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From Gamson, J., 2015. Celebrity. In: James D. Wright (editor-in-chief), International
Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol 3. Oxford:
Elsevier. pp. 274–278.
ISBN: 9780080970868
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved.
Elsevier
 Author's personal copy

Celebrity
Joshua Gamson, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Modern celebrity culture emerged as a focus of inquiry and critique in the mid-twentieth century, and has blossomed in
recent years into a vibrant field of study. Critics have pointed to the role of celebrities as mass-produced commodities and
celebrity as ideological support for consumer capitalism, and to the disconnection between notoriety and merit. Scholars
have approached celebrities as symbolic entities, mediating a tension between egalitarian and aristocratic cultural tropes, and
embodying cultural anxieties about the relationship between media images and lived realities; documented the economic,
social, and political structures in which celebrity has been produced, noting the significance of the Hollywood star system,
and the recent transformations brought by reality television and new media technologies; and studied celebrity fans and
fandom, shedding light on forms of fan engagement with celebrity culture, fan–celebrity encounters, and the uses of celebrity
images by marginalized groups.

In popular usage, ‘celebrity’ typically refers simply to the Celebrity and Critiques of Mass Culture
famous or notorious person, whose existence and activities are
known to an audience that is unknown to him or her person- The term ‘celebrity’ in its modern meanings began to be used in
ally, or to the condition of such notoriety. Theory and research the nineteenth century, but the study of the phenomenon
on the topic, while often focusing also on individual celebrities, began in earnest with the rise of mass-produced culture, and in
have tended to work from a broader definition of ‘celebrity’ particular with the elaboration of an industrialized Hollywood
(or, occasionally, ‘celebrityhood’ or ‘celebritydom’): as a social film ‘star system’ in the early decades of the twentieth century.
and cultural phenomenon, in which large-scale knownness (For an excellent history of fame and fame discourse from
and public visibility become important sources, measures, and ancient times to the near-present, see Braudy, 1986.) It first
currencies of social, economic, and sometimes political emerged as a sustained focus of inquiry through mid-twentieth-
standing. Celebrities are generally defined as distinctly century criticism of mass culture, from both the left and the
contemporary versions of famous people, and celebrity a right. Although these works were rarely based on empirical
distinctly contemporary form of fame. Their distinction is research, and were filled with unsupported assertions about
found in their relationship to modern, industrialized, those creating and receiving celebrity images, they called
commercial communications media, which makes it possible attention to the mass production and management of celebri-
to achieve notoriety without benefit of extraordinary action or ties, and to the question of the social impact of industrialized
achievement. The celebrity is thus famous for the media- celebrity culture.
disseminated image of himself or herself; in Daniel Boorstin’s
(1961) well-known phrasing, he or she is “well known for
The Celebrity and Capitalist Ideology
his [or her] well knownness.” Celebrities are, moreover,
a specific kind of social elite or status group, characterized by Early perspectives on celebrity were largely theoretical,
both extraordinary privilege and uncertain boundaries, and emerging as part of Marxist-influenced Frankfurt School
whose members occupy positions that are both socially central cultural criticism of ‘mass culture,’ ‘mass society,’ and the
and easily lost (Kurzman et al., 2007; see also Milner, 2005). ‘culture industry.’ Celebrities were seen as mass-produced,
They are, as Italian sociologist Francesco Alberoni (1972) standardized commodities posing as unique human individ-
put it, a ‘powerless elite’ – or more accurately, an elite with uals, and celebrity discourse as a major ideological support
high status and visibility but limited institutional power – beam for consumer capitalism. In the 1940s, Theodor Adorno
commanding a high level of interest unrelated to the conse- and Max Horkheimer (1977), for instance, saw celebrities as
quences of their activity. The study of celebrity, which has the products of ‘the culture industry,’ the cultural apparatus of
emerged within both humanities and social science disciplines, mass society; Hollywood stars serve as distractions from the
has run along several overlapping tracks. Beginning with critics dissatisfactions created by industrial capitalism, and to
of mass culture, analysis has focused on the distinctive char- manipulate ‘the masses’ into capitalism’s false promises of
acteristics and symbolic functions of celebrity in contemporary both choice (standardized, mass-produced celebrities appear to
Western societies; more structurally focused studies have be different individuals) and universal success (celebrities
considered the political, economic, and social organization of appear to demonstrate the rewards available to all).
celebrity, especially as it has become industrialized in the Leo Lowenthal (1968), also writing in the 1940s, researched
entertainment business, spread across a variety of institutional changes in ‘mass idols’ in popular magazines, charting the
settings, and undergone changes due to new media genres and move from ‘idols of production’ (business and politics) to
technologies; and, more recently, researchers have investigated ‘idols of consumption’ (entertainment and sports); he too
the interpretations, uses, pleasures, and sources of engagement suggested that these popular culture heroes perpetuated the
for audiences or fans of celebrities and celebrity. myth of an open social system, such that the existing social

