Emotional Governance
This lucid and original work argues for a new style of political leadership, one which pays deliberate and sophisticated attention to the emotional dynamics of the public. In exploring this basic idea of 'emotional governance', Barry Richards also examines the often unhelpful contributions of the news media to the 'emotional public sphere'. A case study of terrorism, as a highly emotional topic and as a key political issue in many liberal democracies, grounds the book's ideas in today's...
Search in google:
This lucid and original work argues for a new style of political leadership, one which pays deliberate and sophisticated attention to the emotional dynamics of the public.
Preface and Acknowledgements viiiIntroduction: The Case for Emotional Governance 1The three levels of emotional regulation 1Emotional governance 4The problem with psychology 7Preview 10A Democracy of Feelings 19Shaping the Public Mind 21Shapers and movers 21The psychosocial matrix 24The age of suspicion 25The reality of the group mind 25The Rise of Therapeutic Culture 30Audiences want affect 30The nature of the therapeutic 33The damaged princess 35Authentic expression or fake sentiment? 40Global Passions 43Charisma and its alternatives 43Boring: the problem of dis-passionate politics 44The inrushing world 48Parliaments of feeling 52The Bias Against Hope 55Journalism as Emotional Labour 57The emotional public sphere 57News consumption and anxiety management 58Containment and the media 61Emotional work in newsproduction 64Keeping calm about terror 66Rottweilers Savage Democracy 72The national conversation 72The damage 73Cultures of attack 78Any passion is better than none? 79Challenging the Media Bias 83Emotional agendas in journalism 83Web space 85The three literacies 87Journalism and the regulation of public feeling 88The Search for Connection 91Politics as Emotional Labour 93Hoping for something 93Politics and popularity 94The leader as person 96Reparation 99Authenticity on stage 101The wrong hands on the levers of power? 104Poor Emotional Governance 107The anti-smirking campaign and other failures 107Terror and impoverished thought 113Terror in the Public Mind 121The Four Factors of Fear 123The political importance of the fear of terrorism 123Historical context: war without end? 128What makes us anxious? 130Some conclusions 135Terrorism and the Emotional Public 137Why and how to conduct an emotional audit 137Polls and passions 138Are terrorists on another planet? 149From Emotional Audit to Communication Strategy 156The binary media discourse of terror 56Public-media interactions 162Improving emotional governance around terror 164Repairing Leadership 169Market Failures 171The language of political marketing 171Political marketing and a political psychology of emotions 172Marketing and the crisis of leadership 176Fear, security and the limits of political marketing 180Deferring to Reality 183Emotional education 183Fantasies of renewal 184Leadership and reality 188Notes 195References 205Author Index 215Subject and Name Index 218
