An ordinary person can become the leader of a crowd by simply suggesting the commands. A skillful leader can convert a huge and aggressive crowd into a calm and peaceful crowd. Similarly a leader can also convert a calm crowd into an aggressive one. Leaders have a great influence over the crowd and have the tendency to change the direction of crowd behavior. The members of the crowd want to be directed who are frustrated by confusion and uncertainty. The crowd is likely to follow the person who starts giving clear orders. So, the crowd behavior is limited by the crowd leadership.
4. External controls
Most of the times it has been seen that the crowd is affected by cold weather and hard thundershower. The crowd behavior can be influenced by the external matters like weather, storm, and snowfalls etc. Along with weather, the movement of police and other law enforcement agencies come under the category of external controls. Crowd behavior can be changed by arresting, threatening and by firing etc.
Some forms of crowd
There are several forms of the crowd but audience and riots are few important ones of those.
The Audience
An audience is a form of crowd in which people gather in a place for the purpose of entertainment or a specific message from the communicator. People form a crowd to watch a movie in the cinema is an audience. Radio and television programs draw a great audience as well. The audience is affected directly by the performer.
The riot
A riot is an aggressive and destructive form of crowd. Riot can be based on the nationality, religion, and caste system etc. The riots between Hindus and Muslims of India in 1947 were based on the nationality. The participants of riot become both aggressive as well as destructive as they take part into actions like burning, breaking, killing and plundering etc.
Mass behavior
A mass is different than a crowd. The spectators watching a cricket match in a ground are a crowd; while those who are watching the match at home on television or internet are a mass. Mass is a large number of people who act individually. Mass differs from the crowd on the ground that people act as a group in the crowd. When many people acting individually and also moving in a same direction it is called as a mass behavior.
Summary
Crowd is a temporary gathering of people at one place to achieve a single goal. The members of crowd do not follow traditions, rules and regulations. There are two theories about crowd behavior i.e. convergence theory and emergent norm theory. Crowd behavior has several limitations like emotional needs of the members, the mores of the members, the leadership of the crowd and the external controls over the crowd. Audience and riot are the two important forms of the crowd in which audience is collection of people in a calm mood. On the other hand, the riot is an aggressive and destructive type of crowd.