Celebrity vs. Ordinary People Phenomenon - Essay Example

Celebrity vs. Ordinary People Phenomenon Living in a century of information gives a great chance for self-development and self-improvement of own knowledge and skills to every person. Human conscience, perception, and point of view involuntarily can be affected with mass media products that play not only informative role but also conduct educational and entertaining functions. Television and press put society in the picture concerning the major events that take place in specific countries, life of concrete people, and world in general. Despite a vast variety of informative sections, it is relevant to say that during last several years the structure and format of news have changed drastically. Hence today people pay more attention to the news and rumors about private lives of celebrities presented in tabloids and reality shows than any kind of serious and urgent facts about economic, political or ecological sphere of society. It is well-known that, for example, youth considers such news as tiresome while divulging facts about celebrities enables audience to get closer to its idols, find out private information and get opportunity to follow examples in specific situations. As Turner (2004, p. 15) states, “a celebrity phenomenon is everywhere”, so it is almost impossible to get rid of it because the main goal of famous people as advertising tool is to create awareness of target audience using celebrities’ popularity. Famous people have managed to occupy every sphere of our life. Giles (2000) states that fame should be considered more as a process than current status, which can benefit every disputed sphere. We can see celebrities in TV shows, films, magazines and even advertisements. Frequently, some products of culture are judged by potential viewers from the point of participants that take part in its presentation. For example, many people are prone to decide whether they will watch a proposed film or not by merely the presence of well-known performers in the cast. So currently, it is hard to say what makes what: films create stars or, vice versa, celebrities stimulate success of films. During last decades the content of media has been modified significantly becoming rather urgent theme of various discussions and debates. Hence, apart from informative function, news has gained entertainment aspect that manages to conquer people’s attention and interest with striking vigor. According to Franklin (1997), who has introduced such definition as “newszak”, there is a salient change in journalism’s priorities that can be explained with freelancing and unstable working conditions of reporters. It has been found that to attract as many viewers and readers as possible in extremely competitive environment, journalists use tricky method of raising people’s interest with a help of celebrities’ lives. They prefer divulge news in a soft manner due to the dominant position of sensationalism in people’s perception tendency. People start to value more the news about entertainment sphere than some actions and events with world-wide significance. Therefore, by its level of popularity public service media gradually starts to exceed coverage of political, economic and social news of the world. Due to Rojek (2001), there are three major interconnected historical facts that have managed to intensify implementation of celebrity phenomenon in media, such as social democratization, drop of organized religion, and increase of influence of goods and services in day-to-day person’s activity. Numerous authors claim that modern society is affected by so called pseudo-events that demonstrate the obliteration between reality and fantasy (Rojek 2001). However, this peculiarity draws audience’s attention managing to propagandize role models and considerably enhance rating of consecutive TV show or magazine. Investigating consumer’s behavior on the market of goods and services, it has been noticed that today potential customers are more informed than several years ago, that is why it is hard to impress or fascinate them. According to Daboll (2011), celebrities do not cause huge influence on purchase decision; people can be better affected by reference groups and someone who has similar lifestyle as they do than by celebrities’ images. Moreover, a recent study has showed that off and on the presence of celebrity in advertisement can be even counterproductive. Supporting this, Dumenco (2006) claims that social awareness and perception have reached the explosion of celebrity culture that does not benefit company’s performance any longer. A research conducted by Sonwalkar, Kapse and Pathak (2011) has shown that presence of celebrities in ads assists consumers to remember a brand, although it does not influence on the potential customer’s final decision concerning the purchase, because people do not like hard-selling approach. In addition, it has been found that people are preferred to see kids and animals in advertisements, which indicate importance and influence of commonness factor. According to Postman (1985), Americans