Michel Aoun, ‘Patriarch of the Christian Street’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12955551 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bruno Lefort (0000-0002-5833-8835, Tampere University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 102-123 |
| Publication date | 2015-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1873-9857 • E-ISSN: 1873-9865 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/18739865-00801007 |
| OpenAlex | W111084910 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Designating himself as ‘Patriarch of the Christian street’, Michel Aoun has become the main character of a social narration. A network of partisan media institutions orchestrates the circulation of the leader’s image. These productions operate in a fragmented media environment in which each complex primarily targets a specific and already sensitized population. These publics, for which the transmission of family memory has often worked as a prerequisite, in turn spread a specific interpretation of Lebanese reality. Such modes of representation, both vertical (inspired by the partisan institutions) and horizontal (relying on peer-to-peer circulation) frame Aoun’s image in reference to a triple aesthetics deliberately emphasizing affects: a patriarchal family trope revealing a sense of fusion, a heroic picture stirring inspiration, and a prophet’s metaphor fostering communion within the group. As a consequence, the group of followers is produced primarily as affective, in opposition to alternative negative figures. In that respect, the study of the representations of a figure like Michel Aoun enables us to investigate the contemporary configurations in which collectives are produced in Lebanon and thus to re-examine the very nature of politics in this segmented polity
Aesthetics · Art · Interpretation (philosophy · Literature · Media studies · Metaphor · Narrative · Opposition (politics · Political science · Politics · Polity · Population · Representation (politics · Sociology · Trope (literature · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |