Celebrity

This dissertation analyzes the postfeminist tendencies and biopolitics in contemporary media practices by considering the pop culture exemplar, the Kardashian-Jenner family.

This dissertation received First Class Honors from Trinity College Dublin.
Vanessa graduated with Distinction in B.A. English Literature and Media Studies.

Through a combination of political economy and radical mediation theory, this dissertation argues that current ‘YouTube Stars’ can be understood as a particularly virulent strain of ‘homo æconomicus’, who are produced and commodified through the techno-capitalist structures of the platform. YouTube culture has transformed since its inception in 2005 to increasingly become a conduit for commercial interests, and successful vloggers are nodes in this capitalist flow: absorbing, transforming and spreading the neoliberal political rationality of the platform. I analyse how mainstream vloggers are emerging through and are entangled with the neoliberal rationality of the complex commercial interests, structures and technological affordances of the platform. I conclude by considering the ethical ramifications of, and possible solutions to, the commodification of the self on YouTube vlogs.

The NFL protests are only one of many celebrity-fueled political controversies during the Trump presidency. Why is there such a proliferation of celebrity activism? More importantly, does it amount to anything? What does our knowledge of celebrity influence tell us about the recent NFL controversy?

This article describes the main trends in political celebrity in the ““tabloid”” press. The analysis is based on articles about politicians and their families published in ““Twój Styl”” and ““Viva”” from the first editions of these magazines (““Twój Styl”” from August, 1990, and „„Viva”” from January, 1997) until May, 2012. The paper presents: a number of articles about political celebrities, the names of the main characters, their gender, positions and party affiliations. The article proposes an operational definition of political celebrity and an empirically-grounded typology of political celebrities. The text describes the ““transfer of fame”” and celebrity in electoral communications.

This article develops a non-reductive approach to celebrity, treating it as an iconic form of collective representation central to the meaningful construction of contemporary society. Like other compelling material symbols, the celebrity-icon is structured by the interplay of surface and depth. The surface is an aesthetic structure whose sensuous qualities command attention and compel attachment; the depth projects the sacred and profane binaries that structure meaning even in postmodern societies. While celebrity worship displays elements of totemism, it also reflects the eschatological hopes for salvation that mark post-Axial Age religion. The attacks on celebrity culture that inform critical public and intellectual thinking resemble iconoclastic criticisms of idol worship more than they do empirical social scientific study.

The author focuses on connections between literature and celebrities. The text opens with recalling the problem of absence of literature in the media and the popularity of celebrity-written books. Subsequently, the author recalls examples of writer attempts to appear in the media by assuming functions of a columnist or a celebrity. She explains the celebrity mechanism (quoting texts by Przemysław Czapliński, Dariusz Nowacki,
and Wiesław Godzic) and points to celebrity aspirations of some writers, who aim to increase the popularity of their books. Later, she focuses on books written by celebrities, their memoirs and guides; she analyzes and interprets self-help books by Krzysztof Ibisz and Katarzyna Cichopek. While utilizing theories by Pierre Bourdieu, media experts and conclusions drawn from the analysis of these texts, she determines that celebrity books feature short sales cycles and tabloid content. It is important to relate to the author’s personal experiences, and the goal of these books is to constantly remind the readers of themselves in order to remain in the public sphere. A book becomes a kind of a fetish – it’s not the content that counts, but the mere fact of existing, which causes the celebrity to become a writer, thus sanctioning their presence in the media and in- creasing the sales of a product (which is the celebrity himself). A perfect example of this phenomenon is Ilona Felicjańska and her book Wszystkie odcienie czerni, which was to change the model’s image and prove her talent. This publication and its reception is the subject of an analysis, which shows that readers are not eager to accept such changes, and an aspiring writer becomes a Girard-esque scapegoat.

As an “icon” in mainstream popular culture, Lady Gaga has imbued a new standard of super stardom as a performance artist and transformative fashionista in today’s generation and thus challenged orthodoxy. Her interpretation and expression of Christianity, in particular, places the iconic goddess under the critical spotlight of the religious community. Born a Roman Catholic, Lady Gaga experienced a series of life-changing events that has brought her to integrate risky biblical references into her lyrics. Her music is only one perspective, however, upon which this can be analyzed: her fashion, often unpredictable yet impressive, is equally influenced by her religious roots and ideas. The art of Lady Gaga’s music and fashion brings together new meaning both insightful and controversial to the Christian body, which elicits a response to examine and criticize the superstar’s interpretive messages. As a result, subjective interpretations of those references lie at the heart of Christian argument as well as Lady Gaga’s.

