Abstract
The media views society as a bewildered herd. Often, to create a moral relationship between the contemporary (in which the media thrives), the media strives to keep supplying the society with an almost cultural trend that is always borrowed from the hyped celebrity lifestyle. This paper explores the context of media, celebrity and society by defining how each depends on each other to set a moral position and how the society remains the end-user and specific subscriber of mind control schemes, and how new social moral constructs have become observed through trends sets by celebrities and pitched for adoption by media.
Introduction
Famous faces of celebrities greet us at every turn, from television to magazines and from newspapers to public transportation and cereal boxes. Celebrities are not only dominating modern society in a lot of ways but also capture the imagination of a nation (Tan, p. 914). Cultural construct today depends entirely on impartially relevant values (Bennet, Grossberg, Morris, and Williams, pp. 64-70). Celebrity culture is not only embedded in everyday social life. This observation deludes perception about social value construct. However, celebrity culture is seen to be radically constitutive of contemporary social life (Bruce & Imogen, pp. 1-18). Celebrities through their trends, fashion and intrusive perceptions produce and sustain class relations across societies and subsequently, inspire multifaceted moral functions. Celebrity culture is disseminated across a broad range of media and other forms of cultural themes of communication. Its boundaries are not limited, therefore is not easy to delimitate from the (Tyler & Bennet, B. 2).
The Rise of the Celebrity
The modern-day term ‘celebrity’ is dated back to about 1850, the time of the rise of mass media. However, the shift towards celebrities became more noticeable in the 1920s. Celebrities became, eventually, distinctly different from heroes who achieved fame. The result was a phenomenon of people who are famous for just being famous. Elizabeth Taylor is an example, whose private life and association with other celebrities featured in the popular press. It is true that being a great celebrity requires the techniques of reinventing yourself and presenting a different type of persona for public consumption. That becomes part of culture later. Examples of such celebrities include Madonna and Michael Jackson. The earliest attempts to see the influence the consumers’ minds can be seen in the early 1900s. (Tench, R. and Yeomans, L. 623).
Celebrity culture and the societal uptake of the same
Art influences the desire to become complacent with the experience. Bennet, Grossberg, Morris, and Williams argue that experience of art can be transformed into one of self-improvement, as the person would aim to close the gap between their rough self and the poise and harmony represented by the work of art (Bennet, Grossberg, Morris, and Williams, pp. 64-70). The culture supplies a set of standards through which industrial civilization might be called to account. As such, celebrity culture and its mobilization is a moral force through which society might be enabled to improve itself (Bennet, Grossberg, Morris, and Williams, pp. 64-70).
Celebrity culture is disseminated across a broad range of media and commercial forms. Celebrity culture is also produced and sustained in a large number of public leisure industries and institutions. All of these show that the celebrity industry has a powerful influence on modern culture. It is the global industry that has varying global norms shaping the way the celebrity is manufactured and played out in the world. From the time of the rise of mass media and demand and supply of for news in the 19th century through the printing press and the internet, we see a rapid development of the global news system that allow personalities for selling their knowledge and ideas and to manage their reputation on the global stage (Tench & Yeomans, p. 631).
Over the last few years, British sociologists have formulated the comprehension of the dynamics of the social class. Their viewpoint is that the creation of media content is the basis of stardom creation. Gradually, content about a specific culture, especially, as exhibited by the celebrity personality becomes a hype that readership consumes and empress as a social value.
Handley and Caines argue that if identity is a construct and, more critically, a construct defined and developed through relationships. They argue that others in public and private spheres—then an understanding of the processes, mechanisms and platforms by which individuals disclose information about themselves is crucial in understanding the way identity, community and culture function, and the way individuals can intervene in the functioning of culture (Handley & Caines, p. 1).
Celebrity as the Sign of Culture
Most people consider celebrities as the symbol of modern life. The historian Daniel Boorstin observed in 1961 that modern heroes. On the other hand, some people see the cult of celebrity as a part of contemporary life, the disbursement of close family ties (Tench & Yeomans, p. 628).
The audiences contribute significantly to the meaning of the celebrity personality and need access to the celebrity sign as part of the process of identity formation. The audience and the public are composed of the people who are the same and to whom media provides a set of resources through which everyday practices are constituted for the people. These practices turn into identity culture and participation. The audiences of celebrities are an active and interactive social group that is served by the media for its existence. Therefore, the audience is the consumer and the consumer is the audience.
