Abstract
Institutional reactions to the Covid pandemic brought about a great many changes in work life. One important, complex change was in how people see each other and see leaders in organizations. This change was influenced by the rapid and widespread use of Zoom as a way to communicate. In particular, the appearance of (usually) small icons on a screen both created strangeness and mystery among organizational agents, and gave limited access to knowledge of others, especially leaders, in organizations.
This chapter turns to some theories of the American scholar Kenneth Burke to explain how Zoom creates a push-pull of mystery yet attraction. Communication balances on the knife’s edge between strangeness and scanty knowledge, on the one hand, and access to the means, if limited, of achieving identification within organizations, on the other hand. This balance is ancient and comes down to us from an origin in religious symbolism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bentham, Jeremy. (2017). Panopticon: The inspection house. CreateSpace.
Binder, Werner. (2012). The emergence of iconic death: Secular icons in a contemporary perspective. In Jeffery C. Alexander, Dominik Bartmanski, & Bernhard Gieson (Eds.), Iconic power: Materiality and meaning in social life (pp. 101–116). Palgrave Macmillan.
Blankenship, Jane. (1988). ‘Magic’ and ‘mystery’ the works of Kenneth Burke. In Herbert W. Simons & Trevor Melia (Eds.), The legacy of Kenneth Burke (pp. 128–155). University of Wisconsin Press.
Bridges, John. (2020, December 27). How the coronavirus changed everything. Austin American-Statesman, A1.
Brummett, Barry. (2019). My 600 pound pilgrimage: Ritual and rhetorical homology. Journal of Communication and Religion, 42(2), 5–20.
Burke, Kenneth. (1969). A grammar of motives. University of California Press.
Burke, Kenneth. (1970). Rhetoric of religion. University of California Press.
Cormack, Robin. (2007). Icons. Harvard University Press.
Cornwell, Hillarie, & Cornwell, James. (2009). Saint, signs, and symbols: The symbolic language of Christian art. Morehouse Publishing.
della Cava, Marco. (2020, December 26). What could post-vaccine cities look like? Austin American-Statesman, A4.
Duncan, Hugh D. (2017). Communication and social order. Routledge.
hooks, bell. (2014). Race and representation. Routledge.
Hu, **gchen. (2019, May 22). Teaching a shared/hybrid/online course using Zoom [Workshop]. Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts Conference, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA. https://repository.brynmawr.edu/blended_learning/2019/2019/9/
Iqbal, Mansoor. (2021, September 2). Zoom revenue and usage statistics. Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/zoom-statistics/
Lips, Karin A. (2020, December 25). COVID-19 pandemic changed everything this year—Including how I prepare to have a baby. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/12/25/birth-baby-pandemic-advice-maternity-care-column/3993851001/
Morris, Betsy. (2020, May 29). Why does Zoom exhaust you? Science has an answer. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-does-zoom-exhaust-you-science-has-an-answer-11590600269
Postrel, Virginia. (2013). The power of glamour: Longing and the art of visual persuasion. Simon and Schuster.
Shuey, Mickey. (2020, December 24). 2020 year in review: The pandemic changed everything—Business, sports, travel—In 2020. Indiana Business Journal. https://www.ibj.com/articles/how-we-got-here
Tompkins, Phillip K., Fisher, Jeanne Y., Infante, Dominic A., & Tompkins, Elaine L. (1975). Kenneth Burke and the inherent characteristics of formal organizations: A field study. Communications Monographs, 42(2), 135–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637757509375887
Wiederhold, Brenda K. (2020). Connecting through technology during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: Avoiding “Zoom fatigue”. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 23(7), 437–438. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.29188.bkw
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brummett, B. (2022). The Mysteries of Iconic Leadership on Zoom. In: Browning, L.D., Sørnes, JO., Svenkerud, P.J. (eds) Organizational Communication and Technology in the Time of Coronavirus. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94814-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94814-6_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-94813-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-94814-6
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)