Mobile clubbing/Flash Mobbing/Silent Raving and Perceptions of Public Space

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This questionnaire is for people who have participated in ONE OR MORE flash mobs. If you haven't participated in any flash mobs please don't take part.

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to complete this questionnaire; your opinions are invaluable to my research and without them I would not be able to proceed with this important piece of work. All information about individuals participating in this questionnaire will remain strictly confidential and will NOT be passed on to any third parties. If at any time you wish to remove yourself from this study I will delete your details and information at your request.

I am a BA Geography student at the University of Nottingham investigating the phenomenon known as 'Flash Mobbing' for my third year dissertation.

A flash mob can be defined as the gathering of a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual, often entertaining, and seemingly pointless act for a brief time before dispersing. The term flash mob is applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, websites, or email and is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms, or to protests and publicity stunts.

A popular form of flash mobbing is a 'mobile club' or 'silent disco'. These events are attended by individuals who begin dancing in a group, apparently spontaneously, at a prearranged time to music through the headphones of their respective mp3 players in an unusual public location. A notable example of this was the mobile club/silent disco of April 2006 held in London's Victoria Station which saw over 4000 people participate. Other examples of flash mobbing include pillow fights, subway parties, and zombie walks.

For my dissertation I'm interested in how these unusual, prearranged, yet seemingly spontaneous events relate to the use and perception of public space and also how they manifest themselves in virtual geographic spaces (i.e. the online domain and via text messaging) as well as real ones. Hopefully your contribution to my research will help me to better understand these events and analyse the causes responsible for them.

This questionnaire should take only a short time to complete. I welcome any constructive comments and feedback so feel free to share your opinions about anything in the following questions in the space provided at the end. Should you choose to provide your email address at the end of this questionnaire I will enter you in to my free prize draw in which you can win a £10 iTunes voucher.

Georgina Hawkins.
Contact: lgybgh@nottingham.ac.uk