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Abstract

This article aims to question the spin doctor’s representations on television series. If it is easy to recognize on television series medical professionals because of their white coat and their diverse accessories for example, how can we distinguish a spin doctor who looks like an advisor like any other? Based on the analysis of four French television series (Baron Noir, Les Hommes de l’ombre, Hénaut Président, and Ainsi soient-ils), this article makes the hypothesis that the ethos of the shadow counselor’s fictional avatar can be measured against the notion of figurative idiom. The aim is to reveal the visual language, the codes, the frameworks, and the behaviors that organize and structure the way this occupation is semiotized. And then, by focusing on the social drama of work and particularly on the asymmetric roles, we will present an expert performing emotional labor on his “client.”

Keywords

Communications advisor depiction ethos spin doctor TV series

Introduction

On December 1, 2016, when the President of the French Republic, François Hollande, has just announced that he will not stand for re-election, the public television channel France 2 broadcasts the President’s communications advisor, Gaspard Gantzer, speaking with (some would say “briefing”) journalists, live on the 8 o’clock news. Very quickly, his entourage becomes aware of this and demonstrates hostility toward these images, which end in a moment of hesitation. The clip did not go unnoticed and was happily relayed by the media and social media. The message seems to be, the communications expert pulls the strings behind the scenes and does not want to be exposed to the public. However, we know that some of them, since the 1980s, have been on television to present their candidate, defend their arguments (Georgakakis, 1995). If he (she)¹ does not aspire to be in front of the cameras of the “real” world, he finds himself in front of the cameras of fiction such as in The West Wing (NBC, 1999–2006), House of Cards (Netflix, 2013–2018), The Thick of It (BBC, 2005–2012), or Borgen (DR1, 2010–2012), to name only the most well-known international series. These series, and many others, feature politicians and their communications advisors (Bailey, 2011; Randall, 2011; Richardson, 2006; Van Zoonen, 2003) through a rather subversive image of this social world, and thereby question our contemporary societies in terms of the crisis of democracy. Research does not specifically focus on the representation of the spin doctor in the media, but rather focuses on the mediatization of political life and its actors through some TV series. Like Liesbet Van Zoonen (2005), Nick Randall’s (2011) concept of “vernacular theory” shows that the functioning of the British political system (and politics) is theorized through political fictions, which thus enables citizens to better understand it, “not only for its worth as a contemporary record of attitudes and assumptions [. . .] but also its ability to reveal and consider aspects of political activity” (Bailey, 2011, p. 281).

In this field of the fictionalization of politics, this work focuses on spin doctors in line with the study conducted by Kay Richardson (2006) on the series The West Wing and the studies conducted on other occupational groups such as police officers (Chong & Arrigo, 2006), nurses (Bridges, 1990), lawyers and attorneys (Villez, 2009; Pfau et al., 1995), accountants (Friedman & Lyne, 2001), psychiatrists (Clara, 1995; Gabbard & Gabbard, 1999), oenologists and winegrowers (Verdier & Cailloux, 2019, 2022), or Catholic priests (Verdier, 2016a). In this regard, Stephen Coleman (2008) demonstrates that

the representation of groups by the media, both in news reports and fictional depictions, has major consequences for the way in which they are perceived by people in the real world. Indeed, for many people, the mediated image is as close as they are likely to get to knowing what a certain group of people is like; the representation constitutes their reality. (p. 199)

These experts in communication, known as spin doctors, can be political communications advisors, electoral campaign managers, press agents, public relations officers, and so on. Due to its diffuse nature, this occupational group² is relatively hard to define because the trade (and thus the name) is so adapted to the clients, locations, and working conditions, be it with a presidential candidate, a statesman (stateswoman), or even with the chief executive officer of an organization, and so on. With the proliferation of communications tools (multiplication of television channels, press, and especially social networks), they have established themselves to play a central and strategic role in politics today.

“The term ‘spin doctor’ has sinister connotations, as a manipulator, conspirator, propagandist, even a malign and evil force at the heart of body politic” (Esser et al., 2000, p. 213).