274 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.95012-8

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition, 2015, 274–278
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Celebrity 275

system is celebrated along with the star. C. Wright Mills (1956: talent, or character – some celebrity is ‘acquired’ and some
p. 71) wrote in the 1950s of the professional celebrity as ‘achieved’ (Rojek, 2001: pp. 16–18) – only that they provide
a summary of American capitalist society’s promotion of engaging narratives, starring in what Neal Gabler (2001: p. 5)
competition and winning; as “the crowning result of the star calls the ‘life movie.’
system in a society that makes a fetish of competition,” the
celebrity shows that rewards go to those who win, regardless
of the content of the competition. Celebrities as Symbolic Entities
The definition of celebrities as mass-produced distractions,
and their ideological role in promoting consumption, The interest shown by cultural critics in what the workings
competition, individualism, and the myth of open opportu- of contemporary celebrity tell us about the culture that
nity, has continued in much contemporary cultural criticism makes it so central has been taken up in many humanities-
and analysis. For example, P. David Marshall (1997: p. x), has based approaches to stars and stardom, which tend to
argued that the celebrity, as a “public individual who partici- consider the symbolic activity that takes place in and
pates openly as a marketable commodity,” embodies and through celebrity discourse. Who gets attention, the logic
legitimates the linked ideologies of market capitalism and goes, tells us much about the core values, or ideological
individualism; Chris Rojek (2001: p. 90) has located celebrities contradictions, of the society giving the attention. In addi-
within ‘the culture of distraction today,’ as human commodi- tion to the theme, noted above, that celebrities serve as
ties who fill the void left by ‘the death of God and the decline of ideological supports for capitalism and consumerism, two
the church’; Ellis Cashmore (2006: p. 269) has concluded that other themes have been particularly pervasive: the tension
“celebrity culture’s most basic imperative is material: it between egalitarian and aristocratic cultural strands; and
encourages consumption at every level of society”; and Karen the pursuit of the authentic self.
Sternheimer (2011: p. 24) has suggested that celebrity culture
“reflects and reinforces the ever changing notion of what it
Celebrities as a Democratic Aristocracy
means to achieve the American Dream.”
One striking feature of contemporary Western celebrity
discourse is the way celebrities are treated to a cultural status
Celebrity vs Heroism
that is simultaneously ‘above’ the rest of the populace and ‘of’
For more conservative cultural critics from the 1950s onward, that populace. Celebrities are culturally constructed as a sort of
the role of the celebrity system as an ideological support for elected aristocracy, both elevated and brought down by the
capitalism was less important than its reflection of a large-scale watching crowds; the celebrity has become one symbolic
disconnection between notoriety and merit. Such a view crys- means through which the population of the unfamous declares
tallized in the 1960s with the publication of Daniel Boorstin’s its own power to shape the public sphere (Marshall, 1997).
The Image (1961), which distinguished celebrity from heroism. Moreover, while celebrity culture certifies some people as more
In an argument that presaged more recent postmodernist deserving of attention and rewards because of their difference
theory on ‘simulation and simulacra’ and the implosion of from the rest of the population, it also continually demon-
artifice and reality (see Baudrillard, 1988), Boorstin argued strates that such people are ordinary, just like everyone else
that, with the growth of mass media, public relations, and (Braudy, 1986). Thus, popular celebrity discourse embodies
electronic communication, it was possible to produce fame ambivalence about hierarchy in Western democracies: celebri-
without any necessary relationship to outstanding action or ties are celebrated for being better than, but no better than,
achievement. Thus, the hero, whose fame is the result of those who watch them.
distinctive action or exceptional, meritorious character, has
been superseded by the celebrity, whose notoriety is manu-
The Search for the ‘Real’ Self
factured by mass media without regard for character or
achievement; the signs of greatness are mistaken for its pres- A second outstanding feature of contemporary celebrity
ence. In Boorstin’s definition, the celebrity is a ‘human pseu- discourse is the thematic emphasis on getting ‘behind’ celebrity
doevent.’ The phenomenon of celebrity is a symptom of images to the ‘true’ or ‘real’ self. Celebrity discourse, as Richard
a media-driven culture in which artifice has displaced reality, Dyer (1991: p. 135) has demonstrated, involves a ‘rhetoric of
and in which merit and attention have become uncoupled. authenticity’: the question of what a celebrity is ‘really like,’
Although as Leo Braudy (1986) has shown, the oppositions what kind of self actually resides behind the celebrity image, is
between pure, ‘real’ fame and inauthentic ‘artificial’ celebrity do a constant, whether in the form of tabloid exposés, behind-the-
not fully hold up – historically, fame and merit have never been scenes reporting, celebrity profiles, or fan activities such as
firmly and exclusively coupled – the conservative critical autograph seeking. In part, this is because celebrities have the
approach to celebrities as false, vulgarized heroes has pointed unique characteristic of appearing to audiences only in media
toward historically new features. Modern media, through the texts, while also living in the world as actual human beings –
increasingly sophisticated creation, management, and repro- they are images, but are “carried in the person of people who
duction of images, have an unprecedented capacity to place do go on living away from their appearances in the media”
a person on the cultural radar screen, quickly and with no (Dyer, 1991: p. 135). In part, the theme of realness is the result
necessary reliance on the person’s publicly celebrated actions or of the increasing visibility over time of celebrity production
character. Thus the modern celebrity system does not require of mechanisms, raising the question of whether the celebrity
celebrities that they be extraordinary in terms of achievement, image has been manufactured to attract an audience, or

