in the world. Decked out in sunglasses and fluorescent wigs, the happy revellers funnelled into a 200-meter-long tunnel, heading toward a former freight station where part of the festival was taking place.</p>
<p>In the mid-afternoon, heavy congestion formed at the end of the tunnel – the underground passage was too small to allow such an immense crowd to pass. As the minutes went by, the human density rose dangerously. The festivalgoers, pushed up against each other, soon could barely move their arms or even hands. At the core of the crowd, some no longer had enough room to breathe. Around 5 p.m., to the sound of techno beats played by the best DJs in the world, the first victims began to suffocate. In the end, <a href="https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds7">21 people died, and 651 were injured</a>. One survivor told the newspaper <em>Bild</em>: “It was impossible to get out of the tunnel. There was a wall of people in front of me.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A glimpse of the 2010 Love Parade prior to the accident (amateur video).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just one month earlier, I was defending my doctoral thesis in an amphitheatre at Paul Sabatier University, in Toulouse, France. The topic of my research was the movement of crowds. Over three years, I had examined mass movements in all sorts of places – shopping streets, markets, even in lab experiments. When the Love Parade accident hit the news, my friends and family all asked me the same thing: what should they do if they found themselves in that kind of situation? How could they survive if they were trapped in a crowd, like the victims at the Love Parade? Let’s find out.</p>
<h2>Why crowds kill</h2>
<p>There has been a steady rise in such crushes since the 1990s. On average, they claim the lives of 380 people every year. The most recent was October 29, 2022, in Seoul, South Korea, when at least <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/30/asia/seoul-crowd-surge-investigation-intl/index.html">154 people died</a> during Halloween festivities. On April 29 last year, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/dozens-said-hurt-as-stand-collapses-at-mass-lag-bomer-gathering-in-mount-meron/">45 people were crushed to death and more than 150 injured</a> at the Lag B’Omer religious festival in Meron, Israel. It is thought to be the largest peacetime tragedy the country’s history. The deadliest killed <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/the-mecca-stampede-that-made-history-hajj">2,300 in Mecca in September 2015</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Time-lapse footage showing the crowd of pilgrims arriving in Mecca.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Three things draw the biggest crowds: religion, sports and festivities – a good summary of human interests. The Mecca pilgrimage, for example, attracts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/23/world/middleeast/hajj-attendance-expansion.html">2 to 3 million faithful every year</a>. The capacity of a football stadium is of course far lower, in the tens of thousands, but public celebrations following key victories can attract hundreds of thousands into city streets. Think of the Champs-Élysées, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ_UhqRstko">swarming with people on July 15, 2018</a>, after the triumph of the French team in the World Cup. Last but not least, music festivals draw enormous crowds. The largest on record – 3.5 million people – gathered at Jean-Michel Jarr’s sound and light show in Moscow in September 1997.</p>
<p>In these extreme situations, the smallest organisational lapse can quickly lead to disaster. But what exactly happens in a crowd crush? Surprisingly, the dynamics of this phenomenon were only understood in the wake of a fresh tragedy.</p>
<h2>Crowd-quake</h2>
<p>In 2006, crowd turbulence caused the deaths of 362 pilgrims in Mecca. This time, the accident was filmed by a CCTV camera and the footage was sent 5,000 kilometres away, to the laboratory of German physicist Dirk Helbing. A researcher specialised in crowd behaviour, Helbing was able to uncover the key to the mystery: the “crowd-quake”, a phenomenon that arises spontaneously when human density reaches a critical threshold of about six people per square meter. At this level of crowding, physical contact between bodies becomes so intense that the slightest movement causes a surge of turbulence through the crowd. Similar to those that occur during earthquakes, these <a href="http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/100727_Massenpanik_Helbing_sch/Dynamics_of_crowd_disasters.pdf">shockwaves</a> cause people to fall and places them all under crushing physical pressure.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In this video of an Oasis concert in 2005, the crowd-quake and surges are clearly visible.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ever since this important discovery, crowd-quakes have been observed during deadly crushes like that at the Love Parade in 2010. Although our understanding of it is increasing, there’s currently no way of stopping this phenomenon once it arises.</p>
<h2>Survival guide</h2>
<p>What should you do if you are trapped in a crowd and you start to feel the walls are closing in? Here are a few survival tips from our research in our “Fouloscopie” (crowd studies) labs.</p>
<p><strong>1. Keep your eyes open</strong></p>
<p>Your number-one goal is to get out of the sea of people as quickly and calmly as possible. Look around you: is it better to turn back or go forward? To find out, try to guess where the epicentre of the crush is located – where it is most crowded – and then move toward where the crowd thins out. Don’t forget to look up. You might find a quick escape by climbing a fence or getting up onto a ledge.</p>
<p><strong>2. Leave while you can</strong></p>
<p>If the crowd thickens around you, the available space is reduced and your freedom of movement gradually diminishes. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to escape. Given this, don’t hesitate to leave the highly congested area as soon as you start to feel uncomfortable, and while you still have enough room to move. By getting out of the crowd, you will also reduce the danger for others, since the area will be less crowded for those who stay.</p>
<p><strong>3. Remain upright</strong></p>
<p>If it’s too late to flee, the most important thing to do is retain your balance and stay upright. In a crowd crush, people are pressed so tightly together that if someone falls, they create a domino effect, immediately taking down those around them. Should you fall, the weight of other bodies will pin you to the ground before you have a chance to right yourself. So stay on your feet.</p>
