page_title: Crowd manipulation
section_title: Site selection
hierarchical_section_title: Crowd manipulation / Planning and technique / Site selection
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of the U.S. President Reagan giving a speech at the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, Federal Republic of Germany.
context_page_description: Crowd manipulation is the intentional use of techniques based on the principles of crowd psychology to engage, control, or influence the desires of a crowd in order to direct its behavior toward a specific action. This practice is common to religion, politics and business and can facilitate the approval or disapproval or indifference to a person, policy, or product. The ethicality of crowd manipulation is commonly questioned.
  Crowd manipulation differs from propaganda although they may reinforce one another to produce a desired result. If propaganda is "the consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group", crowd manipulation is the relatively brief call to action once the seeds of propaganda are sown and the public is organized into a crowd. The propagandist appeals to the masses, even if compartmentalized, whereas the crowd manipulator appeals to a segment of the masses assembled into a crowd in real time. In situations such as a national emergency, however, a crowd manipulator may leverage mass media to address the masses in real time as if speaking to a crowd.
context_section_description: Where a crowd assembles also provides opportunities to manipulate thoughts, feelings, and emotions.  Location, weather, lighting, sound, and even the shape of an arena all influence a crowd's willingness to participate.
  Symbolic and tangible backdrops like the Brandenburg Gate, used by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton in 1963, 1987, and 1994, respectively, can evoke emotions before the crowd manipulator opens his or her mouth to speak.  George W. Bush's "Bullhorn Address" at Ground Zero following the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center is another example of how venue can amplify a message.  In response to a rescue worker's shout, "I can't hear you", President Bush shouted back, "I can hear you!  I can hear you!  The rest of the world hears you!  And the people – and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"  The crowd erupted in cheers and patriotic chants.
caption: U.S. President Ronald Reagan giving a speech at the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, Federal Republic of Germany. June 12, 1987.
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