Controversial due to the “guilty knowledge” (Hughes, 1962) it harbors, the profession has been widely described in numerous works (Georgakakis, 1995; Kuhn, 2002; Legavre, 2005 among many others). This article will set aside the social representation of the “real” spin doctor to focus only on his fictional counterpart. How is the spin doctor signified and semiotized in fictions? What are the typical forms bearing a metonymic value that clearly identify this profession rather than another? What are the visual and cultural codes that distinguish him from other professionals? Which “presentation of self” is favored to represent this occupational group? Based on the analysis of four French TV series (Baron Noir (BN), Les Hommes de l’ombre (HDO), Hénaut Président (HP), and Ainsi soient-ils (ASI)), the aim here is to analyze the fictional avatar of the spin doctor to characterize the visual, discursive, and, above all, cultural attributes that make it possible identify him.

After having presented the theoretical framework, the methodology, and the material used in this work, we will outline some elements that constitute the figurative idiom (Gadéa, 2015) of the spin doctor. If this expert is driven by the art of handling both image and discourse, his communicational logic is strongly correlated to a marketing logic (hybridization with advertising). Finally, we will focus on the analysis of this social drama of work (Hughes, 1976), which suggests that this expert’s activity is singular in terms of managing emotions and of emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983). Expressive forms of emotion appear to be valuable aids to analysis and particularly symptomatic of this position and, as Amy S. Wharton (2009) indicates, “the concept of emotional labor has led researchers to examine how workers manage and subjectively experience emotion on the job” (p. 161).

Literature review: ethos and figurative idiom

In this work, television series are not considered as the product of their authors’ fantasies nor, conversely, as the reproduction of a pseudo social reality (Macé, 2006). However, in line with the works of cultural studies, we regard them as a place where social norms can be discussed or rearranged (Hall, 1977, 1989). They are cultural products that draw on the contemporary social imaginaries by making them visible and accessible while (re)configuring them. Taking an interest in television series that portray a professional exercising his position provides access to his social and cultural conflict (Macé, 2006, p. 52). Serial fictions provide viewers with a theatricalization of the social drama of work (Hughes, 1976) in terms of narrative arc, set or staging with an unprecedented focus, since fiction offers both the on- and off-screen (the stage and backstage of the expert). These television series thus put into images the “representation” of these professionals (Goffman, 1959)—a semiotization of their “everyday life” (to use the title of his book)—in which they stage themselves, put on their costume, play their own character, give the line to their public, and so on. By “politics of representation,” Stuart Hall (1989) highlights that the discourse and the representations made by the media have “real” effects and “while not wanting to expand the territorial claims of the discursive infinitely, how things are represented and the ‘machineries’ and regimes of representation do play a constitutive, and not merely a reflexive, after-the-event role” (p. 443).

Thus, the focus on one of the characters facilitates the observation of his occupational play-acting, to question his social representation through an examination of his ethos. Following Ruth Amossy (2001), we consider conjointly the Aristotelian notion of ethos and Erving Goffman’s “presentation of self” as a construction of images and of discourse that is carried out in a given social exchange, which the construction largely helps to regulate. Thus, anchored to a set of collective representations, ethos can be defined as the self-representation that the subject constructs to affirm or invalidate this “pre-existing image of the speaker” (Amossy, 2001). As demonstrated by Jef Verschueren (1985, 1999, 2004), we are linguistically self-conscious all the time: “reflexive awareness is so central that all verbal communication is self-referential to a certain degree [. . .] there is no language use without a constant calibration [. . .] between pragmatic and metapragmatic functioning” (p. 60).

Moreover, according to Kay Richardson (2006), the work of the spin doctors in The West Wing is not depicted as such but is carried out through the discourse of these characters, “in the details of the dialogue as simulated interaction” (p. 58).

Within this framework, we turn to the notion of figurative idiom (Gadéa, 2015), which is the combination of the corporate idiom and the ritual idiom developed by William Sewell (1980) and Erving Goffman (1976), respectively. On one hand, for William Sewell, the corporate idiom corresponds to the “language of labor” in the broadest sense, that is to say a system composed of codes, symbols, values, customs, ways of perceiving and feeling specific to the position, the occupational group, the profession. On the other hand, for Erving Goffman, the ritual idiom consists of all the visual and gestural codes determined by social relations. For the French sociologist Charles Gadéa (2015), the combination of these two idioms constitutes the figurative idiom of a profession (or occupation) and therefore defines the iconographic and cultural language endowed with metonymic value attributed to a trade. Therefore, we advance the hypothesis that the ethos of the spin doctor’s avatar can be measured against the notion of figurative idiom, which characterizes all the modalities of visual expression corresponding to a position, a profession, or an occupational group.

