Celebrity and Youth

Mediated Audiences, Fame Aspirations, and Identity Formation

Spring-Serenity Duvall, Sharon R. Mazzarella

• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781433143106
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781433143113
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Celebrity and Youth: Mediated Audiences, Fame Aspirations, and Identity Formation makes an examination of contemporary celebrity culture with an emphasis on how young celebrities are manufactured, how fan communities are cultivated, and how young audiences consume and aspire to fame. This book foregrounds considerations of diversity within celebrity and fan cultures, and takes an international perspective on the production of stardom. Chapters include interviews with professional athletes in the United States about their experiences with stardom after coming out as gay, and interviews with young people in Europe about their consumption of celebrity and aspirations of achieving fame via social media. Other chapters include interviews with young Canadian women that illuminate the potential influence of famous feminists on audience political engagement, and critical analysis of media narratives about race, happiness, cultural appropriation, and popular feminisms. The current anthology brings together scholarship from Canada, the United States, Spain, and Portugal to demonstrate the pervasive reach of global celebrity, as well as the commonality of youth experiences with celebrity in diverse cultural settings.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introduction (Spring-Serenity Duvall)
• Chapter 1: Social Media Celebrities as Salient Resource for Preteens’ Identity Work (Annebeth Bels / Hilde Van den Bulck)
• Chapter 2: WTF: Digital Ambassadors for the Young Generation? (Ana Jorge / Thays Nunes)
• Chapter 3: “INSANE PREGNANCY PRANK ON BOYFRIEND!”: Performing Gender, Domestic Assault, and Sexism via Couple’s Prank Videos on YouTube (Jessica Birthisel)
• Chapter 4: Adolescents as Cultural Activists: Remixing Celebrities in Fandom Communities (Pilar Lacasa / Julián de la Fuente / Sara Cortés / María Ruth García-Pernía)
• Chapter 5: Out in Play: Openly Gay Male Athletes Navigate Media, Celebrity, and Fandom (Leigh M. Moscowitz / Andrew C. Billings)
• Chapter 6: Believing in Emma Watson: Casual Fandom and Emerging Feminism in Audience Support for the United Nations #HeForShe Campaign (Spring-Serenity Duvall)
• Chapter 7: Under Western (Girls’) Eyes: Cultural Appropriation and Feminism in the Celebrity Fashion of Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid (Jessica E. Johnston)
• Chapter 8: All-American Girls: Examining the Media Coverage of Malia and Sasha Obama as Young Political Celebrities (Newly Paul)
• Chapter 9: Getting “Out of the Woods” and Coming “Clean”: Narrating Happiness in the Music and Celebrity of Taylor Swift (Maghan Molloy Jackson)
• About the Contributors
• Index