<p><strong>4. Save your breath</strong></p>
<p>Oxygen is your most precious resource. The vast majority of deaths in stampedes are caused by asphyxiation. Avoid screaming unless you have to, and control your breathing.</p>
<p><strong>5. Arms at chest level</strong></p>
<p>Should the pressure become intense, fold your arms up in front of you like a boxer. In that position you can protect your ribcage and keep a few centimetres of space around your ribs and lungs so you can breathe.</p>
<p><strong>6. Go with the flow</strong></p>
<p>When pushed, our natural reflex can be to resist the pressure and push back. In a crowd crush, however, resisting will be a waste of precious energy. Instead, let yourself be carried by the flow while always retaining your balance.</p>
<p><strong>7. Move away from barriers</strong></p>
<p>The only time when the previous tip does not apply is if you’re next to a wall, fence or other solid object you can’t climb up. The first victims of a crush are often pinned against barriers, as was the case in Turin in 2017 and in <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11635476/Heysel-disaster-of-1985-is-footballs-forgotten-tragedy-and-Liverpool-and-Juventus-minimal-reaction-prolongs-hurt.html">Heysel</a> and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hillsborough-disaster-investigations-six-people-charged-ipcc-operation-resolve-david-duckenfield-a7813441.html">Hillsborough</a> disasters in the 1980s. If possible, move away from any walls, pillars and fences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260001/original/file-20190220-148530-kba1ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">High pressure zones (in red) during a crowd crush.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>8. Understand the signs of density</strong></p>
<p>To make good decisions, you must be able to evaluate the gravity of the situation. Here are a few rules of thumb for estimating crowd density:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>If you have no physical contact with those around you, the density is probably still under three people per square meter, so at present all is well.</p></li>
<li><p>if you are bumping against one or two people around you without meaning to, the crowd density must be around four to five people per square meter. There is no immediate danger, but it would be better to move <em>away</em> from the centre of the congestion.</p></li>
<li><p>If you can’t freely move your hands, to the point that it is difficult to touch your face, there are too many people – the danger has become acute.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cC342Crwxrk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A panic in Place de la République in Paris on November 15, 2015.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>9. In case a panic</strong></p>
<p>A panic is a specific situation in which a crowd rushes in the same direction to escape a real or suspected danger. Examples include the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Madhya_Pradesh_stampede">Madhya Pradesh stampede in India</a> (2013), the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-16/false-alarm-causes-parisians-to-flee-in-panic/6943062">Place de la République in Paris</a> (2015), the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/falls-festival-organisers-accept-blame-for-crowd-crush">Falls Festival in Victoria, Australia</a> (2016), the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40147813">Piazza San Carlo in Turin</a> (2017) and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/nyregion/central-park-panic-global-citizen-festival.html">Global Citizen Festival in New York City</a> (2018). </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254908/original/file-20190122-100261-10oifng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s book <em>Fouloscopie</em> examines the behaviour of crowds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Humensciences</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In these kinds of situations, the movement of the crowd can be more dangerous than any threat, real or imagined. Take a moment to evaluate the situation and calmly move to safety, while staying as far as possible from the crowd.</p>
<p><strong>10. Help each other</strong></p>
<p>A dangerous situation for you is just as dangerous for those around you. Research by psychologist John Drury from the University of Sussex demonstrates that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/014466608X357893">altruism and mutual assistance</a> are key to avoiding tragedy. A united crowd is more likely to survive than a crowd of individualists. So remain human and be kind to others, offer help when you can, avoid tripping up those around you and look out for the weakest members of the group. This will benefit everyone, yourself included.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast For Word</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mehdi Moussaid is the author of "Fouloscopie", published by Humensciences.</span></em></p>When you find yourself trapped in an immense crowd, what are the right reflexes to adopt to survive?Mehdi Moussaid, Chercheur interdisciplinaire spécialisé dans le comportement des foules, Max Planck Institute for Human DevelopmentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/995582018-07-17T11:55:44Z2018-07-17T11:55:44ZUnused £321m trapped on dormant Oyster cards – and time may be running out to get it back<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227036/original/file-20180710-70072-h9lbms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Topping up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-april-17-2018-passengers-1071469106?src=yI5vOnSrqkdMzpS0q5QOZQ-1-13">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is 15 years since Transport for London (TfL) launched the Oyster card on London’s buses and tube trains, but Oyster hasn’t had a very happy birthday.</p>
<p>Instead of cake, candles and raised glasses, news broke that money trapped on dormant Oyster cards amounts to £321m, a princely sum that has effectively been loaned, interest-free from the public to TfL. This <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/dormant-oyster-card-cash-mountain-totals-321m-11421714">“mountain of cash”</a> exists as credit on cards that haven’t been used for at least a year – either lost, damaged, abandoned, or stashed away.</p>
