Dear readers, I would like to recomend you some of the blogs I had a chance to read in my "spare" time! Works of some of my classmates are very interesting and in many cases I would say even professional.
Social Networking Effects
http://faltovam.blogspot.com/
If you are a facebook or myspace user, you should definitelly visit Martina's blog. I have higlhy enjoyed not only interesing articles about social networking, but also posted videos and links.
Effect of Music on Society
http://emosic.blogspot.com/
Nicolai's blog shows and explains the new trend of EMO and murder music and its conscequences. In my opinion, the topic for this blog was very carefully and deeply researched and the blog itself is very readable and understandable. For me, as a EMO music listener, I have appreciated the examples of symptoms we can observe in people who are being affected by EMO or murder music or falling into depression.
Representation of the Physically Disabled in Media
http://seenequal.blogspot.com/
Being physically diabled in today's world should be easier than it was twenty years ago, but Sona's blog, with its interesting article about healthy person experiencing the life of a person using a wheelchair, shows that it is not easy at all. I recommend this page to everyone who has at least a bit of understanding in his/her heart for disabled people in general.
Mediated Sports
http://mediasporteffect.blogspot.com/
Since I am an active sports(wo)man, this blog draw my attention right away. Peter has done a great job in showing negative effect of mediating sport not only on society but also on the sport itself. In my opinion, sport should be cleansed of all the scandals and its original value should be restorted.
Pro-social advertising
http://prosocialadvertising.blogspot.com/
Veronika's blog about pro-social advertising should catch an eye of everyone who is interested in advertising and its effects. This blog perfectly shows that advertising does not always have to have negativa connotations, moreover can be helpful in many cases. Veronika has done a great job in researching the issue and writing an academic and professional blog which is worth visiting.
Jan 16, 2009
Jan 9, 2009
Intorduction
Dear readers,
Thank you for visiting by Media Literacy Project website.
The topic for discussion on this blog is Celebrity Influence.
What do we think about celebrities? They are always beautiful, have no problems in their lives and simply enjoy their perfectness. It is easy to believe that those idolized personas are real, but the media technology with Photoshop and modern medicine with steroids, weight reducing medicaments, and plastic surgeries have to be considered when thinking about their truthfulness. Media create celebrities in order to use them later for their own purposes in influencing their audiences, such as advertising and higher ratings of their programs. Logically, the more the person is seen in media, the more influential he/she becomes overtime. However, with rising power of celebrities, secondary effects start occurring. Their influences changes from direct and wanted to indirect and unwanted. Nevertheless, media have quickly dealt with the secondary “negative” influence, changing it into profitable reality shows as will be discussed in one of the two article discussions posting. My aim in creating this blog was not only to show how media use their created celebrities to influence the public but also how celebrities, from their own initiative, try to help in issues in which they are able to help.
Thank you for visiting by Media Literacy Project website.
The topic for discussion on this blog is Celebrity Influence.
What do we think about celebrities? They are always beautiful, have no problems in their lives and simply enjoy their perfectness. It is easy to believe that those idolized personas are real, but the media technology with Photoshop and modern medicine with steroids, weight reducing medicaments, and plastic surgeries have to be considered when thinking about their truthfulness. Media create celebrities in order to use them later for their own purposes in influencing their audiences, such as advertising and higher ratings of their programs. Logically, the more the person is seen in media, the more influential he/she becomes overtime. However, with rising power of celebrities, secondary effects start occurring. Their influences changes from direct and wanted to indirect and unwanted. Nevertheless, media have quickly dealt with the secondary “negative” influence, changing it into profitable reality shows as will be discussed in one of the two article discussions posting. My aim in creating this blog was not only to show how media use their created celebrities to influence the public but also how celebrities, from their own initiative, try to help in issues in which they are able to help.
Current Event: 5 Friends PSAs
The 2008 Presidential elections in The United States of America have experienced one of the highest voting rates in its history. It was measured that the sum of votes for all candidates exceeded 131 million which in other words means that 63% of eligible voters in the whole United States came to the polls. (Leip, 2008) This turnout is the highest since 1960. Certainly, 2008 elections were very important for the both international and domestic politics, but all the same were elections in 2004. Why then as high percentage of people participated in the elections?
