Celebrity Capital

Barrie Gunter

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781628927375
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Celebrities attract the attention of commercial interests and other public figures. They receive payments from sponsors to endorse brands. They are sought out to appear with politicians during election campaigns. They are used to promote health messages. In other words, celebrities are often perceived to possess qualities that give them special value or what we will refer to here as 'celebrity capital'. This means that celebrities are regarded as being able to add premium value to specific objects, events, and issues and hence render these items more valuable or effective. Employing an interesting and new approach to the growing scholarly interest in celebrity culture, Barrie Gunter uses the idea of value as expressed through the term 'capital'. Capital usually refers to the monetary worth of something. Celebrity capital however can be measured in economic terms but also in social, political and psychological terms. Research from around the world has been collated to provide an evidence-based analysis of the value of celebrity in the 21st century and how it can be systematically assessed. Including further reading for students, key points and end of chapter discussion questions, Gunter creates the first methodology to assess the value of fame.

1

What is Celebrity Capital?

We live in a world fascinated and in many ways increasingly preoccupied with celebrity. For many young people today, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, they reply saying they want to be famous. Intriguingly, they do not qualify this remark by stating something – a special skill or talent perhaps that they wish to acquire and cultivate – that they seek to be known for. Instead, they seek fame and the public admiration or celebration that it often attracts for its own sake in the belief that it carries with it some special status from which they can and will benefit. Advantages of ‘being famous’ are imagined to be manifold. Perhaps with it you will get a better table at restaurants, get upgraded at airline check-ins, and if you are a guy have attractive girls offering you sex free or if you are a girl get your own branded clothing or cosmetics range without needing to go to design school. Thus, celebrity has value in its own right. Or as this book will question, it has ‘capital’ – or does it?

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of celebrity states simply that it is a famous person. The word derives from the Old French celebrite or Latin celebritas meaning frequented or honoured. Celebrity is therefore linked to the idea of celebration, but in this case, the celebration is not of an event but of a person who has attained a degree of ‘fame’. In early uses of the term, it was generally used to refer to someone who was being much talked about by others. For a person to be talked about in the days before the modern mass media, of course, fame was established on a different scale. Word of mouth was the principal form of communication.

Although cultural icons could be celebrated through works of art in the form of drawings, sculptures and writing throughout the classical civilizations of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians and Romans and beyond, the ‘audiences’ for these communications were limited in size and geographical distribution. If celebrities did exist they tended to be locally known public figures – mainly the rulers and leading thinkers of the day. As technological developments produced print communications that were more portable during the Renaissance and Reformation periods across the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and the works of philosophers, scientists, and writers spread across wider geographical boundaries, new forms of celebrated public figure emerged linked to the arts and sciences (see Leslie, 2011).

We might still not recognize these public figures in the way we do the ‘celebrities’ of today. Academics such as Professors Niall Ferguson, Richard Feynman and Brian Cox might be classed as celebrated experts in their fields, but their celebrity profiles take on a different hue from those of Rene Descartes or Isaac Newton in their heyday. One reason for this is that celebrity today is bound up tightly with the mass media that endow public figures with a status that places them apart from the masses. To qualify as members of the celebrity club, celebrities must be ubiquitous on a large scale and possess rare qualities that give them a certain degree of exclusivity (Currid-Halkett, 2010). This combination of attributes requires a particular kind of media environment that only began to appear in the eighteenth century with the establishment of the earliest wide circulation newspapers. As we will see, their distinctive attribute profile in turn lends celebrities a premium value or ‘capital’ in the eyes of the general public that forms a currency that can be utilized elsewhere. It is this aspect of celebrity that we will examine more closely in this book.

Thus, we can say that in contemporary society, a ‘celebrity’ is a person who has a high public profile, usually promoted by appearances in the mass media and they are consequently readily recognized by others. We might all claim to be recognized by people we know, but celebrities are recognized by people who they do not know personally. Celebrities frequently are characterized by exceptional or extraordinary qualities in terms of their abilities, attractiveness, personalities and lifestyles. Today, however, becoming a ‘celebrity’ or a figure that is celebrated by the mass media is not contingent on having any special talent. Celebrities are also defined by the people they hang out with – usually other celebrities. As some astute observers have noted, celebrities are also distinguished by the places where they can often be found (Currid-Halkett, 2010). Sometimes, a celebrity can only be a ‘celebrity’ if they go to certain events or are seen in certain places. Celebrity status is not guaranteed for life, it can fluctuate and not all members of this exclusive community have the same status. Celebrities feed off other celebrities in terms of enhancing their celebrity status and they do this by keeping the company of each other, especially on occasions that will be witnessed by lots of people (Currid-Halkett, 2010).

Celebrities are often linked to specific types of occupation. These will tend to be occupations that propel them into the public spotlight. Traditionally, celebrities are the most successful within their field and they are therefore characterized not just by being recognizable but also by being successful or talented. Hence, leading actors, artists, entertainers, musicians, singers, sports stars and writers dominate in celebrity communities. In addition, highly successful entrepreneurs and business people, lawyers, politicians, medical practitioners and scientists can achieve celebrity status if they are regularly featured in media coverage (Leslie, 2011). Celebrities are also iconic aspects and outcomes of the cultures in which they are created. They represent role models that stand apart from the masses because of specific and often special qualities they possess or are believed to have (Rojek, 2001). In today’s media-saturated world however the community of celebrities has expanded as more individuals are able to command mass attention courtesy of digital communications networks that remove the need for mediators in the shape of media gatekeepers who used to control access to mass audiences.

