Emotional Communication and the Construction in Interactive Rituals

. Human emotion is a meaningful form of symbolic communication in terms of its transmission. And it is the basic supporting force and creative force of mankind. Also, emotions need to be stimulated, interacted and shared. Through the stage of "interaction rituals", on the one hand, a new interactive emotional space of sincerity, equality and respect has been created; on the other hand, a new emotional culture has been displayed, spread and constructed, which has played an important role in shaping emotional civilization, promoting social unity and building public emotions.


Definition of "ritual" and "interactive ritual"
From a phenomenal point of view, ritual is a physical activity and behavior that would be generally accepted by people in a group and carried out according to certain established procedures.From the perspective of communication, ceremony itself is a full and outstanding cultural exchange behavior of human beings.Through the ceremony, people transmit emotions, exchange ideas, share values, promote unity, confirm order, strengthen identity, and promote integration.Since the birth of mankind, ritual, as a "collective art", is the most important and oldest form of communication.Because "our senses react to the world in a meaningful, skilled, creative, positive and shared way.This reaction is called 'collective art' (ritual)." While the term "interaction rituals" originated from the American sociologist Owen Goffman, and refers to a procedural activity that expresses meaning.He explored the interaction in people's daily life from a micro perspective, pointing out that not only religious rituals have the emotional energy, but also performance rituals in social activities.His concept of "interactive ritual" expanded the study of ritual from the scope of religious sociology to daily life.Then, Randall Collins inherited his ideas, systematically elaborated the elements and the operating mechanism of ritual, and put forward the theory of "interactive ritual chain".He took the phenomenon at the micro level as the research basis, and tried to analyze it in combination with the macro structure.He clearly pointed out the elements of the interactive ritual chain: "group gathering, exclusion of the barriers of outsiders, mutual focus, shared emotional state."These elements form a rhythmic feedback cycle, in which mutual attention and emotional connection would be regarded as the core mechanism.And the combination of the two can have symbols representing groups and give participants emotional energy.

Interaction rituals and "emotional awakening"
Modern psychology highlights that emotion is a 'purposeful' phenomenon.Therefore, it can be expressed as a cognitive state including beliefs, judgments, reasons and thoughts.Also, each emotion expresses the subject's special internal drive, instincts, needs, motivations, goals or expectations.And human beings are the most emotional animals on the earth.Almost every aspect of human cognition, behavior and social organization is driven by emotion.In interpersonal interaction, emotion is the power hidden behind the social commitment to others.Not only that, emotion is also the power that determines the formation of social structure".However, for emotion is secret, private and individual, it is not easy to detect, so it needs to be stimulated and awakened.
In Collins' view, the main purpose of interaction rituals is to awaken emotions, and the most basic reasons for emotional awakening are expectations and rewards and punishments.Expectation leads to need, a certain state of need is the fundamental force to motivate people to act.And this state of need can't help awakening emotions when shaping social culture.Everyone needs to be recognized and recognized by others when living in the society, which is the most powerful guarantee for forming oneself and getting ahead.
As an expert said, the social emotional energy generated in the ceremony is a feeling of confidence, courage to take action and boldness.It is a kind of energy with moral significance, while it makes everyone feel not only good, but also noble, and that what they do is the most important and valuable thing.In addition, it creates common emotions and symbols, forms a sense of membership and collective belonging associated with emotional symbols, and also provides a basis for social trust and social solidarity.

Initial period: creating interactive situation under the guidance of media
In the initial stage of the dynamic communication of mass emotions, the media, after acquiring information, will build a framework to produce and disseminate emotions.After being transmitted through the media, the initial conditions for the interaction rituals to occur are formed.What's more, the public realizes group focus (excluding outsiders), and forms focus on the same thing, then shares an emotional state, as well as creating a situation for emotional dynamic communication.Since then, the situation exists in each link of dynamic communication, forming a strong and weak effect on the majority of the public and the minority of the public (opinion leaders).
In the initial stage of mass emotional communication, the media laid the foundation for the occurrence of interactive rituals, and played a guiding role in the situational atmosphere and emotional trend.Because of that, the media should properly understand the link of intervention, then transform into the role of social service provider on the basis of listening to the public opinion, and gently ease the public's emotional confusion.In terms of behavior, it is necessary to build a public discourse platform, and relieve public anger with appropriate expression, so that rational public discussion can become an effective means of emotional self purification.In the end, we would guide the public to achieve emotional return with an attitude, temperature and rational framework of reporting.

