Wild Applause: How the Twentieth Century Tamed the Audience.
In the last century in particular, applause has been tamed — abstracted by the technologies of mass media, and constricted by the etiquette of high culture. Learning how to clap appropriately is an essential part of being a good citizen, whether you are applauding the speech of a dictator, or not applauding between the movements of a classical performance.
But we rarely think about why we clap in the way that we do. Applause serves multiple purposes — it gives the crowd a voice of approval (or, in its absence, rejection), it gives artists a feedback loop that they can work with or against in their performance, and it gives those in power — whether cultural entrepreneurs or machiavellian politicians — a tool they can use to turn public opinion in their favour.
In order to tell the story of how applause has been tamed, we first have to notice how it works in our culture at the moment. Because we tend to think of applause as a natural response, the best way to notice it is by looking at what happens when applause goes wrong.