Celebrities are not just social role models whose actions or statements can influence the many, they are also cultural commodities and their value is increasingly calculated in terms of their ability to generate financial gain for others. As such, celebrities can have real and significant monetary value for others who use these iconic figures to promote their interests. The capability of celebrities to generate financial returns therefore in effect bestows upon them a ‘capital’ value in real monetary terms. As we will see, however, ‘capital’ as an indicator of value can be measured in many other ways.

Taking this point further, for some writers, ‘celebrity’ is a creation of capitalism. It was this analysis that led to the idea that celebrities can be conceived as commodities. This conception also differentiates ‘celebrity’ from ‘fame’ with the latter being an outcome of having achieved a sufficient level of public visibility to be widely known. Being well known is an aspect of celebrity but does not define it (Collins, 2008).

The earliest forms of the modern mass media – initially in the form of mass produced printed material – contributed to the creation of this concept of celebrity as commodity when highly visible people who were known for their creations – whether as artists, poets, writers or performers – received orchestrated publicity to cultivate a specific type of image. Although maintenance of a high level of public visibility was a key purpose of this activity, it was equally important that a specific type of reputation circulated about the individual with fame so that they not only knew about them but also held them in high regard. This in turn would serve to popularize their outputs and enhance the extent to which they could be monetized. This growth of the celebrity as commodity accompanied the emergence also of an increasingly ‘commoditized’ cultural environment that characterized capitalist societies (Ewen, 1988; Gabler, 1998).

Celebrities that emerged out of specific cultural products such as films or radio or television broadcasts had dual value and identity. They were ingredients of cultural outputs that had economic value and they were cultural commodities in their own right that also had economic worth (Dyer, 1986). In the Hollywood movie industry, ‘stars’ emerged and could attain enormous economic value for studios with the power to determine the box office success of a new movie release. They also stood apart from the movies in which they appeared with a value all of their own that rendered them attractive in other settings, such as magazines, public, private and corporate events, and advertising, where they were perceived to add value for others in terms of status, publicity, and sales and through which their own economic value was indicated (de Cordova, 1990; McDonald, 2000).

For producers, all this mix of celebrity performance indicators proves to be invaluable in determining the ongoing value of any one ‘celebrity’. This assessment is essential when cultural commodities can require significant upfront investment and investors need to know they will get a good return. The job of producers is to ensure that the best interests of investors are catered to. This places them in the risk management business. They must therefore trust in the reputation of a celebrity to deliver audiences and the revenue they can generate (Miege, 1989).

The decisions that take place within the political economy of cultural production centre on risk management. Audience tastes can vary and they can change over time. Cultural producers engage in a form of risk management practice based on diversification of cultural outputs in the hope that some will resonate successfully and profitably with some sectors of their markets at least some of the time (Garnham, 1990; Hesmondhalgh, 2002).

Being successful in the marketing of celebrity therefore also means having a keen awareness of the shifting sands of audience tastes and more than this the diversity of tastes that exist across fragmented audiences or ‘niches’. The value of celebrity derives from raising a performer’s visibility in mass markets or relevant niche markets and following that up with successful and sustained delivery of satisfaction to audiences (Magder, 2004). This outcome can be achieved in part through the celebrity’s own performance and also through the choice by producers of cultural commodities of effective publicity and commodity distribution strategies (Garnham, 1990).

Diverse celebrity capitals

As this book unfolds it will become apparent that the value of celebrity and fame can be determined in a multitude of ways. What really makes a celebrity potentially valuable is that they possess different kinds of ‘capital’. Capital here can be measured in monetary terms, but also in other ways. This includes consumer capital, economic capital, political capital, and social and psychological capital. Celebrities have idiosyncratic value as brand endorsers who can be used to persuade consumers to make specific purchase decisions. In joining with sponsors, they can add value to a company’s stock market valuation. Conversely, if a celebrity’s reputation takes a tumble this can impact upon the corporate value of sponsors linked to them. Celebrities can promote politicians, political allegiances and political causes. Celebrities can also add value to the lives of members of the public, serving as social role models and sources of psychological companionship. In this book, we will examine and explore the nature of each of these types of celebrity ‘capital’ in assessing the value and importance of celebrity in the world today.

A brief history of celebrity

The presence of mediated coverage and publicity has always played a crucial part in the creation of celebrities. Celebrity has often grown out of major social events which even before the era of electronic mass communications attracted the attention of the many. The close links between sport and celebrity exemplify this phenomenon and date back to Greek and Roman times when the first major sports contests were held. Often the contestants were not volunteers but were slaves forced to compete. The best and most successful competitors – whether free men and women or not – often acquired significant fan bases. Their fame was enhanced by having their likeness or image represented in works of art.

Further, among the early celebrity figures were men of power – politicians and royalty – whose portraits appeared on coins, sculptures and paintings that were on public display. As societies evolved, even before the celebrity game-changing era of the modern mass media, new celebrity figures emerged in competition to nation states’ leaders in the form of artists, poets and writers. While the twentieth century saw the emergence of Hollywood film actors, over a century earlier the acting profession that was situated in the theatre was a further source of societal icons who enjoyed wide public acclaim (Inglis, 2010).

Coins, engravings, paintings and statues were the early media. Once paper and presses were invented, images could be represented and circulated in books, pamphlets and eventually news sheets. Initially, these representations took the form of sketches and paintings and later as photographs. Subsequently celluloid, light screens and plastic tape saw not just still likenesses but also dynamic moving representations of famous people distributed and preserved on film, television and video (Leslie, 2011).

Historically, a primary criterion of ‘celebrity’ status was achievement. Hence celebrities were defined by events and how they performed in them. Their personal qualities as demonstrated through their deeds were the determinants of their social status and public...