Understanding Celebrity
- Graeme Turner - University of Queensland, Australia
Communication & Media Studies
account of this most perplexing and infuriating of modern phenomena. Read on!' - Toby Miller, New York University
We cannot escape celebrity culture: it is everywhere. So just what is the cultural function of celebrity?
This is the first comprehensive overview of the production and consumption of celebrity from within cultural and media studies. The pervasive influence of contemporary celebrity, and the cultures it produces, has been widely noticed. Earlier studies, though, have tended to focus on the consumption of celebrity or on particular locations of celebrity - Hollywood, or the sports industries for instance. This book presents a broad survey across all media as well as a new synthesis of theoretical positions, that will be welcomed by all students of media and cultural studies. Among its attributes are the following:
-It provides an overview and evaluation of the key debates surrounding the definition of celebrity, its history, and its social and cultural function.
-It examines the `celebrity industries': the PR and publicity structures that manufacture celebrity.
-It looks at the cultural processes through which celebrity is consumed.
-It draws examples from the full range of contemporary media - film, television, newspapers, magazines and the web.
"Graeme Turner is a renowned cultural studies scholar and this book on celebrity demonstrates reasons for he renown. Turner's book is very thorough and comprehensive and should be included on any student reading list for courses that look at celebrity. Turner includes an extensive bibliography which will assist those who are beginning work on celebrity and this most readable book will help to promote further debate on this fascinating area."
Quite interesting approach and a very comprehensive book on celebrity studies. Very important for me to help students understand media role in this process of celebrity
The book provides chapters on the emergency of celebrity, theorisation of celebrity, commodification of celebrity, consumption of celebrity, relationship between the media and celebrity. It also introduces relaionship between culture and celebrity - celebrity as a culture-shaping force, celebrity as a mass-regulating force, celebrity as a discourse and so on. All these, I find foundational in understanding celebrity and celebrity culture. However, I would like a more elaborated discussions on them as I find his discussions rather brief (the book is fairly thin). In addition, I would like the inclusion of the approaches of Marxist, Frankfurt School, Post-structuralist and Psychoanalysis to celebrities. Some of these have been discussed, but more in-depth analysis of celebrity from these perspectives would help studens deepen their understanding of celebrity. Over all, this book offers a comprehensive overview that is essential to the understanding of celebrities, celebrity culture and celebrity industry.
An excellent explanation of key concepts in the creation and consumption of celebrity. Clearly written and accessible.
