I'd be interested to hear any criticisms from Libcommers of the work of the University of Sussex's Crowds and Identities: John Drury's Research Group
Here's their intro:
The crowd is at the centre of social life: national and international events, social change and civic celebration, major incidents and everyday life – all involve experiences with crowds. In the past, social scientists claimed that the crowd was a source of social ills and social dysfunction. In a number of disciplines and topic areas, crowd researchers have moved away from this narrow, unidirectional view. Our research is a series of interlinked studies which seeks to provide a theoretical framing for our multiple experiences of crowd events.
Useful? Or just a bunch of narks?