<p>To followers of Oyster-nomics, this is just one more episode in a marked decline affecting Oyster and similar top-up based systems. More and more cards have been slipping into disuse, while the percentage of journeys using Oyster has plummeted. Where did these troubles come from, and might the so-called cash mountain be the final straw?</p>
<h2>Oyster vs Octopus</h2>
<p>To understand Oyster’s problems, we need to take a look at its history.</p>
<p>London was not the first world city to introduce labour-saving methods on its public transport, and there have been many attempts to use technology to ease the passage of commuters cramming into buses and trains. In the 1960s, the Japanese launched a cardboard ticket with a <a href="https://www.omron.com/about/history/founder/04/">magnetic stripe</a> on the back. The system is still used today, including on some British railway lines and the Mexico City metro.</p>
<p>In Hong Kong during the 1990s a diverse group of companies collaborated to develop Octopus – a payment card with a chip that dramatically reduced the city’s use of cash. Initially, the card solely served the city’s vast transport network – a direct forerunner of Oyster – but slowly expanded to include convenience stores, fast food restaurants and more.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227039/original/file-20180710-70045-xfwvap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">They look better too.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hong-kong-china-may-5-2018-1088258894?src=BRNxz7Sc_WC-gGgrLYEiaw-1-19">shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By <a href="http://www.mtr.com.hk/archive/corporate/en/investor/annual2017/EMTRAR2017F.pdf">December 2017</a>, more than 10,000 Hong Kong shops and service providers were accepting Octopus payments from 34m cards – accounting for 15m transactions a day. These corresponded to a daily spend of around HK$194m (£18.7m).</p>
<p>The Oyster card seems brittle by comparison. While Octopus morphed into a contactless, stored value smart card capable of online and offline transactions, Oyster remains a glorified travel card. TfL oversees <a href="http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-draft-annual-report-2017-2018.pdf">3.99 billion journeys</a> every year, so have easily had the influence and financial muscle to help develop Oyster if they had wanted. Predominantly, they have chosen not to.</p>
<p>At one stage there were ambitions to expand the Oyster network to Britain’s ATMs, so that customers would be able to top-up at any hole-in-the-wall. But in the course of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/cash-and-dash-9780198782810?cc=gb&lang=en&">our ATM research</a>, interviewees in the banking sector suggested it was political infighting in LINK – the sole ATM network in the UK – that kept the plans on the shelf, rather than any technological or commercial concern. A clear missed opportunity for Oyster to develop, Octopus-esque, and establish similar schemes across the country.</p>
<p>As it is, while some global counterparts have evolved to keep up with the new applications of contactless technology, Oyster has been touching in and out the same way since 2003.</p>
<h2>Going for gold</h2>
<p>Perhaps unexpectedly, the 2012 London Olympics dealt the Oyster card a body blow. Preparations for the games included plans to make Olympic sites <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/95825/Plastic-Games-at-London-Olympics">“cash-free zones”</a> in a bid to cut queues and stop criminals targeting visitors.</p>
<p>After much lobbying, this led to TfL starting to accept EMV payments. “EMV” – “Europay, Mastercard, Visa” – refers to technical specifications which, within specific guidelines, make chips in payment cards and point-of-sale terminals compatible. This allowed contactless bank cards to be used instead of Oyster, initially on London’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/londons-tube-is-getting-contactless-payments-could-they-work-in-the-us/267300/">8,500-strong fleet of red buses</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227037/original/file-20180710-70063-nm2z9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The London Olympics delivered an unexpected blow to the Oyster monopoly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-aug-6-2012-tower-bridge-460761517?src=1lWJqwxo2mDAC_5q-CC19g-1-5">shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the end of 2013, London’s entire network of buses, tube trains, trams, metropolitan rail lines, and TfL-operated river boats was open to EMV payments, and in 2014 TfL doubled down by banning cash payment for bus fares. At the time, fewer than 40% of the 96m debit cards and 58m credit cards in the UK were contactless, but by the end of 2017, 70% of all payment cards had contactless capabilities. Similar trends were expected in the wallets of many of London’s 15m or so annual <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32812460">overseas visitors</a>. </p>
<p>Since the London Olympics in 2012, Oyster travel has dropped by 20%, while EMV journeys grew from <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/contactless-payment">79,421 in 2014 to 723,098 in 2017</a> – a factor of more than nine. The number of unused Oyster cards doubled between 2013 and 2017 from 27m to 53m. As for the cash mountain, that’s been growing by an average of 25% per year since 2014, from £123m to the whopping £321m now quoted in the press.</p>
<h2>An Oyster with no pearl</h2>
<p>In effect, punters have loaned TfL this money, interest-free, and there’s no guarantee it will be fully returned. When breaking the news, Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon stated that it was “time TfL devoted far more time and energy telling the public how they can get their own money back.” </p>