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276 Celebrity

whether it reflects a true, deserving self (Gamson, 1994). became involved in the management of celebrity images –
Celebrity discourse, with its heavy rhetorical emphasis on personal publicists, managers, agents, in addition to the
authenticity, thus manifests a larger cultural anxiety about the celebrity himself or herself, joined studio publicists in battling
relationship between media images and lived realities. This for control of the process. With the growth of television since
dynamic has been reworked and advanced in recent years the 1950s, the explosion of celebrity-driven media outlets since
through the genre of ‘reality television,’ in which celebrities the 1970s, and the development and expansion of reality
purportedly show that they are real through the filming of their television since the 1980s and the Internet since the 1990s,
‘everyday lives,’ and noncelebrities become famous for living moreover, it has become both easier to build celebrity and
their ‘real lives’ in front of the cameras (Grindstaff, 2010). Here, more difficult to retain it – hence Andy Warhol’s famous
the exposure of the ordinary self – offered as a demonstration declaration that eventually everyone will be world famous for
of authenticity – itself becomes a means to celebrity. 15 minutes. While Hollywood movie studios still generate
a large proportion of American and international celebrities,
celebrity has become less centralized, and the logic of celebrity
The Political Economy of Celebrity has taken hold within a wider range of social spheres, including
the worlds of literature (Moran, 2000), sports (Smart, 2005),
While many of the attempts to grapple with the unique politics (West and Orman, 2002), art, business, and academia,
symbolic or ideological features of contemporary celebrity have each with its own somewhat distinction celebrity production
been either entirely speculative or based exclusively on textual practices (Turner, 2004).
analysis, much of the empirical research on the topic has
focused on celebrity as an economic and social system. Influ-
Celebrity Production in the Twenty-First Century
enced by the strategies of political economists and organiza-
tional sociologists, this research has investigated not so much Recent history has seen some major changes in celebrity
the cultural meaning of celebrity as the internal organization production apparatuses. Reality television, which developed in
and economic logic of the celebrity system. In contrast to the 1980s in response to changing economic conditions in the
approaches that assume that film stars are popularly selected television industry as a cheaper, quicker alternative to scripted
for attention, for instance, such analysts tend to see celebrity as programming (Collins, 2008), transformed celebrity produc-
the result of “the exigencies of controlling the production and tion: no specialized training or prior experience was needed to
marketing of films” (King, 1986: p. 155). Although celebrities enter the celebrity field, and celebrity became ‘an outcome of
increasingly emerge in other social domains (politics, a programming strategy’ (Turner, 2004: p. 53). In addition,
academia, etc.), most attention has been given to the major although in many ways the Internet simply extended the reach
celebrity production center, the entertainment industry of existing entertainment industry organizations, it has also
(Currid-Halkett, 2010). rapidly changed the dynamics of celebrity production, espe-
cially through Web 2.0 phenomena such as YouTube, Myspace,
Twitter, and Facebook (Gamson, 2011; see also Rojek, 2012).
The Hollywood Star System and Beyond
As “the tools of self-publicity are increasingly available to
The pursuit of celebrity, especially in the entertainment busi- ordinary people” (Bennett and Holmes, 2010: p. 76), barriers
ness, became highly routinized, rationalized, and industrial- to entry to celebrity are reduced, and access to potential audi-
ized over the course of the twentieth century, with the ences does not require industry gatekeepers, celebrity produc-
development of industries, such as public relations, specifically tion has become partly autonomous from the centralized,
devoted to the generation and management of public visibility. tightly controlled celebrity industry. The result of these changes
Celebrities are, in this context, marketing tools. In the notori- was a large influx of ‘civilians’ into the celebrity field; forms of
ously risky entertainment business, which requires high capital celebrity that are more fleeting, dispensable, and difficult to
investment for most of its products, a star is an insurance policy sustain than earlier ones (Collins, 2008; Currid-Halkett, 2010;
against audience disinterest, used primarily to minimize the Rojek, 2012), and the emergence of new celebrity types, such as
risk of financial loss. Thus, star images are typically managed in the anticelebrity viral star (celebrated for being unlike
accordance with the needs of the financiers of the vehicle with conventional celebrities), the do-it-yourself celebrity (who
which a celebrity is associated – with film stars, for instance, has pursued fame outside the established celebrity system), and
a movie studio. The key nexus is not so much the celebrity and the microcelebrity (famous to a small community of fans)
his or her audience, but the celebrity’s backers, who pursue (Gamson, 2011).
publicity, and journalists, editors, and producers, who provide
it (Gamson, 1994).
The structure of the star system has changed significantly Fandom and the Reception of Celebrity
over its brief lifetime. The early studio star system involved
tight control of the production, exhibition, and distribution of Analyses of the social and economic organization of celebrity
films and their associated film-star images by several major tend to bracket questions of its cultural meanings, and textual
studios; stars were under studio contracts, and studio publicity analyses of celebrity tend to operate with untested assumptions
operations were responsible for producing and disseminating or assertions about the meaning and impact of celebrity for
celebrity stories and images. When the studio oligopoly was audiences. Methodologically, both have tended to exclude
broken up by a US Supreme Court decision in the 1950s, many empirical research into the meaning of celebrities and celebrity
more parties with a financial interest in celebrities’ careers in the everyday lives of the fans or audiences encountering

