Alexey Shaburov: "The format of the rally with the stage and the list of speakers that make speeches is obsolete"

“Since yesterday I have been thinking about rallies. The form and content of rallies in the Internet era should change in theory,” writes a journalist from Yekaterinburg on his Facebook page.

"If earlier the rally was a way to voiced and convey its point of view to the masses, throw some slogans, inspire a crowd of people, now rallies are not needed for this. Why make a speech to 10 thousand people, if the same speech can be addressed to millions?

Why draw banners on paper if the picture can be made on a computer and will see it much more than people?

That is, the format of a rally with a stage, with a list of speakers that make speech, is obsolete. But this does not mean that rallies as a form of political action become obsolete. Not at all! Just their purpose is deprived of a semantic load, and the physical part comes to the fore.

A rally is not a way of communication with the masses, but a place to collect mass for one or another reason. The very reason and the number of people who came is important. It is also important how far they are ready to go. The totality of this information (reason, number, degree of radicality) is the message that sends a rally. And not a resolution and not a speech of speakers at all.

The mass action always contains an element of violence - real or potential. By and large, only this is important in it. As the whole semantic and communication component goes on the Internet, this potential or real violence will come to the fore. "