Fascinating. Seems credible. But only when the crowd isn't being told what to do.
Some of the examples cited eg the ox-weighing contest are truly fascinating.
And the petrol-panic-that-never-was
In fact, the crowd was wiser than the journalism... Petrol mainly ran out (and then only temporarily) in those towns where right-wing newspaper readership dominated, but not in those with more diverse newspaper sales and readerships.
I am perenially fascinated with crowd mentalities. We spend much of our childhood and most of our adolescence screaming at parents and teachers that we don't want to be told what to do, yet well into our twenties, thirties, beyond, we happily do what the media tells us to do.
Or do we? Wave after wave of advertising, of lifestyle columns, of 'this is the new...blahdeblah' and still the most popular meal in Britain is curry. I have never seen an advertising camapign for Indian Restaurants, just plenty of misspelled leaflet drops and shaky adverts in the cinema. They did try pushing the Balti as the new rock'n'roll, but we soon returned to our Dupiazas, Kormas and Biriyanis. I have never read an article about how "Indian Restaurants" is where it's 'at'; never been told by some lazy-ligging-halfwitted journalist that going to a curry house will make me fulfilled. Yet, persisitently, we keep going, a whole nation of us, of all classes and incomes and ages. And the marketing people don't know why!
Wisdom of the crowd?