Corpus and methodology

This work is based on the analysis of four French television series where a character of a spin doctor plays a substantial role. However, it is important to notice that none of these TV series focus on this character who essentially remains a secondary but significant role. Spin doctors bring their expertise to leading players close to power, whether it is political or economic. If the main universe of spin doctors is undoubtedly the political sphere of a state or a city (e.g. in the context of an election or governance), the cultural or economic sphere is not without its spin doctors (particularly in large international or religious firms). This is why we have chosen three TV series which evolve specifically in the world of French politics and a last one, in a more singular domain, as a religious organization.

BN,³ a series with 3 seasons of 8 episodes, broadcast on Canal+ between 2016 and 2020, portrays politicians, especially Philippe Rickwaert, a left-wing member of Parliament and former mayor from a modest social background driven by a desire for social revenge. During a presidential election, his political mentor does not hesitate to betray him to come to power. He will have to rebuild his career and use every means to get back into the political game. In the three seasons, several communications advisor characters (also secondary characters) are present.

HDO,⁴ a series composed of 3 seasons of 6 episodes, broadcast on France 2 between 2012 and 2016, specifically focuses on the character of the spin doctor (term used only once in S1E4⁵) during the presidential campaign and then with the team in place at the Elysée Palace. There are two figures: one is a spin doctor who works close to the government, and the other, a spin doctor too who runs an agency and works for other personalities or presidential candidates. In addition to politics and state affairs, this series scrupulously depicts the central place of communication in this social world and every aspect of the spin doctor’s activity.

HP, a series of 70 episodes in a short 4-minute format (broadcast in 2007 on Paris Première), portrays the mayor of a rural town (a general practitioner by trade) who enlists the services of a team of communicators to stand in the 2007 presidential election.

Finally, we have also selected one more French series, called ASI, chosen due to the primacy of the screenwriters⁶ in the construction and representation of the field of political communication and thus of its advisors (Verdier, 2016b), the same ones as for HP. In fact, even though this series (composed of 3 seasons of 6 episodes broadcast between 2012 and 2015 on Arte) is centered on the personal and professional development of five young adults who intend to become priests, the plot follows manipulative schemes of the Bishops’ Conference of France (BCF)’s manager to lead his organization. The focus in this work will be on the character who works as spin doctor for the President of the BCF. Although he is a secondary character, like in the three other TV series, he nevertheless plays an especially important role in storylines where fiction and reality are closely intertwined, notably in the election of the President of the BCF and in the diplomatic management of relations between the Vatican and China.

The entire corpus studied is thus comprised of 122 episodes of the four series presented (70 episodes of 4 minutes and 52 episodes of 52 minutes). In addition to a differential analysis (Hamon, 1972; Sepulchre, 2011), we have also given priority to an analysis at the crossroads between semio-narrative analysis and content analysis (Esquenazi, 2010; Jost, 2007). Each episode has been broken down by theme. The sequences of each episode of each season relating to the theme “communication” were then codified using the same grid, and the dialogues were transcribed. Furthermore, several interviews⁷ were conducted with the screenwriters of the HP and ASI series (Verdier, 2016b).

Display of the handling of signs

Before going into a more detailed analysis, it is interesting to note that in the four French series analyzed here, spin doctoring seems to be a white men world. Like their counterparts, all the communications advisors are dressed in suits (usually dark). They are dressed up like their client. Eccentricity or creativity does not appear in their clothes. Suits, in that executive sphere, could mean stability, reliability, and thinking and seem to reassure in this peculiar domain at this executive level. Already in 1951, Charles Wright Mills highlighted the role-played by the clothing and appearance of executives and other “white-collar” managers.

All of these representations contribute to the construction of professional aesthetics and the efforts to deliver a coherent and reassuring image of experts: the latter are humanized—ensuring a tailored treatment of their clients—but they also provide guarantees of seriousness and control, the suits enabling to display a consistent discipline of the body and emotions. (Boni-Le Goff, 2019, p. 72)

Even though we do not know so much about their life before, we learn they are graduated from the “best” schools or university: the performative statement that Amélie Dorandeu (one of the spin doctor of the TV series BN) is graduated from ENA⁸ equates the practitioner with his graduation as a guarantee of professional quality. This way, nothing really distinguishes an advisor to another, and an advisor to his client.

In ASI, the first sequence in which the communications advisor appears (S1E1) offers a double reference, not only to the serial genre but also to a professional world.

