Cultural Charisma and Social Performance Dynamics
Summary
Cultural charisma refers to the capacity of individuals or collectives to embody, project and mobilise symbolic power through social performance. Drawing on classical sociology and cultural pragmatics, research has shown how charisma emerges in relational settings where actors—political leaders, religious figures, activists or online influencers—stage rituals, narratives and affective displays that resonate with audiences’ expectations and collective emotions. Social performance dynamics encompass the processes by which meaning is created, negotiated and contested through enacted signs, gestures and rituals, often under conditions of uncertainty or crisis. This perspective highlights the interplay between structural frameworks (institutions, media and digital platforms) and the interpretive work of audiences, revealing how shared emotions and symbolic codes generate communities of feeling. Recent work explores the global significance of charisma in contexts as diverse as disaster response, populist politics and online culture, illustrating its role in galvanising solidarity, shaping public discourse and sustaining authority. Practical applications span the design of civic rituals, the management of organisational leadership and the analysis of digital mobilisation, underscoring the importance of methodological innovation—from discourse analysis to machine learning—in mapping the contours of cultural charisma.
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Cultural Charisma and Social Performance Dynamics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in cultural charisma and social performance dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Charismatic authority: Legitimate power attributed to an actor based on perceived extraordinary qualities and affective resonance.
Social performance: The enactment of roles, symbols and rituals through which actors produce, transmit and negotiate cultural meanings.
Discursive field: The network of texts, narratives and communicative contexts within which concepts like charisma acquire and circulate significance.
Ambiguous performance: A staged enactment that deliberately combines conflicting social roles to evoke multiple interpretations and engage audience subjectivities.
References
- The concept that went viral: Using machine learning to discover charisma in the wild. British Journal of Sociology (2024).
- Trump’s Charisma. Critical Sociology (2022).
- Perfect Fools: Sanctity, Madness, and the Theory of Ambiguous Performance. Religions (2025).
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