This study, the result of qualitative empirical research, is intended to highlight the disinterest that social sciences, and in particular sociology, have shown in the emotional dimension of sociability. This lack of interest, which can be understood as an expression of the cultural ethos of modernity itself, is scientifically unsustainable. Hence, in recent years a stream of thinking, and a specific field of study, the sociology of emotions, has emerged strongly, which aims to fill this gap. Starting from the key role played by the communication process in shaping social order, as supported by both symbolic interaccionism and N. Luhmann’s Systems Theory, the research aims to show the social functions that fulfil the emotional content present in the communication. Applying microanalyses of speech to news published in the written press reveals, despite the principle of ‘emotional neutrality’ which should guide journalistic ‘information’, the abundant presence of emotional content, while at the same time revealing the impossibility of properly interpreting the meaning and meaning of news, or any communication expression, if its emotional structure is not taken into account. The article presents the emotional structure of a news item, ‘the story of a car accident’, in which its communicative and social sense is built with a chain of horror, shame and concern. Applying to the analysis of this article the methodology developed by Thomas J. Scheff, which it describes as part/whole analysis, establishes links between this chain and the vital structure of the post-modern society considered as a risk society. It is argued that contemporary society can no longer base its legitimacy on the goals, “positive” which they supported and encouraged modern society. In the society of risk, legitimacy is supported not by the search for assets, but by the avoidance of ills, and in this new form of legitimacy, the emotional chain described here, horticultural and concern, fulfils an essential social function.