There can be many factors influencing people’s attitude towards voting. One of them might also have been “5 friends” vote Public Service Announcement videos. In partnership with Google, YouTube, Declare Yourself, and MySpace, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company created two clips in which celebrities encourage people to vote. (binside.typepad.com) The first clip was published / put online on October 1st, 2008. (Vena, October 29, 2008) The video features actors as well as comedians and singers who initially claim that voting is nonsense and that people should not vote because they cannot influence anything. During the video, celebrities change their opinion and after naming issues of interest for which ordinary people should care, they urge the viewers to register for voting. Consequently, a website for registering is shown and in the end of the spot, celebrities encourage viewers to send their video to 5 other people who did not register yet. It is claimed that “5 Friends” video has been viewed more than 5 million times. Moreover, “major voter-registration sites have reported that more than 300,000 new voters registered due to the video alone.” (Vena, October 29, 2008)
After the success of the first video, another one was published almost a month later, on October 29, 2008. The flow of the second spot is similar to the first one and together with celebrities it shows ordinary people who present their reason for voting in the Presidential Election of 2008.
The PSAs, published on the internet and created by celebrities in order to raise the number of people participating in the elections, were undoubtedly influential. In this case, celebrity influence was direct, wanted and helpful.
Reference list:
Leip,D. (2008). Results. Election 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2008, from http://uselectionatlas.org/2008.php
5 More friends uncensored Hollywood declares themselves don’t vote PSAvideo part 2. (2008) Binside TV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://binside.typepad.com/binside_tv/2008/10/hollywood-decla.html
Vena, J. (October 1, 2008) Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Usher, many more urge people to vote in ‘5 Friends’ video. MTV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1596077/20081001/usher.jhtml
Vena, J. (October 29, 2008) Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Usher, more encourage voting with ‘5 More Friends’ video. MTV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598154/20081029/timberlake_justin.jhtml
There can be many factors influencing people’s attitude towards voting. One of them might also have been “5 friends” vote Public Service Announcement videos. In partnership with Google, YouTube, Declare Yourself, and MySpace, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company created two clips in which celebrities encourage people to vote. (binside.typepad.com) The first clip was published / put online on October 1st, 2008. (Vena, October 29, 2008) The video features actors as well as comedians and singers who initially claim that voting is nonsense and that people should not vote because they cannot influence anything. During the video, celebrities change their opinion and after naming issues of interest for which ordinary people should care, they urge the viewers to register for voting. Consequently, a website for registering is shown and in the end of the spot, celebrities encourage viewers to send their video to 5 other people who did not register yet. It is claimed that “5 Friends” video has been viewed more than 5 million times. Moreover, “major voter-registration sites have reported that more than 300,000 new voters registered due to the video alone.” (Vena, October 29, 2008)
After the success of the first video, another one was published almost a month later, on October 29, 2008. The flow of the second spot is similar to the first one and together with celebrities it shows ordinary people who present their reason for voting in the Presidential Election of 2008.
The PSAs, published on the internet and created by celebrities in order to raise the number of people participating in the elections, were undoubtedly influential. In this case, celebrity influence was direct, wanted and helpful.
Reference list:
Leip,D. (2008). Results. Election 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2008, from http://uselectionatlas.org/2008.php
5 More friends uncensored Hollywood declares themselves don’t vote PSAvideo part 2. (2008) Binside TV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://binside.typepad.com/binside_tv/2008/10/hollywood-decla.html
Vena, J. (October 1, 2008) Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Usher, many more urge people to vote in ‘5 Friends’ video. MTV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1596077/20081001/usher.jhtml
Vena, J. (October 29, 2008) Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Usher, more encourage voting with ‘5 More Friends’ video. MTV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598154/20081029/timberlake_justin.jhtml
Current Event: Chariting Celebrities
Czech media lately started giving more support and space in their broadcasting plans to charities and humanitarian organizations. Newly it starts broadcasting UNICEF “Child survival” campaign from the year 2007, featured by celebrities, which tries to persuade the viewers to donate a certain amount of money to UNICEF foundation.