How does a digital influencer come about? This is the main question this study tries to answer. Using interviews and audiovisual analysis with some prominent digital influencers from 2010s, this study describes the context in which these characters emerge and their main similarities and differences in comparison with celebrities. This work also drafts a potential digital influencer journey, in a parallel with Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, showcasing how this digital influencer emerges through gradual and incremental steps. In addition to that, the study also lists potential impacts and attention points for communication strategies that might involve the participation of such digital influencers.

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Como surge um influenciador digital? Essa é a principal pergunta que este trabalho tenta responder. Através de entrevistas e análises audiovisuais com alguns influenciadores digitais de destaque da década de 2010, é descrito o contexto que permite o surgimento da figura do influenciador digital, além das diferenças e semelhanças deles com as celebridades. Também é esboçada uma potencial jornada do influenciador digital, em um paralelismo com a Jornada do Herói de Joseph Campbell, demonstrando que o surgimento do influenciador digital acontece através de etapas incrementais e graduais. Além disso, são elencados os potenciais impactos e pontos de atenção das estratégias de comunicação que incluem a participação destes influenciadores digitais.

In this article we provide an overview of our findings on how young people’s celebrity talk relates to their own aspirations for the future. We suggest that this provides a resource for careers education work both to widen the careers young people feel are accessible to them and as a way of opening up a critical dialogue about the ongoing impact of inequality on education and employment opportunities.

This article examines whether there is a steady pattern of celebrity engagement with humanitarian issues through a study of the involvement of U2 and Angelina Jolie in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The activism of these two celebrities was limited in both time and content and developed at different phases of the country’s recent history. The article notes that their involvement was idiosyncratic and was not developed at certain ‘turning points’ or ‘critical junctures’ of the conflict. It also argues that their activism was primarily motivated by personal networks: the decision of U2 and Jolie to get involved was prompted by their acquaintance with people who knew and cared about Bosnia. Therefore, the article highlights the role of intermediaries and underlines the need to study the personal networks that initiate and/or facilitate celebrity involvement in social causes.

Grounded in the field of celebrity studies and analyzed through an intersectional lens, this paper untangles the seemingly incongruent discursive knot that constitutes Beyoncé’s feminist identity. I claim that the divergent discourses circulating through her star text tell us something about the state of feminism today. As such, she does not merely display the tension within her own star text, but, as celebrity feminists perforce do, also the tension within the (post-)feminist debate in American society.

Introduction to the book/Einleitung des Buchs

Das Interview ist – medienübergreifend – eines der erfolgreichsten journalistischen Genres. Es etabliert sich bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts in der Zeitung, um gelegentlich in Buchform zu überdauern. Im 20. Jahrhundert wird es zu einem wesentlichen Bestandteil von Hörfunk und Fernsehen und im 21. Jahrhundert sucht es seinen Platz im Internet. Umso erstaunlicher ist es, dass eine systematische Erforschung der Geschichte und Funktion des Genres bislang aussteht. Vor diesem Hintergrund vermisst Jens Ruchatz das breite Feld des journalistischen Interviews und entwirft dessen Gattungsgeschichte als Mediengeschichte.

Als Konstante dieser 150-jährigen Geschichte erweist sich das generisch garantierte Versprechen, durch die authentische Wiedergabe eines Gesprächs die Authentizität der befragten Person so zu erfassen, dass das Individuum seine sozialen Masken ablegt. Das dem Genre so stabil zugeschriebene Vermögen bindet es funktional eng an die medienkulturelle Figur der Celebrity. Diese wiederum erweist sich seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts als bevorzugter Ort, um in populärer Form das moderne Problem zu verhandeln, wie man sich überzeugend als Individuum darstellen kann. In der Verknüpfung von Interview, Celebrity und Individualität arbeitet diese Studie die besondere Funktion der Interviewform heraus, exemplarisch individualisierende Selbstbeschreibungen vorzuführen, die im massenmedial hergestellten Zwiegespräch stets schon kommunikativ eingelöst sind.

