Influence of mass media on identity and language

Workplace Spirituality

Workplace Spirituality (WPS) has taken over corporations over the past two decades. It has been defined as follow:

WPS is an organizational phenomenon describing employees' spiritual or religious expressions and experiences in the workplace. (Dean et al, 2009)

Workers want to have a meaningful job, be part of a community. We can observe:

The emergence of an almost religious conception of business, exemplified by the appearance of words such as “mission,” “vision,” and “values” in the corporate lexicon. (Khurana, 2002)

 Managers have become motivational speakers, and could almost be compared to preachers. As a consequence, “the corporation wholly substitutes for family and community life” (Nadeson, 1999). Furthermore, the “governing of the soul” has given employees the illusion of autonomy and independence. (McKinlay and Taylor, 1998).

The charismatic leader and the importance of storytelling

In today's connected world, information is constantly overflowing through 24-hour channels and social media. As a result, image and communication have become essential and CEOs of big corporations are somewhat forced to frequently communicate whether it is on television, press or social medias. Steve Jobs, Richard Brandson, Mark Zuckerberg have now become part of the American “pop culture”.

As a result, the charismatic authority has become increasingly important, more so than the legal or traditional authority defined by Max Weber (1922). Thus, the charismatic authority has taken over all spheres of society: business, politics, sports, etc. CEOs have become much more than managers: they are also life coaches and motivational speakers. For instance, Gary Vaynerchuk, the CEO of the digital marketing agency Vaynermedia has posted several motivational videos online that have gone viral, such as “The Straightest Road to Success” or “Six minutes for the next 60 years of your life”.

Hence, the art of storytelling is key, especially in the business world. As long as the rhetoric is incisive and convincing, the content of the speech does not have to be meaningful. Therefore, “wooden language” has become the language of power (Gilbert and Gillot, 1993).

As Bourdieu (1982) puts it: “when my doing consists in my saying, what I do is necessarily what I say”.