A Theory of Resonance

Abstract

The metaphor of resonance often describes the fit between a message and an audience’s worldviews. Yet scholars have largely ignored the cognitive processes audiences use to interpret messages and interactions that determine why certain messages and other cultural objects appeal to some but not others. Drawing on pragmatism, we argue that resonance occurs as cultural objects help people puzzle through practical challenges they face or construct. We discuss how cognitive distance and the process of emotional reasoning shape the likelihood of cultural resonance. We argue resonance is an emergent process structured by interactions between individuals that shape each other’s interpretation of cultural objects, diffuse objects through interactional circuits, and create opportunities for resonance among people facing similarly shaped problems. Our approach thus identifies new processes at micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis that shape resonance and describes the pathways that might allow resonance to crystallize into broader mobilization and social change.

Ethno‐nationalist populism and the mobilization of collective resentment

“…With respect to the former, if we assume relative stability in the supply of populist, ethno-nationalist and authoritarian discourse and the proximate attitudes that fuel such politics, then changes in the success of radical politics must be accounted for by structural factors. Such an explanation would be consistent with the pragmatist model of cultural resonance, which emphasizes situational context and the recursive relationship between cultural objects and the beliefs of target audiences (McDonnell et al 2017). Given what we know from qualitative research about the lived experience of radical-right supporters (e.g., Cramer 2016;Gest 2016;Hochschild 2016;Lamont 2002;Vance 2016), it is plausible that the increased resonance of populist, ethno-nationalist and authoritarian claims is the result of anxieties and grievances stemming from a combination of structural forces and exogenous shocks, which have been skilfully channelled by political and media elites into fear and resentment toward elites, as well as ethnic, racial and religious out-groups.…”

“…These shortcomings have recently motivated new work on resonance, which seeks to theorize the phenomenon in a more dynamic and practice-oriented manner. In particular, McDonnell, Bail and Tavory (2017) argue that resonance is not a matter of simple congruence between message and audience, but also requires the appropriate context, within which the frames in question are perceived as solving a relevant problem. Indeed, what is judged to be a relevant problem in the first place is itself also a function of shifting structural conditions.…”

“…Such contextual effects are particularly powerful when they activate people's emotions, including fear and anxiety, making them more likely to 'find solutions that justify their feelings' (2017: 6). The pragmatist correction to framing theory offered by McDonnell et al (2017) is aimed primarily at the micro level of everyday situations, but if we assume that such situations are shaped by broader social, political and economic conditions and that the resulting micro-episodes of resonance concatenate into broader cultural and political trends, then it becomes possible to adapt this theory to phenomena such as the rise of radicalright politics in the United States and Europe.…”

From ‘having’ to ‘being’: self‐worth and the current crisis of American society

“…Those who are most supportive of choice are liberals, Democrats, people who attend church less often, and people aged 18 to 29, women, etc. Thus, although symbolic boundaries toward LGBTQ have weakened, this trend varies in intensity across segments of the population (McCarthy ).…”

For a ‘sociology as a team sport’

“…Kuipers broadens this vision in several directions. She suggests we should also draw on insights from psychologists of emotion, neuropsychologists and cultural sociologists to understand how identification, empathy and cultural resonance work (e.g., McDonnell, Bail and Tavory ); that understanding diffusion requires combining contributions from the ‘sociology of religion, from anthropology to science studies, from advertising to media studies and media psychology, from management to global studies, from education to politics to social movements studies’; and that democratic theory and political communication could help us comprehend the formation of the public domain, including the role played by rituals in forging communities and connecting people with a joint imaginary – essential to bringing emotions back and, ‘“charge” cultural narratives with positive or negative affect making them more salient and thus stronger’. As she puts it: ‘dreams require institutions to spread their stories, economic structures to reward virtue, rituals to reaffirm moral boundaries’ (: 713).…”