A decade ago, in 2007, it was an important year in the realm of celebrity studies, Britney Spears had a meltdown and shaved her head, Lindsey Lohan checked into rehab and in February, Ray J “leaked” a sex tape exposing little-known Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian West is a fascinating case of celebrity because she helped build a media empire and a powerful brand at a crucial time, when reality TV was at its prime and when social media brought the idea of celebrity further into the mainstream of everyday culture. Kim’s celebrity persona is, therefore, an important artifact into understanding the matrix of celebrification (Grindstaff) and the fame cycle (Deller). The following essay will then consist of a handful of components charged with situating Kim Kardashian West within the field of popular and everyday culture. Kim Kardashian West’s Selfish is the most compelling artifact in understanding the new celebrity fame cycle and the social construction of the celebrity persona. To support this claim, I will briefly overview the state of celebrity studies and the fame cycle in hopes of showcasing the dynamics that are currently at play (Choi). The discussion will then lead to a substantive framing of the Reality TV genre as the catapult to Kim’s celebrity persona (Lueck). Subsequently, a discussion on the photographic image (Jerslev) will then be undertaken to explain its importance within the essence, creation, and propagation of the celebrity persona (Heinich). Only when all moving components of this essay are anchored together can we examine Selfish as an important contribution to the understanding of celebrity, the fame cycle and the personal brand through the analysis of the selfie. To understand the fame cycle vis-à-vis Kim Kardashian West’s cultivated celebrity persona, I will be looking at the 2006, 2011 and 2015 chapters of the second edition of Selfish. The specificity in the analysis of this academic essay will provide the field with an additional useful roadmap on alternative, yet analytical ways of contributing to celebrity studies by advancing ethnographic studies on one of Hollywood’s most dynamic personas, Kim Kardashian West.

Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau was perhaps one of the most recognisable international celebrity environmentalists of his time. Cousteau is not remembered, however, for his pivotal role in the defeat of the 1988 Antarctic Minerals Convention, which, if ratified, would have paved the way for mining to begin in Antarctica. Using the full weight of his celebrity, his personal charisma and his ability to marshal international public opinion, Cousteau was central to the successful campaign for a World Park Antarctica. The new international agreement that Cousteau ultimately helped to bring about is one of the most significant pieces of international environmental legislation in existence today, and Cousteau's crowning environmental achievement. Cousteau's successful Antarctic campaign demonstrates the indelible impact celebrities can have on international environmental negotiations, and political developments more broadly.

The definitive version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajph.12108/full

O presente artigo visa questionar e buscar respostas, através do estudo de caso, como e por que os fãs de determinados artistas do mundo da música usam a plataforma Twitter para divulgar as ações de seus ídolos e concomitantemente as ações do próprio fandom. Visto que os fãs possuem um importante papel em relação ao seu ídolo, eles procuram saciar seu desejo de pertencimento e utilidade perante a comunidade de fãs, escolhendo o Twitter por sua funcionalidade e abrangência mundial.

This chapter reflects on the symbolic and economic benefits enjoyed by celebrities who participate in activism. The eradication of hunger in poor countries, support for actions to protect the environment, and the lessening of natural disasters are some of the most recurrent examples of causes supported by artists, and other media personalities who “want to make a difference in the world”. Chouliaraki (2013), nevertheless, argues that the societal engagement of Angelina Jolie and other contemporary celebrities should be understood as a utilitarian self-growing and self-enlightening experience.
This chapter advances this discussion by arguing that participating in environmental and humanitarian campaigns can also be beneficial for celebrities in material terms. It produces a type of symbolic capital, hereby denominated solidarity capital, which can be accumulated and then converted into economic capital.  Like other forms of intangible capital as described by Bourdieu (1986, 2000), solidarity capital can offer privileged access to certain kinds of work, which otherwise would remain inaccessible. Whether in product endorsements, whether in artistic productions, market demand for socially engaged celebrities - in an increasingly "politically correct" world - has never been higher.
From an economic perspective, the civic engagement of celebrities adds to the expansion and qualification of media visibility they acquire throughout their careers. In other words, solidarity engagement offers media personalities a new dimension to what Heinich (2012) calls the visibility capital: the qualitative dimension.