<p>But as with energy companies, TfL has no financial incentive to persuade the public to withdraw their balances. Gas bills at least are usually large enough to jerk the claimant into action, whereas Oyster balances are spread across 76m units (73% of which have lain dormant for a year or more), each containing an average of <a href="https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/oyster-card">£2.86</a>. One solution would be to imitate airlines and air miles – TfL could set a deadline by which to withdraw dormant money, or lose anything that goes unclaimed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227042/original/file-20180710-70066-54gr27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Punters can now pay for their morning torture in more ways than ever before.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/underground-151196600?src=hMB0p500T2jTrzpZa5XNAw-1-6">shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This dormant money has set off alarm bells across the pre-paid industry, and shows how non-financial organisations can heavily affect the way payment methods develop. In this case the bargaining power clearly lies with the transport operator (TfL) and not the user as, regardless of people’s preferences, they have to conform to the operator’s choice of payment method. Whether Oyster stays or goes will depend on TfL’s strategy, not on benefits to users.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, this is just one narrative in a much wider story: cash transactions are digitising, payment methods proliferating, and top-up systems like Oyster must evolve quickly or face extinction. Advances barely on the horizon a few years ago are now setting the industry standard, and the Oyster card has spent 15 years in stasis. One day soon it may be touching out for good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo has received funding to research ATM and payments history from the British Academy, Fundación de Estudios Financieros (Fundef-ITAM), Charles Babbage Institute and the Hagley Museum and Archives. He is also active in the ATM Industry Association, consults with KAL ATM Software and is a regular contributor to <a href="http://www.atmmarketplace.com">www.atmmarketplace.com</a>.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prachandra Shakya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A dormant ‘cash mountain’ marks a nadir for London’s contactless travel card, but trouble has been brewing for some time.Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, Professor of Business History and Bank Management, Bangor UniversityPrachandra Shakya, PhD Candidate, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/928272018-06-03T20:23:13Z2018-06-03T20:23:13ZGrowing cities face challenges of keeping the masses moving up, down and across<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220043/original/file-20180523-51105-1d1gvl4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cities are growing vertically as well as horizontally, so infrastructure needs to ensure people can move up and down as well as across the city.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/16317398660/in/photolist-HmbAo-AKFN4B-drxSUL-6ziAjt-Hmfnn-Hmcaq-7jbxv-HmfGv-HmfrB-Hmffx-6A98sg-7jbQ3-9pJVPe-HmeQg-Hmfc4-Hmcku-3Xss1r-8r4pyt-7CwjK3-JzURC-HmbSm-4UE1ub-HmfKe-HmfXH-zA6MBs-88zMov-qRUW8E-K4Asz-88D2kG-Hmg5g-88zNt8-HYMpRU-GY34H-Hmbeq-6FrR5P-7TAywZ-9rG5ER-6FvYpE-Hmg9V-iRDjN-88zPbF-HmcDN-88zN6Z-GY36R-88D1Ay-HmbgJ-3cUWND-">Alpha/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is the first article in our new series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/moving-the-masses-54500">Moving the Masses</a>, about managing the movements of large numbers of individuals, be they drivers or pedestrians, shoppers or commuters, birds or ants.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Cities worldwide face the problems and possibilities of “volume”: the stacking and moving of people and things within booming central business districts. We see this especially <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/half-a-million-commuters-on-the-road-to-sydney-s-four-big-jobs-hubs-20180522-p4zgvs.html">around mass public transport hubs</a>. </p>
<p>As cities grow, they also become more vertical. They are expanding underground through rail corridors and above ground into the tall buildings that shape city skylines. Cities are deep as well as wide. </p>
<p>The urban geographer <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/251591/vertical-by-stephen-graham/9781781689974/">Stephen Graham describes cities</a> as both “vertically stacked” and “vertically sprawled”, laced together by vertical and horizontal transport systems.</p>
<p>People flow in large cities is not only about how people move horizontally on rail and road networks into and out of city centres. It also includes vertical transport systems. These are the elevators, escalators and moving sidewalks that commuters use every day to get from the underground to the surface street level. </p>
<p>Major transport hubs are where many vertical and horizontal transport systems converge. It’s here that people flows are most dense. </p>
<p>But many large cities face the twin challenges of ageing infrastructure and increased volumes of people flowing through transport hubs. Problems of congestion, overcrowding, delays and even lockouts are becoming more common.</p>
<p>Governments are increasingly looking for ways to squeeze more capacity out of existing infrastructure networks.</p>
<h2>Can we increase capacity by changing behaviour?</h2>
<p>For the last three years, Transport for London (TfL) has been running standing-only escalator trials. The aim is to see if changing commuter behaviour might increase “throughput” of people and reduce delays. </p>
<p>London has some of the deepest underground stations in the world. This means the Tube system is heavily reliant on vertical transport such as escalators. But a long-standing convention means people only stand on the right side and allow others to walk up on the left.</p>
<p>In a trial at Holborn Station, one of London’s deepest at 23 metres, commuters were <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/12016428/Tube-station-abandons-stand-on-the-right-escalator-rule.html">asked to stand on both sides</a> during morning rush hour. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/03/the-results-are-in-the-holborn-escalator-trial-proves-that-it-is-better-to-stand-on-the-escalator-well-sometimes/">results of the trials</a> showed that changing commuter behaviour could improve throughput by increasing capacity by as much as 30% at peak times. But this works only in Tube stations with very tall escalators. At stations with escalators less than 18 metres high, like Canary Wharf, the trials found the opposite – standing would only increase congestion across the network.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/147/escalator-hype-sml.gif?1527814909" width="100%">
</p><figure> <figcaption>By standing only, 30% more people could fit on an escalator in the trial at Holborn Station.</figcaption></figure><p></p>
<p>The difference is down to human behaviour. People are simply less willing to walk up very tall escalators. This means a standing-only policy across the network won’t improve people flow uniformly and could even make congestion worse. </p>
<h2>Is people movement data a solution?</h2>
<p>With the introduction of ticketless transport cards it’s now possible to gather more data about people flow through busy transport hubs as we tap on and off. </p>
