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As Virag Molnar (2010) emphasises, researchers who have studied the Flash Mob phenomenon (and its derivatives like subway parties), have only focused on the role of digital communication technologies such as blogs, social networking websites or mobile phones, in the organisation and collaborative processes. Yet, in her paper, she remarkably examines how Flash Mobs, as new types of collective actions, provide insights into the "intersection and interaction between new communications media and changing uses of physical urban space" (2010). Using the example of Flash Mobs, she states that communication technologies (mobile phones and Internet in particular), have become powerful design tools used for encouraging new forms of sociability and collaboration, emphasising that they are at the very core of these new kinds of organisation models. Following Rheingold's concept of Smart Mobs (2002), Molnar draws the differences between Flash Mob actions happening in Western Europe or in the U.S, with contrasting Flash Mob events in Eastern Europe or Asia. She highlights that cultural factors will influence sociability as the essence of Flash Mobs and describes their instrumental use to express political, marketing or entertainment purposes. Nonetheless, it is clear from her explanations that whatever the aim of the Flash Mob is, the online collaboration step to make it happen remains as an essential aspect of offline mobilisation and acts as a springboard towards it (Picataggio, 2007). REFERENCES Picataggio, S. (2007). "Use of Social Media and the Internet", on Flash Mob: 101. Accessible from http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall07/Picataggio/index.html (accessed on April 12th, 2011) Rheingold, H. (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. New-York: Basic Books.

Howard Rheingold is one, if not the most, interesting writer and theorist about collaboration and the use of new participatory media literacy in the framework of Flash Mobs. Cited in almost all the papers, studies and blog posts I have read, he certainly represents a respected thinker and is a reliable author of a number of books on this topic, including Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (2002) and The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (2000), which establish and explain the relationship between social, cultural and new digital communication mediums. In this video in particular, Rheingold talks about the relationships between communication, Medias (as communication mediums) and collective actions. He argues that our communication means, the way we use them, how they are developed and the ways in which we organise socially have been co-evolving since the beginning of human interaction (2005). He also states that this mutual evolution has conveyed new social interactions, and one perfect example to illustrate this theory is certainly the Flash Mob phenomenon. It is just a new way to interact, made possible by online collaboration of humans expressing their natural need to socialise. This reference in my bookmark list represents a valuable piece of information as it describes the historic bond between communication, collaboration and our social development. Indeed, Rheingold emphasises the fact that collaboration, as a vital question of survival, has naturally emerged between humans. REFERENCES Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. MIT Press. And (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. New-York: Basic Books. And (2005) Howard Rheingold on Collaboration [video streaming], accessible from http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html (accessed on 10th April, 2011)

This paper does a great job in critically analysing how Flash Mobs, a new socio-cultural phenomenon, are in fact final products born from a complex human collaboration and use of the technological revolution that is the Internet. It clearly explains their specificity as being totally socially mediated on, by and through online digital tools (blogs, social media, forums, instant messaging) that are used as collaborative spaces to virtually organise and create a real-life upcoming interaction between people (Nicholson, 2005). What's more, the paper brings some ideas about how the Internet can also be used to "hijack" and reverse the original essence of Flash Mob philosophy, thereby turning its main assets - instantaneity, virtual proximity, massive audience reach, networks, costless operation - into potential factors for bringing chaos, as when Philadelphia experienced a very violent wave of riots (Wagner & Buzi, 2010), or when a political protest flash mob was organised in Belarus in 2006 (Peterson, 2009). Garland demonstrates the importance of cooperation and participation between network users for Flash Mobs and cites Rheingold's thesis, with which I strongly agree, that states that they are "a type of social engagement that may be created and organised by interacting with the technology of shared networks or the technologies that allow the shared networks to interact [within an event program]" (2002). Yet, this reading highlights the differences between Flash Mobs and Smart Mobs even though both can be considered as the technology itself and the use of that technology (Rheingold, 2002). In the end, The History of Flash Mobs raises larger concepts from which this phenomenon grew out of, such as communication, social or cultural studies, thus emphasising the importance of Internet as a new way for human beings to interact and collaborate in real life. REFERENCES Buzi, J. & Wagner, A. (2010) Flash Mobs: A New Social Phenomenon Philadelphia N

REFERENCES (continue): Buzi, J. & Wagner, A. (2010) Flash Mobs: A New Social Phenomenon Philadelphia Neighbors. sct.temple.edu. Accessible from http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2010/03/30/flash-mobs-a-new-socialphenomenon/ (accessed on 11th April, 2011) Nicholson, J. A. (2005) 'Flash! Mobs in the Age of Mobile Connectivity' The Fibreculture Journal, Iss.6 December. Accessible from http://six.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-030-flash-mobs-in-the-age-of-mobile-connectivity/print/ (accessed on 11th April, 2011) Peterson, N. (2009) Flash Mobs - The New Political Dissent. Accessible from http://www.neilpeterson.com/index.php/2009/11/flash-mobs-the-new-political-dissent (accessed on 12th April, 2011) Rheingold, H. (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. New-York: Basic Books.

Clay Shirky is a guru of Internet technologies and online collaborative effort studies. This document, which contains two videos from his presentation at Harvard University, provides in-depth explanations on some chapters from his book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations (2008). This material is a very valuable reference on Flash Mob studies and more generally for online collaboration. Indeed, Shirky underlines how online collaborative tools are used by people to gather and coordinate without needing traditional organizational and social structures like institutions in our "real life" (Forte, 2010). The idea conveyed in both videos is that Internet, as a space of multi-level freedom, is an extension of the innate human ability to form groups, whatever the reasons. He adds that the orientation of these groups also depends on the political environment. He contextualizes the Flash Mob phenomenon in the age of digital communications and argues that Internet allows us to see the largest ever increase in our potential ability for expression. This expression turns into social interactions such as Flash Mobs. Furthermore, Shirky investigates new forms of political protest supported by Internet and hence, he uses it as a very efficient example to illustrate the shift from online to offline social coordination. He focuses on the role of emails and Flash Mobs as characteristics of political protests in the age of "easy and rapid group forming", which is a specificity of networks (Forte, 2010). REFERENCES Forte, M. (2010). "Clay Shirky: 15 Points on the Web Revolution in Social Collaboration and Political Communication", Political Activism and the Web. Accessible from http://webography.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/clay-shirky-15-points-on-the-web-revolution-in-social-collaboration-and-political-communication (accessed on 11th April, 2011) Shirky, C. (2008). Talks on "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Orga

REFERENCES (continue): Shirky, C. (2008). Talks on "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations". Accessible from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/berkmanat10/2008/02/shirky (accessed on 11th April 2011)