The Emotions Industry

$215.00

Mira Moshe, PhD (Editor)
Ariel University Center of Samaria Shoham, Israel

Series: Psychology of Emotions, Motivations and Actions
BISAC: PSY013000

This book deals with the multi-cultural phenomenon of the emotions industry, as well as the cynical manner in which that industry exploits its consumers in various cultures. The book was written in order to illuminate the fact that the culture industry has developed a “new” configuration dominated by the production and distribution of emotions – the emotions industry. The emotions industry is an industry that provides an incentive to exaggerate emotions in order to accumulate social, cultural or economic wealth. It endeavors to create emotional needs by connecting between the realization of these needs and consumer culture; by blurring the boundaries between authentic and simulated emotions, between real and imagined authenticity; by encouraging the externalization of inner worlds for financial gain, generating income or any other result; by revealing emotional worlds that gradually become merchandise, an effective and productive means of promoting economic, political, social or cultural processes.

Obviously this is only possible on the condition that we are capable of controlling emotional processes, responding or delaying reactions, opening up and including or closing up and excluding our surroundings. This ability to regulate emotions lies at the foundation of the emotions industry, which shapes the interaction between emotion, cognition and behavior, commercial-economic and private interests, social-cultural and spiritual needs. Thus emotional regulation is transformed into a production line of emotional expectations and reactions, which specializes in creating emotional products and marketing them to the public in the framework of mass consumer culture.

Media’s attempts to create and distribute emotional content blur the distinction between “original” and “reproduction”, between “truth” and “pseudo-authenticity,” by activating a broad spectrum of emotional vibrations in the audience. These are ultimately directed towards maintaining an emotional market, exchanging emotional currency for material products or services. The result is active, immediate, and vigorous emotional trading that is taking place on our television, computer, and cell phone screens. Thus individuals are being emotionally stimulated by unceasing, around-the-clock reports of emotional experiences, and in many cases broadcast live before they have been processed or passed through any type of filter. Emotions such as love, hate, courage, fear, pain, pleasure, sadness, pride and shame are no longer a person’s private business, or that of close friends and family, but have become a subject for discussion in other people’s offices, workrooms, living rooms and bedrooms.

Furthermore, since in the emotions industry traditional and new media create, maintain and promote emotional trading, individuals have learned to capitalize on and translate their emotional worlds into current financial values. Clearly a process of capitalizing on emotions demands emotional intelligence, carefully monitored emotions and the deliberate use of emotional information for the purpose of directing behavior. However, this is a procedure that deviates from the familiar use of emotions for the purpose of social influence. Thus, as a result of a gradual increase in intensive emotional disclosures and intimate confessions, it seems that we are all involved in seeking the rewards to be gained in including others in our intimate worlds. (Imprint: Nova)

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Profile of the Emotions Industry
Mira Moshe

Authors List

Biographical Note
Mira Moshe

Section I: The Emotions Industry — The Construction of a Romantic Production Line

Chapter 1 – Cellular Branding: The Search for Love via the Emotions Industry (pp. 3-24)
Mira Moshe (Ariel University, Israel)

Chapter 2 – Romance Tourism: The Ultimate Emotions Industry (pp. 25-42)
Julia Meszaros (Florida International University, FL, US)

Chapter 3 – What‘s the Fighting All About? A Comparison of Reasons for Romantic Conflicts on Television Programs and in the Real World (pp. 43-58)
Amir Hetsroni and Abira Reizer (Ariel University, Israel)

Section II: The Emotions Industry —From Production to Consumption of Emotional Content

Chapter 4 – The Journalism of Astonishment‖: Engaging the Audience Emotionally through Amateur Visuals (pp. 61-78)
Mervi Pantti (Department of Social Research, Media and Communication Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland)

Chapter 5 – The Emotions Industry in Italy: You‘ve Got Mail (pp. 79-92)
Mariolina Graziosi (University of Milan, Italy)

Chapter 6 – Eliciting ―Kosher Emotions‖ in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women‘s Film (pp. 93-114)
Matan Aharoni (Department of Communications, University of Haifa, Israel‏)

Section III: The Emotions Industry —Media Consumers’ Confrontation with Fear and Death

Chapter 7 – Flirting with Death: Writing As a Mode of Being-in-the-World on an On-Line Suicide Support Forum (pp. 117-134)
Shirly Bar-Lev (School of Engineering, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel)

Chapter 8 – I Was Really Scared‖: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Reconstructing Children‘s Fearful Viewing Experiences (pp. 135-156)
Dafna Lemish and Michal Alon-Tirosh (College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Southern Illinois University, IL, US and others)

Section IV: The Emotions Industry —The Politics of Emotions

Chapter 9 – Spectacles for Everyone: Emotions and Politics in Argentina, 2010-2013 (pp. 159-178)
Adrián Scribano and Mira Moshe (National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), Argentina and Ariel University, Israel)

Chapter 10 – The Emotions Industry in Online Romanian Politics: Selling Leadership and Trust during the 2012 Parliamentary Campaign (pp. 179-196)
Florenta Toader (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania)

Section V: The Emotions Industry — Fashion and Fashionable Self-Exposure

Chapter 11 – The Emotions Industry Celebrities and Self-Confession As a Marketing Strategy (pp. 199-218)
Mira Moshe (Ariel University, Israel)

Chapter 12 – The Emotions Industry: Emotions in Fame (pp. 219-232)
Samita Nandy (Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS), Canada)

Chapter 13 – Simmel‘s Theory of Fashion as a Hypothesis of Affective Capitalism (pp. 233-248)
Juhana Venäläinen (University of Eastern Finland, School of Humanities, Finland)

Index

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