<p>Tracking commuters’ in-station journeys through their Wi-Fi-enabled devices, such as smart phones, can also offer a detailed picture of movement between platforms, congestion and delays.</p>
<p>Transport for London has already conducted its first <a href="http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/09/london-underground-wifi-tracking-heres-everything-we-learned-from-tfls-official-report/">Wi-Fi tracking trial</a> in the London Underground.</p>
<p>Issues of privacy loom large in harvesting mobile data from individual devices. Still, there’s enormous potential to use this data to resolve issues of overcrowding and inform commuters about delays and congestion en route.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpSNLRYj27o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">London’s transport authority hopes the data from tracking users’ phones will help ease congestion, plan better timetables and improve station designs.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Governments are also increasingly turning to consultancy firms that specialise in simulation modelling of people flow. That’s everything from check-in queues and processing at terminals, to route tracking and passenger flow on escalators.</p>
<p>Using data analytics, people movement specialists identify movement patterns, count footfall and analyse commuter behaviour. In existing infrastructure, they look to achieve “efficiencies” through changes to scheduling and routing, and assessing the directional flow of commuters.</p>
<p>Construction and engineering companies are also beginning to employ people movement specialists during the design phase of large infrastructure projects.</p>
<p>Beijing’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/outofasia/2018/01/10/beijings-new-daxing-international-airport-set-to-be-worlds-largest-but-business-aviation-an-afterthought/#692b0e2e68ef">Daxing airport</a>, due for completion in 2020, will be the largest transport hub in China. It’s also the first major infrastructure project to use crowd simulation and analysis software during the design process to test anticipated volume against capacity.</p>
<p>The advice of people movement specialists can have significant impacts on physical infrastructure. This involves aspects such as the width of platforms, number and placement of gates, and the layout and positioning of vertical transport, such as escalators. </p>
<h2>Movement analytics is becoming big business</h2>
<p>People movement analytics is becoming big business, especially where financialisation of public assets is increasing. This means infrastructure is being developed through complex public-private partnership models. As a result, transport hubs are now also commercial spaces for retail, leisure and business activities.</p>
<p>Commuters are no longer only in transit when they make their way through these spaces. They are potential consumers as they move through the retail concourse in many of these developments.</p>
<p>In an era of “digital disruption”, which is particularly affecting the retail sector, information about commuter mobility has potential commercial value. The application of data analytics to people flow and its use by the people movement industry to achieve “efficiencies” needs careful scrutiny to ensure benefits beyond commercial gain. </p>
<p>At the same time, mobility data may well help our increasingly vertical cities to keep flowing up, down and across.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can find other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/moving-the-masses-54500">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Connor is a post-doctoral fellow on the Australian Research Council Discovery Project "Volumetric Urbanism". </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald McNeill has received funding from the Australian Research Council through a Future Fellowship on Governing Digital Cities.</span></em></p>Cities are expanding upwards and downwards, as well as outwards. With urban density also increasing, moving people efficiently around the city, often using ageing infrastructure, is quite a challenge.Andrea Connor, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityDonald McNeill, Professor of Urban and Cultural Geography, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834542017-09-05T12:13:08Z2017-09-05T12:13:08ZEnglish riots 2011: new research shows why crowd behaviour isn’t contagious<p>Bad behaviour can spread quickly. Riots and uprisings – and violence and aggression more generally – can grow and proliferate in such a way that they’re often described as being “contagious”, like a disease. In fact, contagion is one the most persuasive metaphors for explaining collective behaviour.</p>
<p>It seems to capture something so fundamental in human behaviour that it is <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354067X15601190">invoked to explain</a> both the spread of simple behaviours like smiling and yawning, and more complex interactions such as the spread of ideas in society or rapid changes in financial markets.</p>
<p>But despite the apparent success of this metaphor, research evidence suggests that such language actually conceals more than it reveals. As such, there are better ways to think about and explain the process of influence among large groups of people.</p>
<p>Specifically, new research my colleagues and I have carried out on the August 2011 riots in England suggests the violence did not spread mindlessly. Instead, we found that people were influenced by a sense of shared identity against the authorities, that transcended even the “postcode rivalries” of local gangs.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/57/4/964/2623988">Our preliminary work on the riots</a> that spread across English cities suggests social identity – rather than simple spontaneous contagion – shaped much of the behaviour that took place. First of all, not everyone in the affected cities joined in. Those that did <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1741659016667438">shared an anti-police identity</a>.</p>
<p>Second, many of those young people who did join in would more typically have seen each other as rivals, based on long-standing conflicts between different districts of the city. We found that the shared antagonism towards the police meant that these rivalries became superseded by a stronger group identity. The feeling of power this created among participants is what helped the riots grow and spread.</p>
