Duyguların Siyaseti: Dijital Çağda Utanç, İtibar ve Denetim
The politics of emotion: shame, reputation, and control in the digital age

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the transformation from shame to reputation within the invisible emotional architecture of social order. While individuals in classical societies internalized normative order through shame, in latemodern and digital societies social control has shifted toward an externalized logic of visibility and performance structured around reputation. Employing an integrative literature review and conceptual synthesis method, the study offers a multilayered analysis of the role of emotions in the reproduction of social order. Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power, Goffman’s dramaturgical interaction theory, Bourdieu’s conception of symbolic capital, and Han’s theorization of the transparency society constitute the core theoretical foundations of the study. The findings reveal a shift in emotional regulation from internal selfdiscipline toward an external imperative of visibility, showing that shame and reputation have become two complementary emotions within a new “economy of visibility” in the digital age. The analysis demonstrates that this transformation gives rise to an emotional power model organized around six propositions (P1–P6): the transition from internalized shame to externalized reputation; the translation of micro-performances into macro-level legitimacy; the metricization of moral judgment; the reciprocal production of shame and reputation; the economization of reputation; and the emergence of emotional fatigue driven by constant visibility pressures. This process materializes in contemporary practices such as social credit systems, digital shaming, and algorithmic invisibility. Overall, the study shows that modern forms of power increasingly operate by governing emotions and the desire for recognition. Consequently, social control shifts from punitive observation to rewarding visibility: the individual now conforms not to “avoid shame,” but to “be recognized.”

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