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 362

Of course, much work must be done to develop these first intuitions by applying
to Obama's political speech both Arendt's ( 1978 ) and Foucault's ( 2001 ) theories.
The results of this study, together with observations already discussed in a
previous paper (Leone 2013 ), suggest that the methodological choice to explore
in depth the multimodal communication of a speaker (Poggi 2007 ), paying close
attention to facial expressions (Ekman et al. 1984 ) and emotional regulation (Frijda
2013 ), may contribute useful insights into the issue. However, a sharper distinction
between parrhesiastic and personalizing uses of autobiographical memories must be
drawn, while continuing to analyze extracts from Obama's speeches with this same
mixed methodology. Persuasive effects of these two communicative strategies must
be explored as well, using chosen extracts of Obama's autobiographical memories
as experimental stimuli.
Finally, we think that audience reactions must be better explored, starting with
the particular feedback of applause (Bull 2006 ).
Taking into account all these limitations of our study, we hope nevertheless that
it may advance our understanding of one of the many facets of the political speech
of one of the finest political rhetoricians of our times.
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