Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
UWP 001Y-021
Professor Kurzer
15 September 2017
Introduction
Nowadays, personal communication has been pushed towards new heights. With a
smartphone device and a Wi-Fi connection, one can easily log in to social media and spend leisure
time on it. With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube being so prominent in the urban lifestyle, social
media is becoming the new public space to receive newsfeed and express opinions. Social media
provides an open and equal platform to contribute content and the social dynamics in the
Literature Review
Celebrities are a group that occupy a privileged social position... from the fact of public
attention (Meyer and Gamson, 1995). Although people have seemed to accept the identity of a
celebrity as a cultural phenomenon, the identity itself hasnt been studied by sociologists only
until recent years. Scholars have been hesitant towards studying the cultural phenomenon for they
see celebrities as trivial topics, unimportant to a comprehensive understanding of the social world
(Ferris, 2007). However, as the digital media world is becoming more prevalent than any time in
history, celebrities nowadays have more influence on much more than popular culture. Therefore,
emerging studies in the past decade have addressed relations between celebrity culture and politics
(West, 2005), fashion (McCormick, 2016), success (Schulman, 1999), etc., influencing the roots of
values and behaviors of the younger generation. Celebrities are also suggested as human brands,
serving the bigger context of consumerism and modern ideal human beings to the middle-age
When it comes to digital communication in the age of social media, scholars are
increasingly interested and invested in studying the online literacy of social media discourse
communities. Linguists have looked into factors such as race (Chun and Walter, 2011), age group
(Thurlow and Bell, 2009), native language (Paolillo, 2007), and others that take a stance in online
invites users of different backgrounds to short discussions on various topics, and though some claim
social media interactive, it does not meet the purpose of effective communication (Barton and
Lee, 2013), for there is more interpretation to be made on individual users end than face-to-face
Despite both celebrity culture and social media being well-investigated by scholars as
separated issues, there is still a lack of literature on the specific literacy pattern celebrities use for
social media to communicate with social media discourse. This literacy pattern is critical to
furthering the understanding of celebrity formation and future branding for celebrities.
Method
This study interviewed young college students from a tier-one research university in a
suburban college town in California. The author collected answers on questions around topics in
(1) social media user interests (2) social media preference and usage (3) attitude towards celebrity
social media posts (4) interaction with other users. The interviews were conducted either through
face-to-face communication or through phone calls. The purpose of these questions was to examine
users general experience with social media and their expectations for celebrity activity on social
media.
Results & Discussion
Out of the selected interviews, users (in the 18-21 age group) use social media heavily
Conclusion
References
Barton, D., & Lee, C. (2013). Language online: investigating digital texts and practices. London: Routledge.
Centeno, D., & Wang, J. J. (2016). Celebrities As Human Brands: An Inquiry On Stakeholder
Millennials attitudes and purchase intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,32, 39-
45.
Meyer, D. S., & Gamson, J. (1995). The Challenge of Cultural Elites: Celebrities and Social
Schulman, E. (1999). Can Fame Be Measured Quantitatively? Annals of Improbable Research, 5, 16.
Thurlow, C., & Bell, K. (2009). Against Technologization: Young Peoples New Media Discourse
West, D. (2005). American Politics in the Age of Celebrity. The Hedgehog Review, 7(1): 59 65.