The executive communicator’s speech is a tribute to the character of Don Draper from Matthew Weiner’s TV series, Mad Men, a TV series focused on this character within an advertising agency in Manhattan, which is a central reference for us and our executive producer Bruno Nahon. We created this scene in the style of Don Draper who can sell and tell anything. Remember, the slogan for a brand of cigarettes “it’s toasted” is but to divert the customer’s attention, to circumvent the law. We were asked to talk about issues that upset the Catholics, we gathered them all in a single scene like Don Draper would have done in order to focus and sell to the president another point of view.⁹

The cultural product is placed in the sphere of American and non-French series through a reference and direct homage to the series Mad Men, thus symbolically placing the character in the social world of advertising and, there again, particularly in an American filiation. The same process is found in HDO:

Kapita[a spin doctor]:

Do what Reagan did. When he became so unpopular that crowds didn’t flock to him anymore, he would get out of his car and greet inexistent spectators. There was no one on the sidewalk. He was being filmed in close-up and everybody thought there were 300 people waiting for him. (HDO, S1E1)

In the series studied, the communications advisors don’t improvise like their “fictive” counterpart Don Draper from Mad Men. They prepare their presentations down to the smallest details by gathering information beforehand which will be translated into graphs and transferred onto visual aids to encourage the approval of the President and his team. The use of cardboard (on which visuals of curves, images, or texts appear) is plethoric in the series analyzed. Furthermore, leaflets, posters, and so on are found in all four series and serve as the basis for a number of particular plot lines in BN (notably in S2E4). Communicational reasoning is part of the marketing sphere. Whatever the TV series, in BN, HP, or HDO, the speech is always aimed at a particular target determined beforehand on the basis of surveys and opinion polls. For example, in HDO, the spin doctor, Kapita, calls on polling companies on a very regular basis. In HP, “Reliable statistics, rational raw materials” specifies the spin doctor, or as one of the titles of an episode clearly indicates, “12%.”

In the same way that the white coat and its diverse accessories embody a signifier for the representation of medical professionals (or the Roman collar or the black cassock for that of the priest of the Roman church), the advertisement campaign, the use of visuals, and the positioning in the marketing sphere produce the essence of the spin doctor. A fusion between the professional and his tool/medium seems to take place as if communication—or rather social existence through communication—could only be achieved through this representation.

Simultaneously, the notion of framing appears. During the communications advisor’s first scene in the series ASI, the succession of sentences in the dialogue “you say . . ., I think . . .” (S1E1) contributes to the domination of the expert who does not burden himself with explanations and who positions the communication in terms of images and content at the center of the President of the BCF’s whole political strategy, in a framing of cause and effect. It is the same for Kapita, HDO’s spin doctor: “We give another meaning to the image” (HDO, S3E3), or else:

Kapita:

We are going to spread the message that “love is beautiful.” Why were Anne and the President hiding? Because they were in love. Anne is a lover. Her story? It wasn’t an affair. It was a tale of a passion, of true passion, a love story that’s been going on for years.

A colleague:

And is that true?

Kapita:

We don’t care!

A colleague:

Do you think that will be enough to get back on track [massive drop in the polls]?

Kapita:

Your job is to get the message across, the one I just said. Everywhere, the same thing is being said: a love story. (HDO, S1E3)

The aim is to drive the news and to tell a story that will then be split up and disseminated. These two notions of agenda-setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972) and storytelling (Polletta et al., 2011; Salmon, 2010) are to be linked to the importance the media gives to certain subjects and the perception that receivers will have of them. As Ivor Gaber (2000) indicates,

driving the news agenda differs from setting the agenda, in that it refers to a sustained campaign of driving the news in a particular direction over a period of time. This can be achieved by feeding selected journalists with a string of related stories. Judicious use of this process enables the journalist to claim each new story as an “exclusive” whilst at the same time the main thrust of the story remains unchanged. (p. 64)

The series thus portray the spin doctor’s particular practice, once again derived from American genealogy: he imposes an agenda¹⁰ and a particular storyline on the media (Kuhn, 2002, p. 66). By anchoring this professional in a positivist model of communication, a certain approach to storytelling is revealed as effective propaganda aimed at receivers considered to be soft and submissive to a dominant transmitter (Polletta et al., 2011). In that way, it participates to “[erect] crucial and commercially valuable ethical distance between two mutually dependent occupational groups, in the interests of preserving journalistic legitimacy in the wider public sphere” (McNair, 2000, p. 137).