can be considered as the most entertained nation on the planet and simultaneously as the least informed one. Each of us at least once has been fascinated with one of any similar statements seen in local tabloids as, for example, “Michael Jackson is Alive”. There is no doubt that such article is definitely able to encourage potential readers to make a purchase. As editor of London’s Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, states, “dull does not sell newspapers” (cited in Allan, 2011, p. 271). And it absolutely does not matter that there is no any valid prove concerning the initial statement in tabloid, the most essential thing is that such kind of heading can make a fortune. However, despite occurring everywhere the process of celebrities’ absorption of media, many people mistakenly consider that open access of ordinary people to the media stipulates democratization of our society. In my opinion, this aspect is rather disputable. On one hand, it can be observed that news agenda still has not lost ‘ordinary people’ phenomenon, which effect is a basis of publicity. A bright example of this can be wide spreading popularization of blocs that common users of Internet are prone to create for being able to share personal experiences, events, and feelings. Moreover, miscellaneous kinds of reality shows that combine common participants with famous performers are extremely popular nowadays. Many TV programs provide possibility for audience to vote, ask questions, debate, and express own ideas in live broadcast for the purpose of public involvement and increase of ratings. Hence in many journals and magazines printed letters from readers can be found. Also, a lot of talk shows discuss live and vital themes, such as problems of youth, family conflicts, reasons of divorces and others that can interest viewers and encourage them to use offered pieces of advice in real life. Frequently it can be seen how ordinary people are invited to radio and TV programs and asked to share personal experience regarding specific situations. However, this tool can be viewed more as a stimulating method of marketing that aims at enlarging audience and getting more profits out of it than providing individuals with more liberties. Hence, inviting ordinary people to own shows media workers create new celebrities that are supposed to increase profits. Researching tabloid culture, radio and TV channels, Turner (2010) confronts modern style of journalism to democratization that presupposes to use common people as a content of media, which main peculiarity is a wide commercialization of personal image. In this respect, it is not hard to find opposite side of people’s statement concerning democratization ensured by media agenda. Despite all beneficial aspects that have been mentioned, from the other hand, people are still considered to be inferiors in media business. Hence, today reporters divulge only that news which authorities need to disclose, otherwise, some serious facts can be secretly hidden from audience if this information somehow is able to damage influential people. Government uses media for being able to influence and manipulate population; meanwhile, ordinary people naively accept it as a fair surge of democratization. Access of common people to media has commercial ground, because giving people opportunity to be closer to the process of news’ creation makes friendly atmosphere and relationship between population and authorities and helps government to eradicate unnecessary opinion within mass and lobby individuals to follow proclaimed principles. In opinion of different authors, modern journalism suffers from crisis of legitimacy. Therefore, it is recommended to create explanatory journalism with opinions and multi-perspective news (Allan, 2011, p. 264). In addition, it is urgent to provide new methods of people’s participation in state’s life, because as Turner (2010, p. 72) claims ‘ordinary people’ phenomenon is just another “exclusively economic method” that is not able to democratize society the way it can be falsely assumed. For enhancing democratic level of the country, more radical measures should be implemented. Reference List Allan, S 2004, News Culture, Open University Press, London. Daboll, P 2011, ‘Celebrities in advertising are almost always a big waste of money’, Advertising Age, viewed 15 April 2012, . Dumenco, S 2006, ‘Media guy: Celebrity is dead’, Advertising Age, viewed 16 April 2012, . Franklin, B 1997, Newszak and News Media, Edward Arnold, London. Giles, D. 2000, Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity, Macmillan Press Ltd, London. Postman, N 1985, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Penguin, London. Rojek, C 2001, Celebrity, Reaktion Books Ltd, London. Sonwalkar, J, Kapse, M & Pathak, A 2011, ‘Celebrity impact - A model of celebrity endorsement’, Journal of Marketing & Communication, vol. 7 no. 1, pp. 34-40. Turner, G 2004, Understanding Celebrity, Sage Publications Ltd, London. Turner, G 2010, Ordinary People and the Media: The Democratic Turn, Sage Publications Ltd, London. Read More