<p>This idea is in stark contrast to the typical description of crowd behaviour as contagious, which has long been used to undermine and attack the actions and motivation of large groups of people. The first use of the term “contagion” in a psychological sense was by the French historian Hippolyte Taine in his <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963662516639872">1876 study of the French Republic</a>. Taine borrowed from the terminology of medicine (not only “contagion”, but also “feverishness” and “delirium”) to capture what he saw as the barbaric mentality of the “mob”. </p>
<p>Plagiarising Taine’s ideas, the crowd theorist <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1996.tb01113.x/abstract">Gustave Le Bon (1895)</a> defined contagion as uncritical passive social influence, arguing that any sentiment or behaviour could easily sweep through a crowd. He explicitly tried to use psychology as a weapon in a war against the working class “masses”, suggesting that if people lost their reason when they gathered in a crowd, there was no point reasoning with them and force was justified.</p>
<p>In this early usage, we can see the defining features of the contagion concept and some of its problems. First, comparing social influence to a disease implies that influence in crowds is something bad. Second, it suggests the spread is mindless, or even irrational, because it does not involve cognition.</p>
<p>Modern versions of the contagion concept have inherited these assumptions to varying degrees, meaning they can’t explain some important features of influence, both in crowds and between individuals. In their 1969 critique of Le Bon’s account, the social psychologists Stanley Milgrim and Hans Toch pointed out that contagion couldn’t explain why riot police are impervious to the rousing effects of a demagogue, unlike others present in the same crowd. Similarly, Steve Reicher’s well-known <a href="http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/includes/site/files/files/1984%20EJSP%20St%20Pauls.pdf">study of the 1980 St Paul’s riot</a> noted that while some behaviours did spread in the crowd (such as throwing stones at police) others did not (such as throwing stones at a bus).</p>
<h2>A new account</h2>
<p>Instead of a model of indiscriminate contagion to explain the way influence within and between crowds work, we need to use the notion of <a href="http://www.ark143.org/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Tajfel-Turner-1979-An-Integrative-Theory-of-Intergroup-Conflict.pdf">social identity</a>, which means our definition of ourselves based on our membership of groups. Our group membership might change from context to context. For example, we might define ourselves as an Arsenal supporter in a football context and as as a Christian in a religious context. This means different sources of influence can also vary according to the context.</p>
<p>Psychologists have shown that this social identity principle helps explain the spread of relatively simple behaviour, such as emotional responses. For example, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-07236-009">one study</a> involved showing a group of psychology students images of people displaying anger and fear. They were more likely to mimic the emotions if the people were described as other psychology students than if they were labelled as economics students. </p>
<p><a href="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=ES%252FN01068X%252F1">The research</a> my colleagues and I are conducting applies these ideas about social identity to a range of behaviours. Some types of simple behaviour often described contagious, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/27858677">such as yawning</a>, really do seem automatic. Others (such as scratching) may depend more on the identity of the person the behaviour originates from. Our research will help to determine which behaviours are which.</p>
<p>Critics could point to the hundreds of experiments that provide evidence that some behaviour really is contagious, including relatively complex actions such as aggression. But the social identity research suggests that this may be because participants in the experiments share an implicit social identity with the target (such as “students”) and it is this that explains how they are influenced.</p>
<p>One of the features that distinguishes crowds from individuals is power. Our new theory is that the 2011 riots spread from location to location in part because <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01622.x/full">participation gave individuals a greater feeling of empowerment</a>. Shared identity led to greater expectations of support and these expectations of support led to action against the police. The police’s weak response encouraged even more action, helping the violence to spread to other targets. This was the case both for the original rioters and for others who were not initially present but also identified against the police, who heard about the events and then joined in. </p>
<p>This kind of evidence suggests that we should abandon the idea of “contagion” and instead find different ways to talk and think about how people are influenced, in crowds and more generally. There are other terms such as “spread” or “transmission” that more accurately describe the process. The advantage of using these more neutral terms is that we avoid misunderstanding the behaviour of people in crowds and treating it like a disease.</p>
<p><em>John Drury is speaking about his research on the idea of crowds and contagious behaviour at the 2017 <a href="https://www.britishsciencefestival.org/event/the-contagion-of-behaviour/">British Science Festival</a> on 6th September.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Drury receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>Rioters were influenced by a shared anti-police identity – not just mindless violence.John Drury, Reader in Social Psychology, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/636182016-08-09T08:02:18Z2016-08-09T08:02:18ZFive years after the English riots, we still don’t know why the violence spread<p>Five years ago, riots broke out in cities across England; civilians looted shops, started fires and were involved in clashes with armed police, which resulted in <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/08/12/uk.riots/">hundreds of injuries</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14532532">thousands of arrests</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/24/england-riots-cost-police-report">millions of pounds</a> worth of damage. </p>