While the aim of this contribution is neither to analyze nor to criticize these notions, their recurrence in the semiotization of the spin doctor is nevertheless significant and characterizes, in our view, a singular attribute of his figurative idiom.

The art of displacement in the universe of meaning

According to Kay Richardson (2006), “the dismissive term ‘spin’ alludes to the use of rhetorical arts to disguise truth and manipulate public opinion, with particular reference to control over the news agenda” (p. 53). As can be seen in these series, the spin doctor’s job is to maneuver, dodge, distort, conceal . . . to impose a framework, a point of view on his client. In short, he is constantly moving and translating, as an exchange between the spin doctor and his colleague in HDO shows us:

Kapita:

Let’s stop with the lies.

Colleague:

Do you care that much about protecting them?

Kapita:

What do you mean?

Colleague:

We sell nonsense all day long to satisfy our clients. We make write-offs and losers look like stars. We coach assholes and take money from lobbyists that lie to the whole world. What do you call that? (HDO, S3E3)

Indeed, the handling of words, symbols, and images characterizes the fictional spin doctor. He is a master of argumentation and above all, he is its structuring agent for his employer (and for his organization):

All you have to do is repeat my words exactly. (ASI, S2E2)

I’m going to write your statement, don’t worry! (ASI, S1E7)

AnneVisage:

I’m not going to say that!

Kapita:

Exactly that! (HDO, S1E4)

President:

The messiah’s good word [speaking of his spin doctor, Kapita]. (HDO, S1E6)

This spin doctor justifies his activity by the different arguments susceptible of being used with the media as well as with politicians and decision-makers. He disappears behind the authorship. What matters is only the meaning (and the impact it will have) in an “interaction between individuals perpetually self-conscious in respect of the language they are using and how it might be interpreted” (Richardson, 2006, p. 58).

Beyond the figure of rhetoric, this occupation seems to be embodied by the use of metaphors. Knowing how to use them wittingly seems to be a central competence of the spin doctor. Definitions always bring this trope back to an idea of movement, of transfer, of substitution of one word for another, of one idea for another, and of one level to another. The heart of this occupation is located in conceptual and linguistic mobility. A new figurative schema of the spin doctor is taking shape: the art of displacement in the universe of meaning, the art of handling (not to say “manipulating”) language (or even information). Isn’t storytelling about offering and revealing another (new) definition of the world? In this context, in line with Kay Richardson’s (2006) work, it is indeed a socio-semio-linguistical expertise that enables the spin doctor to manage his linguistical creations for his hierarchical superior (employer) and his audience.

This game of displacement that characterizes this occupation is also seen through the confusion between the figure of the priest and that of the communications advisor when the latter proposes a visual for an event campaign:

President:

What parish is he from?

Communicationsadvisor:

He’s an actor, Monsignor. (ASI, S1E1)

Later, when it comes time to validate this visual:

President:

This actor is amazing, he looks like a real priest.

Communicationsadvisor:

This one is real! (ASI, S1E2)

Never mind if he was actually a priest or an actor: these two figures—that of the priest or of the communicator—merge. In the eyes of his constituents, isn’t the priest the professional mediator between the sacred and the profane, operating multiple displacements in his ministry (e.g. linguistic but also figurative in rituals)? He uses metaphors from the sacred text, which he translates into common language during the homilies (Verdier, 2016a). Beyond being inherent to the professionalism of cult officials, this discursive transaction is above all inherent to the spin doctor who embodies it with virtuosity.

From the shadows to emotions

Let us now turn our attention to the very special relationship between the spin doctor and his client. In all the series studied, the spin doctor is included in the decision-making process and the elaboration of strategy. Beyond being in the shadows, the spin doctor displays a special attachment that seems specific to his occupation. The spin doctor therefore develops a singular and central relationship with his client:

President:

You need to help me politically and personally (HDO, S2E1)

The President’s wife:

You’ll end up a shrink or a dresser [after a lengthy briefing from the spin doctor on how she must (re)act]. (HDO, S2E4)

Or, in HP, the communicator sleeps directly on the candidate’s couch, in his apartment: “We’re always in the private sphere.”

