Research Article Open Access

Charismatic Leadership building through blurriness between the public sphere and private sphere-An analysis of Xi Jinping’s non-verbal communication style

Abstract

Unlike previous Chinese political leaders, Xi Jinping's political communication strategy after his election has subverted outside perceptions of the propaganda of Chinese leaders. This article seeks to elaborate the model of building charismatic leadership in the new media era through nonverbal communication. While the research on western countries political leader could be found, the study of how Chinese political leaders build their charismatic leadership is still rare. It finds that the way of being a charismatic leader has been conducted correctively by China president Xi Jinping since he got elected. The strategies of his nonverbal communication enhanced the effect of rhetoric message construction through the utilization of “boundaries invasions effect,” mediated leadership, intercultural communication, and social media. This highlights the noticeable change happened in China political communication that the China political leader is now possessing of skills of charismatic leadership as other leaders globally. The nonverbal symbols president Xi Jinping presented in his communication actions on media or interpersonally shows that the way of build charismatic leadership in China has to be rooted in Chinese values. Implications for charismatic leadership, media ethics, and rhetorical nonverbal symbol are discussed, thus further discussing the uniqueness of Chinese political leadership will be deployed.

Jiachen Feng*

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