When the suicide of Kate Spade was followed by Anthony Bourdain in the same week, a radio show I listened to a while back popped into my head. The discussion surrounded “copycat” suicides and the manner in which the media reports suicide that was statistically shown to be the cause of contagion of suicides. Social learning theory is another paradigm through which suicide contagion may be understood. According to the observational learning theory (Bandura, 1977), an individual who had memorized a celebrity's behaviour and had been sufficiently motivated could harbor suicidal ideation even over a longer period of time. I thought about the chains of events of suicide in celebrities. I theorize that the biggest link to this chain began when Robin Williams died by suicide. According to Kate Spade’s older sister, she was fixated on his death. Robin Williams is a legendary human being to all different types of people of religions, cultures, on a global scale—myself included.

This book explores the widespread phenomenon of celebrity fandom and provides the reader with deeper insights into the emotional dynamics of a consumer’s parasocial fan relationship with a celebrity. Following an overview of how fandom and celebrity have previously been portrayed across different academic fields, the chapters take the reader on a narrative journey into the life of a fan. Using the author’s autoethnographic account of his personal fan relationship with a film actress thereby as a case study, this detailed study examines how consumers can become emotionally attached to a celebrity and how this attachment can add meaning to their life. By exploring the complex nature of consumers’ behaviours and experiences, Celebrity Fandom and Consumer Behaviour uncovers the (para)social link between the celebrity and an individual’s personal desires. This book has an interdisciplinary appeal and will provide an insightful read not only to scholars, students and anyone interested in celebrity fandom, but also to talent agents, publicists and marketing managers working in the entertainment industries.

Markus Wohlfeil was Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Stirling, UK, the University of East Anglia, UK, and University College Cork, Ireland. His research focuses on celebrity fandom; film tourism & consumption; film marketing & business; the role of myth creation, interpretation & adoption within punk subcultures; the reincarnation of punk's DIY culture on PledgeMusic; and experiential marketing communications. He also has a personal interest in amateur filmmaking, watching & collecting movies, going to punk gigs, listening to vinyl records and playing table tennis.

Please note that this manuscript here is only the first half of the first chapter plus table of contents - and posted for promotional purposes.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo geral entender a construção e funcionamento das relações de proximidade estabelecidas entre fãs e webcelebridades. Partindo deste eixo central de investigação, analiso aqui a relação entre a hiperexposição da vida privada das celebridades da internet, especificamente os YouTubers brasileiros, e a forma como
o público consome e ressignifica este tipo de conteúdo. Em termos teóricos, rediscuto o conceito de relações parassociais e a conexão de tais relações à ideia de ilusão da intimidade. Como hipótese principal, proponho que a partir de uma reconfiguração das relações construídas entre fãs e celebridade, sobretudo os YouTubers, há uma rediscussão sobre a ilusão da intimidade, que aqui apresento como de reconfiguração da ilusão da intimidade. Para tanto, investigo os YouTubers brasileiros Felipe Neto e Kéfera Buchmann e seus respectivos fandoms, “Corujas” e “Kélovers”, através de uma análise das práticas midiáticas das celebridades, que é conjugada com entrevistas
realizadas com os seus fãs. A investigação culmina, então, em uma reflexão acerca da reconfiguração desses laços e da construção da ideia de reconfiguração da ilusão da intimidade. A fronteira, muitas vezes confusa, entre as esferas pessoal e profissional que percebi entre os fãs corrobora para a compreensão de uma redefinição das relações
parassociais construídas com as webcelebridades.

Course Description: Celebrities wouldn't exist without the fans and mass media. Fans make or break celebrities' careers (So long Gina Carano!) while these same celebrities shape fans' tastes and identities through the circulation of their images in visual culture. In this synchronous seminar, we'll explore celebrity culture through scholarly work, films, TV shows, and a comic. We'll examine identification and emotional attachments with celebrities, public and private selves, audience reception, and consider how gender, race, and class factor into our understandings of and involvements with celebrity culture. We'll discuss the rise of celebrity in the early 20th century up to and including celebrities and micro-celebrities on social media in the 21st century. This course is largely focused on American and Canadian celebrity culture including but not limited to film and tv stars, sports stars, pop stars, political celebrities, literary celebrities, and micro-celebrities. The final assignment allows for an exploration of global celebrity culture.

