The emotions industry

This book deals with the multi-cultural phenomenon of the emotions industry, as well as the cynical manner in which that industry exploits its consumers in various cultures. The book was written in order to illuminate the fact that the culture industry has developed a "new" configuration dominated by the production and distribution of emotions - the emotions industry. The emotions industry is an industry that provides an incentive to exaggerate emotions in order to accumulate social, cultural or economic wealth. It endeavors to create emotional needs by connecting between the realization of these needs and consumer culture; by blurring the boundaries between authentic and simulated emotions, between real and imagined authenticity; by encouraging the externalization of inner worlds for financial gain, generating income or any other result; by revealing emotional worlds that gradually become merchandise, an effective and productive means of promoting economic, political, social or cultural processes. Obviously this is only possible on the condition that we are capable of controlling emotional processes, responding or delaying reactions, opening up and including or closing up and excluding our surroundings. This ability to regulate emotions lies at the foundation of the emotions industry, which shapes the interaction between emotion, cognition and behavior, commercial-economic and private interests, social-cultural and spiritual needs. Thus emotional regulation is transformed into a production line of emotional expectations and reactions, which specializes in creating emotional products and marketing them to the public in the framework of mass consumer culture. Media's attempts to create and distribute emotional content blur the distinction between "original" and "reproduction", between "truth" and "pseudo-authenticity," by activating a broad spectrum of emotional vibrations in the audience. These are ultimately directed towards maintaining an emotional market, exchanging emotional currency for material products or services. The result is active, immediate, and vigorous emotional trading that is taking place on our television, computer, and cell phone screens. Thus individuals are being emotionally stimulated by unceasing, around-the-clock reports of emotional experiences, and in many cases broadcast live before they have been processed or passed through any type of filter. Emotions such as love, hate, courage, fear, pain, pleasure, sadness, pride and shame are no longer a person's private business, or that of close friends and family, but have become a subject for discussion in other people's offices, workrooms, living rooms and bedrooms. Furthermore, since in the emotions industry traditional and new media create, maintain and promote emotional trading, individuals have learned to capitalize on and translate their emotional worlds into current financial values. Clearly a process of capitalizing on emotions demands emotional intelligence, carefully monitored emotions and the deliberate use of emotional information for the purpose of directing behavior. However, this is a procedure that deviates from the familiar use of emotions for the purpose of social influence. Thus, as a result of a gradual increase in intensive emotional disclosures and intimate confessions, it seems that we are all involved in seeking the rewards to be gained in including others in our intimate worlds.