Celebrities in this Public Service Announcement are so called Good Will Ambassadors. There are three possible ambassador degrees based on the area of their activity. The lowest level is National Ambassador of whom every state in the world has at least one. Second level is Regional Ambassador who manages one of the five world regions. Those are: Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, and Francophone countries. The highest level of participation is to be an International Ambassador. The list of all ambassadors can be find at the official UNICEF websites.
Besides from their original profession, charity is often the activity which takes up the most of celebrity’s time. Donations directly from celebrities are not unusual (some of them are very generous) but still their face often makes more money than they are able or willing to donate. Their media appearance is then incredibly important while representing an organization. For example, when media takes up something negative about the given person, it may affect the total amount of charity’s disposable money due to the possible decline of number of donors. Therefore, the aid performed by this charity is smaller than it would be without its representative being medially scandalized. Media plays a crucial role in determining celebrity’s worthiness and thus are the most influential factor in people’s decision to donate money to an organization.
It is important to help those in need and in this matter celebrities have the power to actually do something for the society. Celebrity example should be followed and their influence in this matter can be extremely positive.
For the complete list of celebrities participating in charity organizations, please visit www.looktothestars.org.
Reference list:
LeMoyne,R. Goodwill Ambassdors. Unicef People. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.unicef.org/people/people_ambassadors.html
Celebrities in this Public Service Announcement are so called Good Will Ambassadors. There are three possible ambassador degrees based on the area of their activity. The lowest level is National Ambassador of whom every state in the world has at least one. Second level is Regional Ambassador who manages one of the five world regions. Those are: Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, and Francophone countries. The highest level of participation is to be an International Ambassador. The list of all ambassadors can be find at the official UNICEF websites.
Besides from their original profession, charity is often the activity which takes up the most of celebrity’s time. Donations directly from celebrities are not unusual (some of them are very generous) but still their face often makes more money than they are able or willing to donate. Their media appearance is then incredibly important while representing an organization. For example, when media takes up something negative about the given person, it may affect the total amount of charity’s disposable money due to the possible decline of number of donors. Therefore, the aid performed by this charity is smaller than it would be without its representative being medially scandalized. Media plays a crucial role in determining celebrity’s worthiness and thus are the most influential factor in people’s decision to donate money to an organization.
It is important to help those in need and in this matter celebrities have the power to actually do something for the society. Celebrity example should be followed and their influence in this matter can be extremely positive.
For the complete list of celebrities participating in charity organizations, please visit www.looktothestars.org.
Reference list:
LeMoyne,R. Goodwill Ambassdors. Unicef People. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.unicef.org/people/people_ambassadors.html
Article discussion: I want a famous face
The article PLASTIC SURGERY SPECIAL: I want a famous face by Jenny Watson handles the topic of popular MTV reality show in which participants chose to undergo a set of plastic surgeries to change themselves into their favorite celebrity. It clearly describes what some of the participants went through. It explains their reason for undergoing the surgery and reveals their dis/satisfaction with their final looks. It is interesting to distinguish to what degree are participants obsessed with the person whose clone they are about to become. What is it that makes them believe that celebrities are better than the ordinary people? The answer is more than easy: Media portrayal.
Celebrities logically have the greatest influence on the trends in fashion, hairstyles and also human life-styles. Newly it seems, they have even more influence since people are literally trying to look like them. Fortunately, there are celebrities who realize the threats of multiple plastic surgery. Drew Barrymore is one of them. When she discovered that one of her fans wanted to participate in the reality show, “the star called the girl and told her, Youre beautiful just the way you are and the fan cancelled the surgery.” (Watson, 2008)
For the rest of the article, please visit :
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20050710/ai_n14721438/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 .
