Charm: How magnetic personalities shape politics Julia Sonnevend
Event details
Politics is a site of performance, and contemporary politicians often perform the role of a regular person - perhaps someone we would like to have a beer with. They win elections not because of the elevated rhetorical performances we often associate with charisma (‘ask not what your country can do for you’), but because of something more ordinary and relatable.
The everyday magic spell that politicians cast using mass and social media is what sociologist Julia Sonnevend calls ‘charm’. Julia, author of Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics, will explore charm (and the related ‘charm offensive’) as a keyword of contemporary global politics. Successful political leaders deploy this form of personal magnetism - which relies on proximity to political tribes and manifests across a variety of media platforms - to appear authentic and accessible in their quest for power.
Join Julia as she examines the mediated self-representations of a set of liberal, illiberal, and authoritarian political leaders, past and present from New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Discover how charm (or the lack of it) is wielded as a political tool, and the ways charm is weaponised to shape the international image of a country, potentially influencing decisions about military aid, trade, and even tourism.
Learn how charm will shape the future of democracy worldwide, as political values will be increasingly embodied by mediated personalities. These figures will rise and fall, often fading into irrelevance; but if we do not understand charm’s political power, we cannot grasp today’s fragile political moment.
This event will take place live on Zoom Webinar. You will receive a link to join a couple of days before the event and a reminder an hour before. During the event, you can ask questions via a Q&A function, but audience cameras and microphones will remain muted throughout.
Book sales
You can buy copies of many of our speakers’ books from Fox Lane Books, a local independent bookseller and Festival partner. In some cases, author signed bookplates are available too.
About the speaker
Julia Sonnevend is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at The New School for Social Research in New York, US. She is a sociologist of global culture, focusing on the events, icons, symbols and charismatic personalities of public life. She is the author of Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics (Princeton University Press), Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event (Oxford University Press), and co-editor of Education and Social Media: Toward a Digital Future (MIT Press).
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