Reflective Statement

2023

Marketing is an active process that ranges from informal daily presentations of the self (or persona) through to more formal activities. Fame, on the other hand, is passive and is attributed to persons, usually due to some sort of informal or formal ‘marketing’ process. Sociology and psychology offer complementary perspectives on fame and fame construction. There are both positive and negative aspects to fame, just as there are with gossip in terms of reinforcing certain social or cultural norms or, alternatively, creating new norms and cultural tastes. Fame is not easily controlled as it is an attribution given by others. However, it can be managed to some extent - as long as fame itself does not become the persona or the objective, or what Katariina Kakko & Pekka Isotalus call the ‘dominating celebrity persona’ . Associated with this, unfortunately, fame can also lead to retrospective reinterpretation or revisionism of previous histories, not necessarily initiated by the famous individuals but by their followers/adherents/disciples. Fame can be, and often is, used for the common good; it is a very useful means of bringing about social, cultural and political change.

Research on celebrity and public persona derives from fundamentally interdisciplinary sources. Although at its core, the study of public personality has been the object of investigations by those more closely associated with media and communication, the key disciplines of sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, political science, social psychology, and even anthropology and history have been part of its analysis. Celebrity identifies the “extra-textual” dimensions of the famous, in which the lives of the renowned are followed, read, and reported. It is a public celebration of individuality that is (but not exclusively) connected to consumer culture and democratic capitalism. Through these larger cultural tropes celebrity has had its strongest affiliations with the contemporary entertainment industries, particularly in terms of how they are covered by the media and the press for further value beyond the cultural forms that are often the origins of stardom—the public individual’s performances in fields such as film, television, sport, and popular music. Celebrity is a site of celebration and derogation in any culture: these public individuals are truly exalted and given a status beyond others, but they are also ridiculed for their believed-to-be unearned credentials for having such a public platform and voice. Moreover, the study of celebrity and public persona is also an investigation into the connection between the populace and these public personalities, where parasocial relations most evident in fandom identify how celebrities embody audiences with an affective connection that is truly powerful in contemporary culture. That power of embodiment and connection that celebrities possess is subsequently exploited by the media industries to promote and sell new connected cultural products. Identifying celebrities as part of a spectrum of public personas links the study of celebrity to the investigation of the celebrated and famed in a variety of professions and fields well beyond entertainment. Thus, the term persona is used in these studies of public personalities to acknowledge the mask that is deployed to present a public version of the self for this external consumption and reading by an audience, a collective, a network, a nation, a citizenry, or a community. Research into public personas has led to related studies of political leadership, self-branding, notoriety in business, and reputation management, and research delves into the presentation of the public self by greater portions of the populace in online cultures. Celebrity and public persona is a field in which research aims to investigate the significance and meaning of various versions of the public self in both contemporary culture and historically. To cite: P. David Marshall.(2015) “Celebrity and Public Persona.” Oxford Bibliographies in "Communication". Ed. Patricia Moy. New York: Oxford University Press, 15 January available online: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0159.xml?result=2&rskey=Th4ZyD&print or http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0159.xml DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199756841-0159

Strange as it may seem, celebrity (as well as fame etc.) – despite its increasing role in modern life – is hardly included in the list of the resources, whose distribution defines the major forms of inequality. In the article, it is shown that the personal celebrity has become one of the most important and more and more desired resources in the modern world, which along with the power and wealth creates the major lines of inequality in a society. The subject of the present article is the analysis of characteristics of celebrities as a special elite stratum, which the author names 'people of celebrity'. This elite includes the top workers of mass media; art, theatre, literature , cinema workers; representatives of show business and fashion ; sportsmen, etc. The common feature of this heterogeneous public is that they exploit their popularity, converting it into huge monetary incomes, posts, connections and different benefits.

On a very basic level, this is bound to be a fascinating book. after all, the object of study - celebrity - clearly fascinates. the media, in its various guises, are absolutely filled with stories of the famed and celebrated. Online culture in all its many mobile and social media structures continues to use celebrity as the "click-bait" to draw attention and guide the searching users though all manner of content and stories. At the same time, all this activity, all these vignettes on stars and the notorious have generally been seen by cultural critics and audiences alike as the ephemera of culture and history, the flotsam and jetsam of contemporary culture that, like a piece of sea-glass, attracts the eye but we know that in its origins had only a momentary utility that led to its current stats as a discarded and forgotten fragment of an object....