Climax period: "superposition effect" under the action of situation
At the climax of emotional dynamic transmission, two transmission paths are carried out simultaneously.And one path is hosted by a minor number of people (opinion leaders), who would be release their views through the platform, quickly attract the public, and then host the interaction rituals.While the other path is that the situation strongly affects the majority of the public.Under the interweaving effect of the media, cognition, keynote emotion and state emotion, the majority of the public forms their views.Immediately, the views of opinion leaders and the views of the majority of the public completed an interaction rituals in the excitement, gathering emotional consensus, stimulating more consistent views, thus promoting the emergence of collective behavior.
In the process, the most noteworthy is the intertwined evolution process of the formation of the majority of public views, that is, the four elements of media, cognition, keynote emotion and state emotion evolve circularly in the situation, then stimulate each other, and constantly promote each other, forming a "superposition effect".The relationship between the four elements, which influence and shape each other, directly affects the formation of views and interactive participation in the climax stage.The "superposition effect" exists not only in specific events, but also in the long-term evolution of the dynamic communication of public emotions.Therefore, to grasp the emotional trend of the climax stage of the dynamic spread of public emotions, we need to improve the public cognition level to ensure the rationality of "existing cognition", and we need to be alert to the changes of "specific cognition" in public opinion emergencies.Furthermore, we should not only control the correct orientation of the "keynote emotion" as the social macro emotional atmosphere, but also ensure that the temporarily stimulated "state emotion" orderly category.

Feedback period: emotional consensus leads to collective action
In the feedback stage of emotional dynamic communication, after the collective excitement, the interaction rituals, on the one hand, strengthens the opinion of the opinion leader, so that the opinion leader can get emotional energy feedback, and starts a new round of interaction rituals.On the other hand, it has the effect of mobilizing and strengthening collective behavior, which makes the public feel that their behavior meets the requirements of social morality, thus opening the "emotional cycle" mode.In a sense, the emotional attitude and goal strategies presented by opinion leaders in the events will directly affect the public's emotional orientation and opinion judgment Finally, it determines the direction of collective action.Therefore, the continuous accumulation of social "keynote emotions", the authoritative guidance of opinion leaders and the instantaneous outbreak of collective emotions are often taken as prerequisites in the process of the final transformation of emotional consensus into collective action.First of all, the formation of emotional consensus to consensus requires the accumulation of social "keynote emotions" as a prerequisite and prerequisite, which is also the first stage of collective action.The accumulation of social "keynote emotion" is the most basic condition for the realization of emotional consensus.Emotional consensus is the emotional consensus tendency formed by the public in response to emergencies.It is a composite product of sensibility and rationality.However, no matter what complexity the public emotion presents in the interaction rituals, it is based on the accumulation of social "keynote emotion" as the basic condition of psychology.Any rational calculation is a tool based on the accumulation of social "keynote emotion", and the source of any large-scale collective action event is due to the continuous gathering of a certain "keynote emotion" in the space of public opinion.
Moreover, the instantaneous outbreak of collective emotions pushed the event to a climax, which became the fuse to induce the public to finally take collective action.In the final stage of the interaction rituals, the public emotions erupted collectively, which was mainly reflected in the collective emotional exaggeration, overflow, and even out of control.The members of the group have the same identity, consistent views, belief values, and strong emotional connections.Through sharing, they transform into long-term emotions -"emotional energy", which makes the minority (opinion leaders) promote events more and more intense in order to obtain high emotional energy.The root cause is that some emotions can trigger the outbreak of collective emotions, which is the product of the long-term accumulation of many social problems.Whenever public events touch the bottom line of public emotion, emotion is no longer a personal experience, but a product of social reality.Long term overstocked emotions will pour out on the surface of the event, and stressful state emotions will appear.Therefore, emotion is the energy to maintain and change social reality, which has an important effect on social structure and culture.Jonathan Turner, a sociologist of sense, pointed out that "in the most fundamental sense, a country is formed by the positive emotions that people point to social structure and culture.If there is a micro basis for social order and change, it is the emotion that people awaken from the interaction process nested in the middle and macro structure.Finally, there is no doubt that grasping the dynamic propagation law of mass emotion is to achieve emotional regression and build a new era of emotional literature.All social relations in real life are reflected in emotional phenomena, and the dynamic communication of public emotions is based on material life, social background and public activities.We must consider the variable of emotion in the specific historical conditions, and build it in the coordination and unity of social control mechanism and emotional empowerment.What the public really needs is a kind of quality and ability, which can help the public to screen information rationally and see things clearly.As the watchman of the society, the media should understand the intervention in the link and realize effective emotional communication and rational reporting on the basis of actively listening to public opinion of the bottom.In terms of occupancy, we should change the condescending elitism attitude, return to the role of serving the society, and gently ease the public's emotional confusion.In terms of behavior, it is necessary to build a public discourse platform, and assuage public anger and dissatisfaction with appropriate expression, so that rational public discussion can become an effective means of emotional self purification.Finally, with the guidance of attitude, temperature and rational wisdom, we will fully ensure that the emotional civilization will step to a new level in the interaction rituals.