From Personalization to Parrhesia: A Multimodal Analysis of Autobiographical Recalls in Barack Obama’s Political Speech - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 361

claimed by self-aware pariahs , connected to their birth enables them to contribute
in an original and creative way to a political agenda since they are - more than
conventional individuals - forced to recognize the importance of their natality, i.e.,
of the influence of their ancestors in their current social life. The second theory,
proposed by Michel Foucault ( 2001 ), focuses on the risky choice of telling the
truth that makes parrhesia a very specific kind of “communicative game.” Although
this way of speaking may cause aggressive reactions from its recipients, since it
reveals a truth that is hard to deal with, it may also be the most effective tool for
enabling them to cope with their difficulties, which are presented much more as
challenges than as defeats. If we consider not only the words pronounced by Barack
Obama during the autobiographical recalls we observed but also the other modalities
of his communication (Poggi 2007 ), as well as his regulation of his emotional
expressions (Frijda 2013 ), made evident by an examination of his face, body, and
voice, both Arendt's and Foucault's theories seem particularly suited to account for
several features of these communicative acts. Much more than the general theory of
personalization (McAllister 2007 ), in fact, these theories may explain why narrating
humiliations and shortcomings of his ancestors and showing how at times it may
be hard for him to regulate his negative emotional signals when reenacting these
difficult memories, may ultimately become an opportunity to turn these events into
a magnification of Obama's public image and account for his self-determination to
communicate frankly and fearlessly with his audience. This in turn allows him to
go beyond the natural inclination to escape from the discomfort (Frijda 2013 )he
must publicly experience when playing his parrhesiastic game (Foucault 2001 )on
the basis of his autobiographical memories during political speeches (Leone 2013 ).
To conclude this first analysis of parrhesia in the political speeches of Barack
Obama, inspired by these two theories, we would like to propose the idea that
Obama's leadership may benefit from his parrhesia. It empowers both him, through
his “strange” autobiography, and, at the same time, audiences, who may need to
cope with their own difficulties using this same attitude of fearless frankness. Our
results suggest, in fact, that these autobiographical memories conveyed parrhesiastic
narratives about the social origins of Obama as a pariah. Together with these risky
rhetorical moves, emotional expressions (mainly negative) were clearly evident
yet well regulated - his emotional expressions served to convey his sincerity, and
his emotional regulation demonstrated his self-determination and self-maintenance
(Frijda 2013 ).
Summing up, this first explorative analysis suggests that Obama sometimes
assumes a parrhesiastic attitude - making clear to all his listeners his socially
disadvantaged origins - in order to persuade his audience to accept a similar parrhe-
siastic game for communicating about difficult aspects of their political situation.
Being an offspring of a despised social group, he may urge his audience to choose
self-affirmative and empowering actions rather than indulging in irresponsibility.
Communicating his pariah origins in a frank way, he may offer to his audience
an occasion to observe how emotions may be regulated, controlling both the
inclinations to escape from discomfort and to exaggerate it.