The spin doctor’s avatar acquires his semiotic readability and autonomy in this social drama of work. “Wherever you find people at work, there is some basic difference in the situation of the people receiving the service and the situation of the person giving it” indicates Everett Hughes (1976, p. 3).

The bond that unites these two professionals is tenuous. The spin doctor is an expert “at somebody’s service,” he works as closely as possible to his client both in the decision-making arena (e.g. represented here by the peculiar executive desk, the cabinet of the Elysée Palace, HDO, or of the CFC, ASI) and in the President’s private apartments (especially the room in which he speaks to the President but also to the first lady, HDO, bedroom of the CFC’s President, ASI, and in the living room sofa, HP). In these places, they share everything: work, doubts, successes, but also meals, fitting sessions, illness . . . Private and professional life are closely intertwined. So much that an intricate relationship can happen, like the love affair at the end of the first season of BN between both the two President’s communication counselors, Philippe Rickwaert and Amélie Dorandeu. Always by his client side, the spin doctor never ceases to reassure him, to bring him to his senses, and to offer him his help.

In all the TV series analyzed here, we can find a lot of examples of training and coaching services to motivate the candidate. Depending on times, it could be done gently, but sometimes with a certain kind of violence like a sports trainer would do. Amélie Dorandeu would be the party’s “natural” candidate following the resignation of the President Laugier at the end of the first season. However, she has strong doubts before her first meeting to become the one who will drive the party. Then, Philippe Rickwaert will use strong verbal and non-verbal communication in order her to go on stage to face her (enemy) public:

you’re going to go all alone

Of course yes, it’s up to you to write your story

Go ahead, take them all with you! Don’t get back on your arguments, despise them all, you’re going to shoot them all! You’re the boss!

You’re freaking out? You’re going to be huge! (BN, S1E3)

The objective of our work is now to dissect this expert embedded in his social drama of work, which is a scene of emotion production. Putting this professional into images and into words in these television series provides access to this expression of emotions in the service of work.

At meetings with other experts, the spin doctor is often at his side, in the background. He does not talk, he takes notes, and he intervenes immediately afterward to debrief or to propose action (like in ASI, S2E2, the meeting with the sole banker and guarantor to avoid an inevitable bankruptcy). This position on the margins (in the shadows) shows the place offered to the spin doctor: an attitude of listening and observation that is recurrent in all the series analyzed. He is never far from his client. In our TV series, he accompanies him during all his appointments with press and TV journalists or during his speeches, always alert as to what image is reflected and which stances are adopted:

Anne Visage:

Where will you be?

Kapita:

In the control room, to keep an eye on the cameras. (HDO, S1E6)

Non-verbal communication (nodding, winking) and close understanding between the two are then observed. At the slightest problem, he is available to bring his expertise. The emotional labor fully plays the role on one hand of an “integrator” when the accent is placed on the expression of trust and reassurance, and on the other hand of the “dissimulator,” when the neutrality in the expression of emotions is sought, meaning that one masks or feigns his intentions (Wharton & Erickson, 1993). This special relationship between the spin doctor and his client is a contractual relationship based on this strong emotional aspect in terms of both deep acting—where one must feel the emotion to be expressed to the client—and surface acting—where one feigns emotions that are not actually felt (Hochschild, 1983, p. 35), allowing the work to be done.

The job of politician is structurally conditioned by the electoral competition, the outcome of which, always uncertain, is the main hazard of the profession, making control over the game a genuine obsession. For the spin doctor, it is therefore a question of containing the doubt and the President’s emotions to avoid a setback, which would then suggest the communications advisor’s failure. In this regard, the asymmetry between the two professionals thus takes the form of particular subjective transactions in which the “emotional labor” and “feeling rules” (Hochschild, 1975, 1983) take shape. In fact, Arlie Hochschild describes the process of commoditization of feeling, when the expression of certain types of emotions becomes a requirement of work. In the field of politics and particularly in the management of its communication, work requires a certain art of expressing emotions, a certain mastery which she calls “emotional labor,” that is the understanding, evaluation, and management of one’s own emotions as well as those of others (Hochschild, 1983), ensured thanks to the spin doctor’s expertise. The license and mandate of the spin doctor integrate this dimension of emotional labor in two ways: not only as an employee, but above all, in his role as communications expert, he must suggest, explain, and manage his client’s emotions in the context of his practice of politics.

