Cascading the Crowds
Information cascades are all around us. This can be seen in the drastic movements of the financial markets and even in rapid growth of revolutionary groups during the Arab spring. Chris Ellis and John Fender, economic professors from the University of Oregon and the University of Birmingham, use the idea of information cascades to justify how revolutionary movements in today’s world form and take over is such a quick amount time. They that workers decide to rebel based on the actions of other workers. Therefore a crowd of worker will follow a small group of rebel “signalers.” They follow these signalers because they assume that the small group of rebel workers has some sort of information that the other workers do not have about the power of the existing regime.
Why this article in the economists connects that the power and speed of revolutionary movements in today’s world is based of the theory of information cascades, we can expand on their arguments based off of topics we have discussed in our course. This idea of “signalers” that know more information that the crowd is consistent with the Cascade theory. The cascade theory states that individuals make decisions based off a crowds decision assuming that the crowd has information the individual does not have. This is why once a few workers rebel, the entire crowds rebels.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/10/mass-movements