Reference list:
Watson, J. (2005, July 10). Plastic surgery special: I want a famous face. Sunday Mirror. Retrieved http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20050710/ai_n14721438/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1
Article discussion: Auto-erotic asphyxia
A transcript of news report from August 18th, 1999, shows the conversation between Britain’s Channel 4 reporter Marc Tamhane and Paula Yates, an ex-partner of Michael Hutchins, the lead singer of popular Australian rock band INXS. The topic of their talk is the cause of Michael’s death on November 22nd, 1997 – auto-erotic asphyxia. Although Hutchins was not a typical celebrity, he had thousands of fans and certainly had a huge audience who listened to his band. This case was given a great amount of media coverage, especially because of the discrepancies in coroner’s finding which did not accord with the evidence from the scene of the crime. Within the circle of his fans, who wanted to purify their idol from in memoriam media scandal, it was claimed that Hutchins used asphyxia for getting into special mind states from which he then draw inspiration in creating his music.
One of my friends, also a singer in a rock band, was an admirer of INXS music and wondered what was the truth reason behind Hutchins’ actions. And in Yates words, “because people do do these things, lots of people do these things.“ (Tamhane, 1999) My friend died on May 31, 2005.
For the whole transcript, visit:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s44843.htm
Reference list:
Tamhane, M. (August 18, 1999) Transcript:Yates-Hutchence affairs takes another lurid twist. ABC Local Radio. Retrieved http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s44843.htm
One of my friends, also a singer in a rock band, was an admirer of INXS music and wondered what was the truth reason behind Hutchins’ actions. And in Yates words, “because people do do these things, lots of people do these things.“ (Tamhane, 1999) My friend died on May 31, 2005.
For the whole transcript, visit:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s44843.htm
Reference list:
Tamhane, M. (August 18, 1999) Transcript:Yates-Hutchence affairs takes another lurid twist. ABC Local Radio. Retrieved http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s44843.htm
Recommendation
http://media.www.hartfordinformer.com/media/storage/paper146/news/2006/10/19/Entertainment/Celebrity.Influence.On.American.Society-2377643-page2.shtml
Article posted on this website basically summarizes celebrity influence on American audience and explains the reasons why are Americans so obsessed with the glamorous lives of celebrities. On one hand it mentions stars cooperation with charity but on the other hand it is critical to their behavior in other aspects of live.
http://www.celebrityendorsement.com/index.htm
Celebrity Endorsement Network is a mediator between advertising agencies and celebrities. This agency offers everything from consultations, through celebrity profiling and background research, to contract negotiations. The fact that celebrity advertising becomes one of the most popular forms of advertising in today’s media, gives a rise to new forms of business like this one.
http://www.topsocialite.com/celebrities-without-makeup/
The ones we look up to do not always look as great, as we think they do. See the link above for an invitation into an ordinary live of celebrities and be honest to yourself; don’t you look better right after you wake up than those celebrities in the middle of the day?
Article posted on this website basically summarizes celebrity influence on American audience and explains the reasons why are Americans so obsessed with the glamorous lives of celebrities. On one hand it mentions stars cooperation with charity but on the other hand it is critical to their behavior in other aspects of live.
http://www.celebrityendorsement.com/index.htm
Celebrity Endorsement Network is a mediator between advertising agencies and celebrities. This agency offers everything from consultations, through celebrity profiling and background research, to contract negotiations. The fact that celebrity advertising becomes one of the most popular forms of advertising in today’s media, gives a rise to new forms of business like this one.
http://www.topsocialite.com/celebrities-without-makeup/
The ones we look up to do not always look as great, as we think they do. See the link above for an invitation into an ordinary live of celebrities and be honest to yourself; don’t you look better right after you wake up than those celebrities in the middle of the day?
Academic Essay
Origin of the world celebrity “comes from the Latin word ‘celebritatem’ meaning, literally, ‘condition of being famous’.” (inrebus.com) This condition is described as a state of being recognized for who a person is, not for what is he/she doing. But the question is how a person becomes a celebrity? How can someone get recognized? The immediate answer claims that the main cause for celebrity even to exist is media interest in such person. In today’s world, practically no one would be able to become a celebrity without media because media are managing all the information in the world.