<p>At the time, the riots <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8691034/London-riots-Prime-Ministers-statement-in-full.html">were dismissed</a> by the then prime minister, David Cameron, as “criminality, pure and simple”. Later, more complex explanations emerged. Some <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Riots-and-Political-Protest/Winlow-Hall-Briggs-Treadwell/p/book/9780415730822">understood the riots</a> as a frustrated response to society’s consumerist values, where some used violence to go <a href="http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/1/1.abstract">“shopping for free”</a>.</p>
<p>Other analyses suggested that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Riots-and-Political-Protest/Winlow-Hall-Briggs-Treadwell/p/book/9780415730822">social and economic inequalities</a> had created a “tinderbox” where disadvantaged young people were ready to explode at the merest <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/cjm/article/law-moments-understanding-flashpoint-ignited-riots">“flashpoint”</a>. And the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14842416">police shooting of a young black man called Mark Duggan</a> was one such moment. The shooting, and the police’s failure to formally notify his family, sparked a peaceful protest that developed into riots, which spread across London and then to other parts of England. </p>
<h2>I (can’t) predict a riot</h2>
<p>Leading criminologist Tim Newburn recently argued that the conditions which preceded the riots five years ago <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/05/conditions-that-caused-english-riots-even-worse-now-says-leading-expert?CMP=share_btn_fb">have worsened</a>: “It would be a foolish observer who assumed that our cities are safe this summer,” <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/it-would-be-foolish-to-think-our-cities-are-safe-from-post-brexit-riots-this-summer-a7163786.html">he said</a>. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/30/tottenham-riots-david-lammy?CMP=share_btn_link">echoed these thoughts</a>, and concerns about a second spate of violence have appeared in <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-braced-for-repeat-of-2011-london-riots-z98fxwsvz">The Times</a>.</p>
<p>There have been recent tense moments. In late July, London experienced three separate outbreaks of <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/london-hit-by-horrific-night-of-violence-as-trouble-flares-across-the-capital-after-hottest-day-of-a3299856.html">“spontaneous violence”</a>. Yet such incidents did not escalate significantly, nor spread to other areas. Given that these consumerist values and vast social inequalities persist, we’re faced with <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62806/">a powerful question</a>: why haven’t we experienced a repeat of the events in 2011?</p>
<p>The short answer is, we simply don’t know. Five years after the riots, research hasn’t advanced sufficiently to enable us to predict events of that scale and intensity. But there has been some progress: for example there is <a href="http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/07/bjc.azw036.abstract">considerable evidence</a> that the patterns of interaction between crowds and authorities plays an important role in determining whether one violent incident spreads to other areas. This evidence suggests that forceful police responses escalated the situation in Tottenham in 2011 and contributed to the spread of the riot to other areas of London, such as Hackney. </p>
<p><a href="http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/31/0963662516639872.abstract">We also know</a> that the emergence and spread of crowd violence has a lot to do with how the people involved define themselves and their relationships to the police, as well as who they think <a href="http://hum.sagepub.com/content/53/2/247.abstract">holds the power</a>. </p>
<p>For example, it seems that the recent incidents in London came about when police intervened in informal celebrations or parties. In one case, a mass water-fight in Hyde Park culminated in attacks on the police, after they drove vehicles into the crowd, reportedly to prevent them from setting up a sound system. B J Harrington, the Metropolitan Police commander responsible for policing public order in London, reportedly “denied claims by some people that police, who used riot gear, escalated things by moving in when loud bashment music started being played”. </p>
<p>It is also interesting that some of the chants from those involved reportedly made reference to the Black Lives Matter movement – a message which has recurred in protests marking the anniversary of Duggan’s death. This suggests that the crowd may have interpreted the police intervention as a case of antagonism toward the black community. It also tells us that the crowd felt powerful enough to resist the police force’s authority. </p>
<p>Taken together, these episodes indicate that although social, historical and ideological context is important, we cannot understand rioting without reference to the specific interactions that take place between crowd members and the police, and within the crowds themselves. </p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>But all this is not an attempt to reject the importance of social inequalities, nor to reduce the riots to some simple example of irrational “mob psychology”. Over the next three years, a <a href="https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/crowdsidentities/2016/05/23/beyondcontagion/">team of researchers</a> from Sussex, Keele and St Andrews universities will be building on <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Mobs-Englishmen-Myths-realities-ebook/dp/B006654U9U">what we already know</a>, to try to understand how and why riots like those we saw in 2011 came about and spread in the way that they did. </p>
<p>Additionally, I would hope that our research then impacts upon social policy and policing practices in a way that genuinely undermines the likelihood that “riots” with such scale and intensity could occur again. </p>
<p>Until we know more about what causes riots, and how they spread, we should be extremely cautious about claims that a repeat of 2011 is imminent or that riots spread uncontrollably through contagion just <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/14/rioting-disease-spread-from-person-to-person">like a disease</a>. The media, in particular, must improve. The Daily Star, for instance, reported that gangs were expected to hijack <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36996466">a recent protest</a> marking the five years since the death of Duggan: in fact, but there’s <a href="http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/07/bjc.azw036.abstract">no evidence to suggest</a> that gang activity would spark another riot – indeed, it has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/24/riots-analysis-gangs-no-pivotal-role">widely accepted</a> that gangs had very little to do with the spread of disturbances in 2011. The protest itself <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/06/mark-duggan-death-fifth-anniversary-march">passed off peacefully</a>.</p>
