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This chapter examines the role of multimodal rhetoric in processes of theorization. Empirically, we investigated the theorization process of a highly disruptive innovation in the history of architecture: reinforced concrete. Relying on archival data from a prominent French architectural journal in the period from 1885 to 1939, we studied the rhetorical modes at play in the theorization of reinforced concrete. First, we found that theorization entailed two recursive activities: dramatization and evaluation. While dramatization relies on both verbal and visual (i.e., multimodal) means, evaluation relies on verbal means. We integrated these components into a dynamic model of theorization that explains how visual discourse contributes to theorization beyond the effects of verbal discourse.

In the 1990s, scientists succeeded in demonstrating the highly positive effects of transformational and charismatic leadership on performance effectiveness, based on a large number of empirical findings. Bass (1985) predicted that this type of leadership would be related to “performance beyond expectations”. This has proved to be true to a very large extent. The so-called “new leadership approach “, however, has not yet succeeded in a close analysis of the interaction and influencing processes between charismatic leaders and their followers. This paper provides such an analysis. After pointing out the main problems with prior theoretical work, we offer an alternative model to help explain the emergence of charisma using social-cognitive and psycho-dynamic theories. Basically, we start from the premise that a focal person may be categorized as a charismatic leader on the basis of evaluative borderline attributes assigned to him or her, which are closely related to characteristics stigmatized by society. These attributes are exhibited consciously or unconsciously by the leader, either by means of social dramatization or by means of social reversion. We then propose a model of charismatic leadership relationships, which deal with both intra-personal and inter-personal feedback processes, based on recent theories of narcissistic behavior. Our overall intent is to help explain and clarify the processes between leadership behavior and the attribution of charisma.

Purpose: This chapter outlines a cultural critique of the Gangsta as an exemplary figure to investigate the performance of social media identity. The main goal of the chapter is to illustrate some of the implications that social media have on the contemporary dramatization of the criminal, here framed as a collective techno-cultural process at the threshold between social stigma and branding. Despite using the term “Gangsta,” the author’s intent is not to “fix” this figure as an identity or a class of people, but rather to identify a broad cultural context that emerges from a glocalized hip-hop imaginary, stemming from gangsta rap and evolving alongside trap and drill.

Methodology/approach: The contribution is not intended as an empirical sociological study, but a critical cultural exploration of convergent media that bring together a glocalized gang culture and everyday social media interactions. In the second section, the author outlines his theoretical framework by identifying a point of convergence between recent studies of Instagram celebrities and criminological takes on the selective nature of gang identity. The author also explores the relationship between the “dissing,” a cultural form that is very relevant to the more aggressive sub-genres of rap, and the practice of tagging, a key affordance of social media platforms. In so doing, the author frames social media tagging as a form of identity labeling.

Findings: In light of the theory previously outlined, the author explains how tagging is used alternately to enforce social stigma and engage in recursive branding. The final section examines the aforementioned forms of tagging more in detail, in relation to specific media ecologies of YouTube videos that feature compilations of Instagram Stories originally posted by emerging Italian rappers.

Research limitations: Although it is aimed at offering an interdisciplinary contribution, this chapter adopts an admittedly media-focused perspective. Rather than producing more evidence about the use of social media by gangs, the author comments on existing sociological insight in relation to the affordances and esthetics of social media ecologies, re-problematizing certain forms of online interaction.

Originality/value: By focusing on the commonplace practice of tagging in relation to the figure of the Gangsta, the author emphasizes how online labeling practices can be more fraught that they appear, emphasizing the need for further critical reflections on the stereotyping potential of social media branding practices.

After Papua New Guinea’s contact with the western world several western scholars turned their attention toward the indigenous population and showed a special interest in the cults that were formed afterward as well as the (following) conversions of almost all indigenous population to the Christian faith. While the majority of the literature focuses on this process either as an act of desperation or as one of calculation, this chapter focuses on the practices in the actual process of “becoming a Christian,” viewing them as expressions of self-change and thus offering a new perspective for understanding those changes. Drawing on and expanding interactionist ideas of dramatic self-change, this chapter identifies the practices used to portray that a change of identity has occurred. Data was gathered through the analysis of existing anthropological and ethnological work, which provides information about a broad range of tribes, yet is limited to the information provided by the respective researcher. The practices found are divided into practices which need not be secured, which demonstrate the acceptance of the new religion in a way that is usually not challenged (like public confessions, verbal denigration of the old tradition, integration into the new structure, adopting new symbols, and destroying the old) and practices that need to be secured, ones which might be regarded as odd (like dramatizing enlightenment) and thus need another way of accounting to secure them from being challenged.

Outlines the aims, purposes and contents of the various reference guides to the manuscripts, poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott, to the dramatizations of the novels, to contemporary and subsequent reviews and critiques of his literary work, and to bibliographical studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersection of professional values and career roles in accountants’ presentations of their professional identity, in the face of enduring stereotyping of the accounting role.

This study presents a qualitative investigation of accountants’ construction of their professional identities and imagery using a Goffmanian dramaturgical perspective. Viewing professional identity construction as a presentational matter of impression management, the investigation employs a reflexive photo-interviewing methodology.