There are three possible areas of media interest while creating a celebrity. The first one is heritable interest. This includes for example royal families. In Britain, the royal family is always number one topic in entertaining media. The journalists watch all generations and relatives of the family and daily offer the public the newest information about their favorite sovereign.
The second possibility of becoming a celebrity is simply to “go for it.” Those people are basically doing everything to draw media’s attention to themselves. A person can either constantly work on his/her image and become famous with time, which is logically time-consuming and demands strong will and a lot of hard work, or the other way is to be “quick-fermented.” This label refers to someone who has very fast and strong entrance into public sub consciousness. An example of the first method would be actors who started in small regional theaters, going through national theater, and than passing onto television. Those celebrities are usually perceived positively by its audiences because the public can appreciate their hard work and realize that those people should be recognized for their actions. An example of the second method would be new partners of existing celebrities.
The last way of becoming famous is simply an “accident” for which media create an interest in a given person, for example public heroes. However, those stars have a very short live-span since the topic of their story is quickly exhaustible.
When a celebrity exists, media has to “take care of its baby” by keeping the public up to date with the stars live story. Moreover it is also up to the media to decide whether the celebrity will be fancied or hated by choosing its type of media coverage. Again, there are two possible ways in which celebrities are being portrayed. The first one is covering only the positives about given persona and overriding all scandals, making those invisible to the public. In this case, celebrity’s impression is positive and its influence on its public is much higher than in the second case because this celebrity is taken seriously. The second way of portraying is rather for public entertainment and tries to discredit the people for everything they do. This approach of media also highly influences public opinion on the celebrity and creates a negative stance towards them.
To conclude, it should be stated that celebrities would not have any influence on people if it was not for the media who arranged their existence and created their public image. The way how celebrities influence you, my readers, is absolutely your decision since it is not very hard to distinguish media’s intention while giving coverage to certain celebrity. Let them have some positive effect on you.
Reference list:
Latin Languages and its vicinities online. (January 3, 2008). In Rebus. Retrieved January 5, 2009, from http://www.inrebus.com/index.php?entry=entry080103-161402
There are three possible areas of media interest while creating a celebrity. The first one is heritable interest. This includes for example royal families. In Britain, the royal family is always number one topic in entertaining media. The journalists watch all generations and relatives of the family and daily offer the public the newest information about their favorite sovereign.
The second possibility of becoming a celebrity is simply to “go for it.” Those people are basically doing everything to draw media’s attention to themselves. A person can either constantly work on his/her image and become famous with time, which is logically time-consuming and demands strong will and a lot of hard work, or the other way is to be “quick-fermented.” This label refers to someone who has very fast and strong entrance into public sub consciousness. An example of the first method would be actors who started in small regional theaters, going through national theater, and than passing onto television. Those celebrities are usually perceived positively by its audiences because the public can appreciate their hard work and realize that those people should be recognized for their actions. An example of the second method would be new partners of existing celebrities.
The last way of becoming famous is simply an “accident” for which media create an interest in a given person, for example public heroes. However, those stars have a very short live-span since the topic of their story is quickly exhaustible.
When a celebrity exists, media has to “take care of its baby” by keeping the public up to date with the stars live story. Moreover it is also up to the media to decide whether the celebrity will be fancied or hated by choosing its type of media coverage. Again, there are two possible ways in which celebrities are being portrayed. The first one is covering only the positives about given persona and overriding all scandals, making those invisible to the public. In this case, celebrity’s impression is positive and its influence on its public is much higher than in the second case because this celebrity is taken seriously. The second way of portraying is rather for public entertainment and tries to discredit the people for everything they do. This approach of media also highly influences public opinion on the celebrity and creates a negative stance towards them.
To conclude, it should be stated that celebrities would not have any influence on people if it was not for the media who arranged their existence and created their public image. The way how celebrities influence you, my readers, is absolutely your decision since it is not very hard to distinguish media’s intention while giving coverage to certain celebrity. Let them have some positive effect on you.
Reference list:
Latin Languages and its vicinities online. (January 3, 2008). In Rebus. Retrieved January 5, 2009, from http://www.inrebus.com/index.php?entry=entry080103-161402
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