Flash mob : práticas midiáticas e a intervenção urbana em tempos de cibercultura

Abstract

Based on the perspective of communication as Science of Culture (LIMA, 2011), this research clarifies, in the beginning of the 21st century, the media dimension of flash mobs in the use of cyberspace and in the actualization of organized multitudes for something that makes difference in the daily urban globalized experience. Flash mobs can be understood as instantaneous gatherings and spreads in squares, parks, stations, etc. with a previous mobilization through social networks. To localize flash mobs as contemporary interventions, seven relevant cases of videos (registers) have been selected from YouTube to compose a descriptive panorama of flash mobs, as well as the comparison to other examples, as the happenings in the 1960‟s, which mobilization was pre-internet. The selected cases, in Brazil and some metropolises in the world, contribute to conceptualize flash mobs, situated since its creation, in New York, 2003, by journalist Bill Wasik. Furthermore, this interdisciplinary research, supported by communication, reunites some concepts like: the city (Sennett); the performance (Schechner); Cyberculture (Lemos; and Lévy); non-place, place and in-between (Augé; Serpa; Castrogiovanni; and Tuan); changes and gifts (Mauss; Simmel; and Lévi-Strauss); space, time and pause (Tuan); globalization (Octavio Ianni); etc.