Accountants use a variety of workplace dramatisation, idealisation and mystification strategies inside and outside the workplace to counter the traditional accounting stereotype. They also attempt to develop a professional identity that is a subset of their overall life values.

Their professional orientation is found to embrace role reconstruction and revised image mystification while not necessarily aiming for upward professional mobility. This has implications for understanding the career trajectories of contemporary accountants with associated implications for continuing professional development and education.

The paper focusses on professional role, identity, values and image at the individual accountant level, while most prior research has focussed upon these issues at the macro association-wide level. In offering the first use of reflexive photo-interviewing method in the accounting research literature, it brings the prospect of having elicited different and possibly more reflective observations, reflections and understandings from actors not otherwise possible from more conventional methods.

This study aims to follow the development of human intellectual capital indicators over a six‐year period and to bring forward the production, transmission and reception of indicators in order to interpret the ambitions and technological and programmatic properties that characterize the development of the indicators. The case builds around an organization that collects human resource data from various organizations and redistributes indicators for benchmarking purposes.

The paper is based on a case, complemented with a survey. The design of the study is labeled as a case story, since it does not emphasize the organization itself, but rather the empirical material is analyzed to illustrate the production, transmission and reception of human capital measurements. The study thus follows the evolution of indicators in an organization specializing in human intellectual capital indicators.

The main conclusion of the study is that indicators may legitimize, serve as a heuristic tool for learning or mobilize the organization. The paper also suggests that human intellectual capital indicators may be produced, transmitted and received differently in relation to their technological and programmatic logics.

The study suggests that there is a need to develop a theory of indicators.

By emphasizing that not all that gets measured gets managed the paper's classification makes it possible to understand how indicators may contribute to the organization in different ways.

This paper aims to compile an annotated list of films about or pertaining to the artist Andy Warhol.

Films were located using library catalogs, databases and online searches. Selections were evaluated through inspection and both academic and popular film reviews. Inclusion was predicated not only on subject matter and merit but also on availability either on home media or online.

Warhol’s many artistic creations can be introduced and evaluated using a combination of visual and auditory representation. Movies and television (TV) depicting Warhol through dramatization, primary source film, biographical documentary and his art in the context of other artists and movements are readily available through a variety of media.

The selected titles provide a comprehensive introduction to the scholarly analysis of Warhol’s art and work through a format that allows the most extensive representation of Warhol’s artistic output.

Purpose – Hybrid reality television, a burgeoning subgenre spawning from the reality television genre, distinguishes itself from its parent genre through dramatizations that have been described as presenting a “quasi-reality” that is disorientating for the viewer (Caramanica, 2010). In addition to blurring the lines between fact and fiction, hybrid reality programs blur the lines between product placement and entertainment as products are seamlessly blended into the depicted lifestyles. This research explores how consumers negotiate hybrid reality television programs and how this process transpires in viewers' reactions to the consumption portrayals within the programs.

Methodology/approach – Insights were sought from qualitative in-depth interviews with avid viewers of an archetype of the hybrid reality subgenre, the MTV program The Hills.

Findings – The findings reveal varying degrees of self-reflexive consciousness, reflecting viewers' critical awareness of the rhetoric of the program, the artifices of the hybrid reality genre, and their role as an audience. Self-reflexive consciousness facilitates a critical response toward the text in which viewers recognize the artifices of the genre and thus regard the program as “real” and “not real” and simultaneously worth and worthless viewing at the same time, in a textual strategy, we refer to as ironic (dis)engagement.

Originality/value of the chapter – On the basis of this body of data, a typology of viewer responses to hybrid reality programs emerges with corresponding consumption strategies as viewers negotiate the consumption portrayals within The Hills. These findings suggest that viewers embrace product placement within the subgenre and that the program has pioneered and opened up new horizons for lifestyle branding practices within television programming.

By mobilizing the empirical setting of a megaproject, this study problematizes public budgeting as participatory practice. The authors suggest that megaprojects are prone to democratic legitimacy challenges due to a long history of cost overruns, which provides stakeholders with a chance to dramatize a budgetary controversy.

Through article and document data, the authors reconstructed a controversy that emerged around the budget of Stockholm/Åre’s candidature for the Olympic Winter Games 2026. The authors used Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006) orders of worth to systematically analyze the justification work of key stakeholder groups involved in the controversy.

This study illustrates that a budgetary controversy was actively maintained by stakeholder groups, which resulted in a lack of public support and the eventual demise of the Olympic candidature. As such, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of public budgeting as a controversy-based process vis-à-vis a wider public with regard to the broken institution of megaprojects.

This study suggests more attention to the disruptive power of public scrutiny and the dramatization of budgeting in megaprojects. In this empirical case, the authors show how stakeholders tend to take their technical concerns too far in order to challenge a budget, even though megaprojects generally provide an ill-suited setting for accurate forecasts.

While studies around the financial legacies of megaprojects have somewhat matured, very few have looked at pitching them. However, the authors argue that megaprojects are increasingly faced with financial skepticism upon their approval upfront.