Why do we need celebrity studies and the sociology of popular culture to understand our modern political system?

The analysis of celebrity, celebrities and celebrity culture is one of the growth industries for the humanities and social sciences over the last decade. Psychologists warn us of the dangers of ‘celebrity worship’, sociologists interrogate young people about their personal expectations of fame, and even a discipline with as attenuated a relation to popular culture as literary studies now studies such things as ‘post-colonial celebrity’. The textual richness of celebrity culture is proving irresistible, and so the fetish for textual analysis that dominated so much of the 1980s has found itself right at home in the study of celebrity. But is this what we want from the study of celebrity? What are the approaches that are most needed, and which are likely to be the most productive for those of us in cultural and media studies for whom celebrity has become part of the heartland for the study of popular culture? This article will discuss some of the options, and in particular it will ask how we mThe analysis of celebrity, celebrities and celebrity culture is one of the growth industries for the humanities and social sciences over the last decade. Psychologists warn us of the dangers of ‘celebrity worship’, sociologists interrogate young people about their personal expectations of fame, and even a discipline with as attenuated a relation to popular culture as literary studies now studies such things as ‘post-colonial celebrity’. The textual richness of celebrity culture is proving irresistible, and so the fetish for textual analysis that dominated so much of the 1980s has found itself right at home in the study of celebrity. But is this what we want from the study of celebrity? What are the approaches that are most needed, and which are likely to be the most productive for those of us in cultural and media studies for whom celebrity has become part of the heartland for the study of popular culture? This article will discuss some of the options, and in particular it will ask how we might establish a stronger base for the study of the industrial production, as well as the audience consumption, of celebrity.ight establish a stronger base for the study of the industrial production, as well as the audience consumption, of celebrity.

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