At the same time, the audience consumes a material product such as food and clothes. They also consume medicated images that include representation of celebrity personalities. The celebrities, therefore, have become common points of reference for millions of individuals who may not act with each other, but they share by virtue of their participation in some medicated cultures, a common experience and collective money (Fisher, p. 1).
The rise of the culture with a celebrity base has had many implications. However, identifying the root cause of such a rise is important. Research shows that the rise can be attributed to various socio-political changes such as the ‘change-over of America, from producing to a consuming society and the consistent shift of societal values to contemporary trends (Jenkins, McPherson, and Shattuc 203-220). Another reason is the shift in cultural perspective. This factor has occurred in the nineteenth century. This change has become prevalent when the middle and upper class of America felt a threat from “new universe strangers.” Research developing around this factor explains how society is in fear of social fragmentation. There was a tilt from character towards personality and self-realization as the result. The advent of the consumer society produced a culture of personality as a change into social order (Henderson, p. 1).
Cultural studies have identified an emergent perspective in culture erosion. Studies by Jenkins, McPherson, and Shattuc point out that these emergent perspectives explain how the society absorbs new culture/popular culture through engagement with aspects and core popular culture characteristics. The culture sticks to the societal skin hence becomes part of that society. It is almost impossible to examine from afar, the minute behavioral difference, and various cultural affiliations (Jenkins, McPherson, and Shattuc, pp. 203-220).
The projection of a new meaning of celebrity image is a widespread practice. The celebrities are the sign, according to this culture, that represents the individuals who are given heightened significance through circulation in the social world and form a cultural text with meaning to be interpreted by the audience. The names and the images of the celebrities are constitutive of cultural heritage. The use of celebrity images is not limited to the expression of gender or racial identity by marginalized alternative social groups. Complex identity formations have to be analyzed in the terms of political, economic and ideological institutions and practices in society. The identity of someone is expressed in a social framework and is expressed through cultural signs, most of the time. The celebrity sign has an immense cultural significance, in addition to its economic significance. What are transmitted through the celebrity image are all the attributes and values (Tan, p. 971).
Celebrities have become crucial elements in the formation of individual and cultural identity. Celebrities clearly have representative qualities. For example, the cultural sign of the African-American Academy-winning actress Halle Berry signifies positive attributes that many African-Americans and women identify with. Therefore, the ease of the Halle Barry celebrity personality as an icon in race, gender and class identity formation can be expressed in many ways (Tan, p. 972).
How do contemporary popular media genres use celebrities in the construction oftheir content?
In recent years, research around how popular media and celebrities have annexed social values shows a growing trend where media depends on celebrity personalities to remain competitive and influential. Studies on celebrities have continued to focus on how a celebrity replicates social and cultural habits. This effort to have an overview of social-cultural construct eked from media-celebrity relations shows the manipulation of celebrity magazine reader’s television audience and radio listeners to construct a relationship between fame and social control.
Celebrities have been presented as models in entertainment and news media. This projection has actually been very significant in media productions such as reality TV series, newspapers and gossip magazines (Bruce, and Imogen 1-18). Certain celebrities have been depicted as exploitive, inspirational parvenus whose public performance should not be responded with desire, admiration, or begin interest, rather with a pleasurable blend of envy, contempt, skepticism, and prurience (Storey, p. 89). This is being emphasized as their representation. This shift to representational emphasis involves the oppressive foregrounding of class, where the selected celebrities are understood to be anchored to particular class identity, regardless of to what extent their social and financial circumstances have been transferred as the result of this notoriety (Tyler & Bennet, p. 1).
Moral construct depends entirely on imparting principles and social ethics through a variety of means in which, the media is a lead factor. Social values depend on influence to shift standpoints. Gradually, culture empress is as a result of consistent unprejudiced propagation of a seemingly popular and adaptable trend. Eventually, the moral construct, perceived as principal accepts the new trend and gradually allows its adoption across both Diaspora and the local community.
