 Your Scribd membership has expired.

Click here to renew it

    

Social interactions can produce and circulate emotions in various ways, depend-  individuals, expand the reach of political speech to dispersed audiences, and 
ing on the case under consideration: these may be organized social practices with  heighten the sensitivity of elites to popular emotion. More than simply human re- 
formal standards of competence, such as a legal trial, but they may also be more  sponses, circulations of affect are often induced, enhanced, and altered by tech- 
episodic social phenomena, such as media events or political demonstrations.  nology. 
What these interactions share is not a formal structure but three looser attributes:  Combining local interactions with extralocal processes of reproduction, the book 
coparticipation, a focus of attention on a common object or activity, and concen-  follows transmissions of affect across conventional levels of analysis. In the former 
trations of public communication. In the case of Yugoslavia, I focus on protests, Yugoslavia, political protests and other crowd activities generated popular emo- 
speeches, and commemoration rituals, paying specific attention to Miloševič’s  tions in specific locations, but these reverberated throughout the republic with the 
“meetings of truth” in 1988 and a series of reburial rituals in 1990 and 1991. In the help of televised news broadcasts. In Rwanda, emotions elicited during political 
Rwandan case, I examine especially political speeches and radio broadcasts, which  speeches and everyday social gatherings were echoed and intensified by a “drum- 
involve engagement between speaker and audience but also among audience beat” of radio broadcasting in the months before and during the mass killings. In 
members. In both cases, UN tribunals, local courts, and commemorative rituals  the wake of 9/11, covert practices of racial profiling and local hate crimes were 
served as dramaturgical spectacles that shifted popular reactions to atrocities of  made nationally visible by digital communications and cable news coverage. Each 
the past. Amid American responses to September 11, less visible forms of social case involves communications technologies capable of delivering social inter- 

 
interaction—racial profiling and hate crimes—became crucial to public internal-  actions to various scales of activity: local interactions can expand to the national or 
ization of the new terrorist enemy. At different scales and through diverse modes  global level, and national and global developments can trigger reactions at the local 
of communication, these interactions create, augment, or alter affective circu-  level. In different ways and through different channels, each case demonstrates the 
lations in politically significant ways.  special capacity for emotions to sustain a range of multiscalar interactions. 
My case studies highlight the material context behind the global politics of af-  Resisting the idea that elites are somehow immune to affect, the book examines 
fect, including the importance of communications technologies in facilitating ex-  the interplay between the emotional interactions of ordinary people and those 
changes of emotion. A common assumption in some sociological studies is that  populated by political and cultural elites. State officials and decisionmakers are in- 
emotions are displayed and/or transmitted in face-to-face interactions such as so-  volved across these cases, as illustrated by the flurry of diplomacy in the wake of 
cial dyads, small gatherings, or crowds. The deeper penetration of modern tech-  9/11, and by the mobilization efforts of nationalist elites in the Balkans and the 
nologies into everyday life is in many cases rendering these assumptions obsolete.  Great Lakes Region of Africa. My account assumes these actors are inspired, 
In global politics, emotionally significant social interactions are increasingly involv-  shaped, and legitimized by social displays and exchanges of emotion; political 
ing dispersed participants connected through communications technologies such  elites apply their expertise to problems laden with emotional significance. Elite 
as radio, television, cell phones, electronic mail, social networking—and often  communications are received by multiple audiences sensitive to the narratives, 
many of these together. Few Americans were directly exposed to the 9/11 attacks,  symbols, and tones they employ. In situations where elites are themselves partic- 
and yet most had continual access to the barrage of images, symbols, and memo-  ipants in emotion-inducing social interactions, a strict separation between elite and 
ries circulated in a frenzy of national media coverage. In each case, I find evidence  mass obscures reciprocal sensitivities. Satellite television, blogging, social net- 
Enjoying this preview?
that communications Resumeintensify
technologies membership to read theoffull
the communication title.
affect across  working, and other communications technologies have made these political 
Need help?
Resume Membership


10 pages (13 min) le in this chapter  PAGE 18 OF 378  5% read