The power of solution: the construction of the market of self-help literature (focused on business)

Author(s)

Monise Fernandes Picanço

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2013-10-07

Examining board members

Nadya Araujo Guimaraes; Maria Helena Oliva Augusto; Roberto Grun

• Advisor: Nadya Araujo Guimaraes

Abstract

On the 1990s, Brazilians editorial market watched the rise of self help books including light business to the best sellers book charts. Initially harshly criticized by the main press, these books not only pullulated in the charts on the 1990s, but have gathered the status of an editorial niche in Brazil, successful to this day. The success and the emergency of this editorial niche were understood in this research through field theory. Based on this theory, the positions of the incumbents actors (authors and editors), as well as their strategies to gain and maintain dominants positions on the field and their relations to other fields pertinent to its development were analyzed. Certain self-help books authors agency was perceived as a key element to understand the triumph of these books on Brazilians editorial market. Gurus are social skilled actors that made possible the emergence of this new market. They are the authors of self-help books, consultants and speakers, whom use their books as only one of their means to legitimate their ideas to their audience. Through the study of one well-known Brazilian guru trajectory (Roberto Shinyashiki), it is shown how the conjunction of their strategies, activities and self-presentation has acquired him his reputation as a guru, which, combined with his continuous transit throughout editorial and corporative worlds and his performances on media, play key roles to the emergence of a new editorial niche in the 1990s on Brazil. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/04809-3 - Between the monk and the executive: the use of self-help literature focused on business in the light of changes in labor relations from the 1990s
• Grantee: Monise Fernandes Picanço
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master