A commoditization of feelings thus takes place, “less likely to be experienced as part of the self and more likely to be experienced as part of the job” (Hochschild, 1979). Indeed, the communicator must manage the feelings and emotions of his client which could be harmful to his plan. It is inconceivable for the spin doctor that his client could have doubts or “lose face” in public places (Goffman, 1967). The aim is to avoid letting a disturbance arise that could compromise (the image of) his client by paying close attention to him, through remarks and framing proposals (notes, surveys . . .). Also, this spin doctor possesses and “sells” a whole range of feelings and subjective transactions to guarantee the success of his “client” (his hierarchical superior). This emotional labor relies on the manipulation of his audience to share the same point of view as him (rhetoric of effects) and therefore to legitimize his social existence.

The spin doctor is subject to an ongoing trial in terms of efficiency on the part of his candidate. Even if the latter trusts his spin doctor, he still wants his desire of dealing with a real expert to be recognized. Since he entrusts him with his career plan, he wants to be sure that the spin doctor can take him where he wants to go. Without his spin doctor, the President believes (fears) that he will not be able to reach it, and thus embarks on a quest for expertise to legitimize his choice. On the spin doctor’s end, the situation is relatively trivial: it is a routine. It is merely another case to which he will bring his know-how and his experience. The social existence of the spin doctor is consubstantial with their relationship: they validate one another but in an asymmetrical game of role-playing. One gives the orders but finds himself subject to and reliant on the solutions of the other; one is the employer who finds himself under the control of his “employee.”

All these subjective transactions presented here play a part in the spin doctor’s figurative idiom for two reasons. On one hand, the figure of the advisor in the shadows indirectly suggests this action on affects and emotions. On the other hand, it is carried out in the decision-making sphere, which also includes more intimate places of the client’s household. As such, the porosity between professional and personal life facilitates and reinforces the action of pathos. This semiotization of the communicator’s emotional labor leads to an advisor in direct contact with the most private aspects of his client’s self (employer, director), allowing him to maintain a relationship of trust or even of a certain authority (power), thus ensuring his employability.

Conclusion

Naturalized, not to say essentialized, in his occupation, the spin doctor in the series analyzed only exists through and with his client—the President/Candidate—(and by extension his organization). At the end of this work, it seems that the figurative idiom of this position is built around several identified patterns. If the image, especially the proliferation of the use of imagery, clearly represents the communicator, so too does the command of linguistic practices. Marked by an American genealogy, the association with the advertising occupation and its anchoring in marketing seems to characterize this position. As such, the spin doctor is an expert in the art of proposing a narrative structure of discourse to seduce and convince.

What can be seen in the series is communication instrumentalized and operated in a positivist framework, focused on the tool/medium, and centered on the theory of effects. The fictional avatar of the spin doctor is an expert in the art of displacement (linguistical, conceptual, or visual) between the profane and the sacred, between reality and fiction. Within this framework, as an advisor in the shadows, this expert also performs emotional labor on his client and acquires his semiotic readability and his autonomy within the social drama of work that drives him.

As a result, this professional in handling signs participates in setting the organization as a vector of a historical and social reality, a vector of a particular ideology. Everything takes place as if the President could not bring himself not to use a spin doctor. He refuses to think that the answer brought by this expert could not work. Like his spin doctor, he believes in communication as a solution, a means, and an objective. The utopia of communication (Breton, 2011) contributes to legitimizing the spin doctor in two ways. On one hand, it gives credence to his theoretical and experiential knowledge, and on the other hand, it promotes this shared fantasy. In our opinion, the roles of one and the other derive from this ideological crystallization. The source of the asymmetrical roles displayed in the urgency for the layperson (the client) and the routine for the professional (the spin doctor) is found in this ideology (myth) of communication. This ideology represents the matrix of the figurative idiom of the spin doctor to which are added the patterns characterized by this work.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Benoît Verdier

Notes

Author biography

Benoît Verdier is a Lecturer in media and communication studies at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne within the CEREP research unit. Most of his work focuses on the mediatization process of occupational groups in news, fiction, television series, and social media (the groups studied are winegrowers, Catholic priests, police officers). He questions the role and the place of the media in their depiction, especially in the development, the dissemination, and the recomposition of both their discourses and their identities.

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Spin-doctoring in French television series: The art of emotional labor

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Literature review: ethos and figurative idiom

Corpus and methodology

Display of the handling of signs

The art of displacement in the universe of meaning

From the shadows to emotions

Conclusion

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Notes

Author biography

References