Concept of Sociology of Emotions Case Study

Abstract

Emotional language is one of the most powerful ways of communication in social media (Persson, 2017, p.1). There is a clear correlation between people's status or current emotions and their posts or tweets in social media. According to the sociology of emotions theory, there is a clear correlation between people's status or current emotions and their posts or tweets in social media. The sociology of change concept utilizes theories that try to explain people's emotions depending on the events that happen in their lives. These theories are the affect control theory, the Kemper theory and the Hochschild Theory. To analyze the relationship between people's status or current emotions and their posts or tweets in social media, tweets in response to a recent event were taken and studied. These tweets were in response to the death of a popular musician. Subjecting the tweets to the concept of sociology of emotions helped to give an explanation of the sample tweets. It was found out that there is a link between people's tweets and their social roles, norms and emotions. The status of the person in the society also influenced the manner in which they twitted. The concept of sociology of emotions was successfully applied in this case study.

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Sociology of emotions

Definition

This concept is used to refer to a number of theories that try to explain the link that exists between social roles, norms and emotions. The theories that have to some extend given an explanation this relationship is the affect control theory, the Kemper theory and the Hochschild Theory (Thoits,1989, p.321). A brief explanation for each of these theories is given below.

Kemper theory

This theory was formulated by David Kemper. It points out that emotions are simply the result of the variation of interpersonal occurrences about a person's status or class in the society. To illustrate this, we can take an example of person X who is a female friend to person B but do not have any relationship other than friendship. It happens that person B suddenly gets elected after an election and becomes a governor of a state. Following person B's rise to power and status, person X begins getting sexually attracted to person X. aPerson B's rise to power triggers this type of attraction. The difference in emotions occurs in a person occur continuously due to changes in their status.

Affect control theory

This was put forward by David R. Heise. This theory defines emotions as being in transient and objective states that vary depending on a person's current present impression or a current emotion-generating event. Therefore, emotions form observable signals of the current state of events a person is being faced by and also are a "visceral signal" to oneself. An impression controlling system precedes the manifestation of an emotion.

Hochschild theory

Arlie Hochschild first advanced the theory. It states that the generation of shows and language or displays that are regarded as being acceptable by the society influence how a person manages their emotions. One's cultural standards will affect how they express and regulates their emotions. The societal ideologies have a direct influence on how people portray their emotions. For example, air hostesses will tend to wear fake smiles and show false affections to the passengers since they are expected to do so.

A brief Introduction of data used for the case study

A case study to determine how the concept of sociology of change influences social media communications was conducted. The social platform used to carry out this case study was Twitter. Samples of various tweets were collected from Twitter.These were in reaction to a common event.These tweets are shown below.

Tweet 1

This is a sad tweet by one famous music star. The words are devastating and God bless you Tim X is motivated by the sad news about the death of the legendary singer Avicii. This is a music star with millions of followers on Twitter and has an elevated position of influence.

The following tweets are a response to the tweet by Calvin Harris.

These are lyrics from some of Avicii's songs.They portray the sad emotions of @LiquidSinister brought about by the sudden news of the death of Avicii.This reply is laden with sad emotions that have been warranted by the situation at hand, that is the dead of Avicii.

Tweet 3

This is a tweet by a user @5sosschnitzelAT.The tweet, accompanied by surprise words such as Wtf; Holy shit is a triggered by the dead of Avicii. The death of Avicii in this instant is the current emotion-generating event. This user is surprised and sad. He portrays disbelieve.

Analysis of the tweets above.

Calvin Harris is a famous and popular music fan. He is one of the first people to have tweeted about the death of Avicii. This was expected of him, as a widely accepted societal expectation and ideology is that music stars should always express support for one another, even in times of need.The tweet can be described by the effect control theory which has it that emotions are transient and objective depending on a person's current present impression or an existing emotion-generating event (Zappavigna, 2014, p.141). The tweet by Calvin Harris can also be explained using the Kemper theory. Calvin Harris is a popular music star with considerable influence and elevated social status. Therefore, he tweeted in response to Avicii's dead as was expected of him as a popular musician. The second tweet by @LiquidSinister is a response to Harris tweet. It is laden with sad emotion and allusion to death. The tweet shows the how @LiquidSinister is feeling about Avicii's death: very sad. The third tweet above is by a user who goes by the username @5sosschnitzelAT.This tweet too is laden with surprise and vulgar cursing. The choice of language in the tweet betrays the emotions of @5sosschnitzelAT at this juncture. He is possibly very surprised by the sad news tweeted by Harris.

Conclusion

The concept of sociology of emotions explains the link between social norms, events, and emotions. The tweets analyzed above are all reactions to the death of a popular musician, DJ Avicii. The effect control theory states that people show their emotions depending on their current encounters and experiences. Most of Avicii's fans took to Twitter to show their feeling of loss after the singer died. The tweet by Calvin Harris can be explained both by the Hochschild theory and the effect control theory. In short, people's tweets on social media portray their emotions and depend on their status in the society or their current experiences.

References

Persson, G., 2017. Love, Affiliation, and Emotional Recognition in# kampamalmo:-The Social Role of Emotional Language in Twitter Discourse. Social Media+ Society, 3(1), p.2056305117696522

Zappavigna, M., 2014. Coffeetweets: Bonding around the bean on Twitter. In The Language of Social Media (pp. 139-160). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Thoits, P.A., 1989. The sociology of emotions. Annual review of sociology, 15(1), pp.317-342.