Gradual subscription to media content allows the gradual proliferation of celebrity habits. This can be attributed to the genesis of certain quotas of the society subscribing to celebrity culture as the best moral values. Petersen and Muntean examine the way in which the rapid proliferation of new modes of probing into personal lives in contemporary technoculture. They quantify how this has prompted celebrities to make use of social networking technology, particularly Twitter, in an attempt to take back control of the star image on which their career success and their value as a cultural commodity is based (Hadley & Caines, p. 1). “Through Twitter,” Muntean and Petersen say, “the celebrity seeks to arrest meaning—fixing it in place around their own seemingly coherent narrativization,” as studio systems and strict control by publicists once tried to do (Hadley & Caines, p. 1). For Muntean and Petersen, though, the authenticity attributed to celebrity tweets is an ideological act, and Twitter itself is “a form of disclosure perfectly attuned to the mindset of technoculture” (Hadley & Caines, p. 1). Twitter operates in the space between what they call the “conspiratorial mindset,” as a mode of desire intent on the discovery of the secret, and the “celebrity subject,” as the unknowable excess that gives substance or orientation to that mode of desire (Hadley & Caines, 1). Muntean and Petersen argue that it is the modality of the seemingly unrehearsed, self-revelatory disclosures on Twitter, rather than the actual object or content of such disclosures, that is central in constructing the inherently unstable subjectivity of both the celebrity and the fan (Hadley & Caines, p. 1).
The aim of using celebrities in their content is basically a tactic to have a moral control plan. The media already knows the society is trusting and very close to celebrities, especially musicians and television figures, especially those who work in the entertainment industry. Media content feds the society with current trends and developments in the entertainment industry. The relationship between morality and entertainment is very significant, so is the connection between celebrities and fashion. We can argue that trends in society are a result of picked habits. These habits are constructs borrowed from celebrity profiles, especially where dressing codes and behavior are concerned.
On the other hand, the relationship between popular media and the young in society is rich and profound. The young are quick to assimilate habits and behaviors from popular media figures. Actually, it is a downward trend in which, society is the recipient of well-intended projections. Unfortunately, many habits have been misconstrued and replicated as styles and fashions which deprive society of moral value. However, sociologists accuse the media of adopting mind control techniques in this case. Mind control techniques use moral construct as a basis of identifying with the society through the provision of needed information and guidelines regarding important issues, especially fashion and entertainment.
The media is a powerful tool used by the powerful to control society; celebrities use the media on the same grounds as politicians. Here, the context of manipulation arises with a focus lying on what the society attains from adopting popular culture. The fact is, certain fashions and trends might be counter-productive while on the same level, being direct business ambitions of the media and the celebrities. Sociological arguments conclude that people subscribe to media content with the intent to create their own meanings out of the images and messages they receive from the media content (moral construct trajectory) (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, Montgomery, and Fiske, pp. 89-150).
Here, we find the media playing an active role in shaping our cultural and moral values. Earlier, the media’s role on our social and moral value construct was purely passive. The effect was limited and the society was more collaborative with social values and moral construct internally. With the advent of celebrity concepts, especially in the social-sexual, the economics of media relations with the latent society began to take shape. Gradually, the need for information about social values and guidelines in societal set ups opened up the society to the media. The media instead invested in controlling human social-cognitive development. The results have remained very good.
With society always viewed as a ‘bewildered herd’ by the media and the celebrity society, the media creates content that will bewilder. The point is, bewildering is in it, a moral construction, and it is a significant psychological approach to influencing moral perspective. Mind control becomes imperative in this process, and content with celebrity hype and trend aims at assassinating societal values entrenched on a specific value and instead, diversifies the scope of reasoning in the society, subsequently, forcing a new behavior, perception and habit in the society.
It is important to note that, society measures its uptake of media and celebrity hype. They control what they watch and how much they want to watch basically to have a sense of satisfaction.
According to Hadley and Caines whilst conscious of the risks that arise when facets of a fragmented identity momentarily cohere in an act of disclosure, including the risk that identities will be essentialized by the weight of expectation culture attaches to such acts, our contributors focus on the creative dimensions of disclosing (Hadley & Caines, p. 1). This symbolism becomes the cultural aspect of celebrity effect and their morally correct viewpoints. According to Storey, popular culture is symbolized by language, fashion, and stereotyping behavior, common in youths (Storey, p. 86).
As such, it suffices to say celebrities have played an active role in shaping the social values of today’s society through media. The media, here, plays the role of a channel through which popular culture is disseminated and the celebrities as the trendsetters (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, Montgomery, and Fiske, pp. 89- 150). However, it is interesting to see how both media and celebrities benefit financially from such efforts. Though the media makes stars, many of those successful media personalities, including musicians have a very great following across society. Celebrities and the media, as such are principals, involved in the gradual construction of a new social moral principle. Therefore, society is the subscriber who takes up the media content, interprets the content, and subsequently makes a good case of the content. The decision the consumer makes is objective and reflects his level of understanding about the contemporary and how well his reaction to the latter affects and influences others across society.
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