<p>These kinds of sensationalist articles are dangerous, because they have the power to feed anxieties about crowds. These crowds are then in danger of being seen and policed as a threat when that threat, in fact, does not exist. If some minor incident were then to occur, this could lead to a situation where unnecessarily heavy-handed policing inadvertently sparks the confrontation that everyone was seeking to avoid.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clifford Stott receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>Sensationalist warnings of further riots abound. But while many social inequalities remain, we can’t say whether more widespread violence will follow.Clifford Stott, Professor of Social Psychology, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/481282015-09-28T05:33:55Z2015-09-28T05:33:55ZHere’s how to make the Hajj safer – by better understanding crowd psychology<p>The crowd crush at the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia has claimed the lives of more than 700 people and injured at least 850 more. Sadly this is <a href="https://theconversation.com/hajj-2015-the-precarious-balance-between-pilgrimage-and-consumerism-46970">not the first</a> such tragedy to affect the event. The Hajj attracts millions of pilgrims from across the world every year and involves several complex rituals, which means it is always a potentially dangerous event.</p>
<p>In recent years, great lengths have been taken to ensure the safety of pilgrims, with, according to Saudi government sources, more than <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9091.short">£200bn spent since 1992</a> on redesigning the infrastructure of the Hajj, which involves events at several sites in and around the city of Mecca. One key way that organisers plan for the safety of crowd events such as the Hajj, but also parades, carnivals and sporting competitions, is by using computer simulations to model large groups of people.</p>
<h2>Two crowds</h2>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-37512-001/">systematic review of computer models</a> we drew upon the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21582041.2011.619347">social identity approach</a>, which suggests a distinction between physical crowds (where people are simply in one place) and psychological crowds (where people in a physical crowd share a common self-definition – a social identity). </p>
<p>A group of people at an event may all see themselves and each other as Muslims, Manchester United supporters, or music lovers, for example. This shared identity affects the behaviour of the crowd and is therefore imperative for <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-37512-001/">understanding and predicting the crowd movements</a>, including flow and congestion.</p>
<p>Recent research has shown that feelings of group identity may mean psychological crowds are easier for their members to cope with even if they are tightly packed or very slow moving because <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9091.short">they feel safe within the group</a>. But when there are several psychological crowds within the same physical space they can inadvertently limit the movement of one another.</p>
<p>In a recent (unpublished) study we found that people in one psychological crowd walk more closely together, walk more slowly and walk further distances to stay together than people who are just in physical crowds. Those outside the psychological crowd did not try to walk through it but instead walked around it.</p>
<p>Despite the importance of shared identity to understanding psychological crowds, computer modellers have so far either neglected crowd psychology in their models or treated crowds simply as a mass of identical individuals. Where groups are included within the crowd, the model has been to use small groups of two to five people. But the modellers have assumed that all crowds are simply <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-37512-001/">physical crowds</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, these simulations cannot adequately predict the behaviour of psychological crowds. A key issue, as mentioned, is that a physical crowd may contain more than one psychological crowd – for example, Sunni and Shia. So assuming that the crowd is simply made up of individuals who behave like particles or billiard balls in a mass doesn’t account for a number of features of crowds such as that at the Hajj. </p>
<h2>Modelling the Hajj</h2>
<p>This has several important implications for existing simulations of the event. For example, they can’t predict how different groups favour different locations in the Hajj, such as the Shia preference for worshipping in the open. This is particularly important due to the variety of rituals the pilgrimage involves. A model that treats the crowd as a homogeneous entity also can’t explain how large groups of people will try to stick together within a moving crowd, separating themselves from other groups and creating mass contraflows.</p>
<p>We should be wary of relying exclusively on computer models, however. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=U-bMAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=keith+still+crowd+safety&ots=ZpEld5PakC&sig=6wpj5UU8mJmDNyUAkboNlCtJAc8#v=onepage&q=keith%20still%20crowd%20safety&f=false">They cannot</a> give absolute predictions or guarantee safety. In order to avoid disasters, we also need to monitor the density and flow of crowds in real time to prevent these disasters from emerging. But by combining computer modelling with crowd psychology, we can better understand crowd behaviour and develop simulations that can make events safer and hopefully avoid disasters such as the events we have witnessed at the Hajj.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Templeton works for the University of Sussex. She eceives funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Drury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Computer models can help planners deal with large groups of people but we need better insight into the psychology of crowds to make them accurate.Anne Templeton, PhD candidate in psychology, University of SussexJohn Drury, Reader in Social Psychology, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.