Amongst the vast human population lies one common fear – the fear of the unknown. As a result, most progressions made by humans are in pursuit of a source of explanation. In earlier days a cosmological presence was created to soften the blow of the existential reality that humanity cannot bear to face. Throughout the centuries, religions have been formed based on ancient myths and rituals, creating idols, gods, and an overall higher cosmos – all of which seem unreachable but somehow comfort humans by diminishing their existential fear. Although in modern times science has paved the way towards the future, casting a shadow over any cosmological accounts, I found that music has managed to keep these mythological roots. I would argue that the rise of celebrity culture within the world of music is not something new, but rather a modern reinterpretation of previous beliefs and ritualistic practises: the shaman and their role within society; mythic frameworks that contemporary celebrity figures can be placed within e.g. the Dying God, sacrifice and resurrection, worshipping self-made (or society-made) idols etc. By analysing old interpretations of celebrity function within myth and rituals of the past and cross-referencing them with the reinterpretations of celebrity within music, I have found certain ties that show myth has not been completely forgotten. I delve into the world of celebrity culture, concentrating on superstar Taylor Swift and her constant reinventions, placing her within certain mythological frameworks of the past.

By writing this dissertation, I hope to form a stronger tie between modern celebrity culture and the present “belief system”, that being any major world religion. Focusing on the musical side of celebrity culture allows me to cross-reference celebrity functions now and compare them to their functions of the past within a cosmological context.

Given the increasingly pervasive and spectacular role of celebrities in humanitarian and environmental campaigning since the late 1990s – as spokespeople for NGO campaigns (Anderson, 2013) and as creators of their own organizations (Alexander, 2013) – it is surprising that relatively little research has been undertaken to explore celebrity involvement in climate change campaigning and communication. Indeed, as the COP21 Paris negotiations in December 2015 indicated, high profile A-list celebrities were the “charismatic megafauna” (Boykoff et. al., 2010) lending global star power to this high-profile political event, ‘expertly’ navigating the intersections between media, politics and science through speeches at the UN conference from actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Alex Baldwin, and former celebrity politician and actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the rise of “Celebritus Politicus” (Goodman, 2013) in recent years, it is not surprising that a global political event about the future of our planet would garner elite celebrity endorsement, yet research on understanding this growing “celebritization of climate change” (Boykoff and Goodman, 2009b, p. 395) is relatively scarce.

In the last two decades especially, we have witnessed the rise of ‘celebrity’ forms of global humanitarianism and charity work, spearheaded by entertainment stars, billionaires, and activist NGOs (e.g. Bob Geldof, Bono, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Bill Gates, George Soros, Save Darfur, Medeçins Sans Frontières). This book examines this new phenomenon, arguing that celebrity humanitarianism legitimates, and indeed promotes, neoliberal capitalism and global inequality.

Drawing on Slavoj Žižek’s work, the book argues how celebrity humanitarianism, far from being altruistic, is significantly contaminated and ideological: it is most often self-serving, helping to promote institutional aggrandizement and the celebrity ‘brand’; it advances consumerism and corporate capitalism, and rationalizes the very global inequality it seeks to redress; it is fundamentally depoliticizing, despite its pretensions to ‘activism’; and it contributes to a ‘postdemocratic’ political landscape, which appears outwardly open and consensual, but is in fact managed by unaccountable elites.

Korean Wave entertainment products like K-pop are increasingly enjoyed by worldwide
audiences and acknowledged as part of lived experience through the help of online platform.
Not only making the circulation and distribution of K-pop content easier and faster, social media
also insinuate a possibility for the K-pop celebrity to cultivate, preserve and sustain their
relationship with fans across the world. This study aimed to discover the current circumstances
between the celebrity and fans in the age of social media by examining the fans of K-pop group
BTS using the qualitative approach. In doing so, the study explored two elements that are
considered prominent in influencing the modern fandom practices, the social media dependency
and the notion of parasocial experience. The findings further clarified that the fans indeed
experienced the parasocial effect from the online contents and their dependency toward social
media also strengthened the parasocial occurrence due to the constant exposure of the contents.
This study further validates the notion that social media is becoming a prominent bridge for both
the celebrity and fans to be connected with each other on a seemingly intimate level.

