Governing through affect

emotions and symbolic power in the corporate discourse of Exame magazine

Abstract

This article examines the emergence of emotions in the Brazilia corporate world, using as its empirical corpus 148 issues of Revista Exame (1990- 2007). Grounded in Pierre Bourdieu’s relational sociology and Norbert Elias’s configurational sociology, the study analyzes how emoticons, beyond subjectivity, are oriented as legitimate forms of distinction and symbolic consecration. Exame is approached as an instance of social consecration that, by prescribing desirable emotional styles such as empathy, self-control, and enthusiasm, institutes a “corporate emotional etiquette.” To this end, we employ content analysis with the MAXQDA software, constructing a dictionary of terms and coding the compiled material. The research shows that emotional management becomes a moral grammar that structures hierarchies in the business field.