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Celebrity 277

them. As the study of culture in general began, in the 1980s, to continue not only to document the range and types of audience
take more of a methodological turn toward audience research, positions vis-à-vis celebrities, but also to examine various
audience-related aspects of celebrity have also come more possible explanations for the variance – audience characteris-
sharply into focus. This territory remains, however, under- tics, for instance, or qualities of different celebrity domains,
investigated, in part because the study of audiences is both genres, and types. Second, the process by which the logic of
methodologically cumbersome and costly. celebrity can and does spread to spheres other than entertain-
Considerable thought, and a small but growing body of ment, and how it may operate differently in those realms, is
research, has been devoted to the question of the fans’ or still not well understood. More systematic panel-data allowing
audiences’ relationship to celebrities. One early theory, for comparisons across institutional domains are needed. Third, it
instance, proposed that mass media such as television facilitate remains the case that nearly all of the literature on celebrity has
a ‘parasocial relationship’ between performers and audience emerged from, and focused on, the United States and the
members, in which the spectator comes to relate to the celebrity United Kingdom. Cross-cultural comparative research is a very
as if they were in a face-to-face relationship, with the ‘illusion of promising, and almost entirely untapped, source of insight into
intimacy’ (Horton and Wohl, 1956). Since then, largely the cultural, economic, political, and social logic of celebrity.
through psychoanalytic film theory, discussions have focused Finally, while it is clear that celebrity production has been
on the processes by which audience members identify with transformed by digital technologies and new media – and
celebrities, especially film stars (Tudor, 1974; Stacey, 1991). presumably along with it the experience of celebrity for those
Various typologies of identification have been set forth, encountering it – the contours and impact of these changes
emphasizing quite a range of activities, uses, and types of have yet to be fully documented, studied, and understood.
attachment developed by audiences in their encounters with
celebrities (Marshall, 1997), with particular attention to
celebrity gossip activities as ‘fantasies of belonging’ to a ‘moral
See also: Audiences, Media; Entertainment; Film and Video
community’ (Hermes, 1995: p. 132).
Industry; Hegemony and Cultural Resistance; Journalism;
This has been especially important in challenging the
Mass Media and Cultural Identity; Mass Media, Political
assumption that ‘the audience’ for celebrity is a homogenous
Economy of; Mass Media, Representations In; Media Effects;
mass, and that celebrities mean the same thing for all of its
Public Sphere and the Media; Reputation; Social Media;
members. Parasocial identification and celebrity hero worship,
Television: General; Television: History.
for instance, both appear to be common stances; but ironic,
playful, and irreverent interpretations of celebrity images also
appear to be prevalent, especially as the pursuit of celebrity
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