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the consumer's perception of celebrity family endorsement in the context of Instagram advertisement. The object of this research is The Hermansyah (Anang Hermansyah family brand). This paper comprises of two separate studies: (1) The first study would use a 2 x 2 factorial design to compare the Instagram user's response towards four stimuli of Instagram advertisements. Two stimuli would depict the Instagram advertisement of a single celebrity endorser and the other two stimuli would depict celebrity family endorser for acne cream product and cake product. (2) The second study is a consumer's opinion survey about the advertisements. Based on the survey results of 547 The Hermansyah Instagram followers, it is revealed that celebrity family endorsement for cake products could trigger the respondent's desire to purchase the product than a single celebrity endorsement. On the other hand, the celebrity family endorsement for acne cream product captivates respondent's attention as well as triggering the intention to search for more information about the product. Hence, it can be concluded that the consumer engagement of celebrity family endorsement only exists in the initial stage (attention) and middle stage (desire and search) of consumer's psychological process to purchase a new product.

Woke supremacy has been taking a toll on Western civilization. The casualties of wokeness are too many and sundry to track. But we should not forget that wokeness was first germinated in higher education, from whence it metastasized to the wider social body. The academy is the cathedral pulpit from which the ideological dictates of the elite flow downward to the hoi polloi.

According to David Acevedo of the National Association of Scholars, hundreds of North American academics have been subjected to cancel culture to date, including yours truly. And the number continues to grow. This is to say nothing about the curriculum, which has suffered excisions of canonical works from literature and philosophy and the denunciation of correct answers in math, among many other abominations.

Now woke ideology has led to the resignation of the most famous academic alive: the psychologist, best-selling author, and public intellectual Jordan Peterson, who announced in the National Post his decision to retire from his position as tenured full professor at the University of Toronto.

This article examines the growing entanglements between the
digital and the world of food while suggesting that food is a
particularly generative space through which to understand the
evolving but often hidden role of the digital in our everyday lives.
The article starts by examining food photography on social media
before discussing the role of ordinary people as participants in
online food culture via video-sharing platforms such as YouTube.
Mapping the shift from web 2.0’s dreams of creativity and sharing
to the monetisation of digital food communities, section 3 focuses
on food politics, and ‘the antinomies of connectivity’. The final
section discusses big food players and their use of social media in
an era of dataveillance and big data. It argues that ‘food citizens’
need to have an awareness of the commercial logics that support
the communicative ecologies in which we increasingly engage with
food and lifestyle practices.

Celebrity endorsement is a common practice adopted by companies throughout the world. This practice is increasing more and more now even for the technology industry. Companies use celebrity endorsement to influence consumer purchase intention by improving their brand image in the minds of the consumers. This research study gives a detailed and comprehensive account of the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumers' purchase intention in the case of Qmobile (Linq) endorsed by Priyanka Chopra. Three hundred and fifteen questionnaires were distributed in various malls in Karachi. Two hundred and eighty five useable questionnaires were returned. Analysis was done using multiple regression analysis. The independent variables include; celebrity attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise and match-up. Consumer purchase intention is the dependent variable. A firm should carefully select the celebrity to endorse its brand for effective communication of the message and positive response from the consumers.

"Zapatista murals are spaces of redefinition where a variety of voices and discourses converge becoming a practice that mutates throughout time and builds community. These murals have been produced since 1995. The particular case of Oventic expresses the collective and dynamic personality of Zapatista thought. Mostly painted by guest Mexican and international artists, Oventik's walls effectively defy traditional notions of authorship and patrimony.  Once a wall is painted, it acquires a life of its own. Murals often change according to community beliefs and needs. These changes are made by locals or by the artists who originally painted the murals. Visual programs are likely to be preserved, updated, modified or destroyed. The decision on these changes is a result of community dialogue and reflects processes of growth, revision and redefinition of the Zapatista spirit.
By historicizing Zapatista mural production and describing some mutations and erasures occurring in specific murals, my aim here will be to discuss the innovative characterization and community dimension of murals. I believe Zapatista painted walls to be a notable example of dialogical art; a type of art that produces works in connection with people and mobilizes social thought. "