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Celebrity Politics: a Theoretical and Historical Perspective

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A Genre Approach to Celebrity Politics
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Abstract

From its early beginnings in the early 1950s until today, the study of celebrities as a social phenomenon has been linked to the rise of the mass media and entertainment industries. The pioneering works in this field were particularly emphatic regarding celebrities’ lack of power in comparison to other influential groups within society, resulting in the perception that issues regarding celebrities and institutional power or party politics were not discussed not because they were neglected, but because celebrity politics is a relatively recent phenomenon. While there is a broad consensus among researchers on the impact of mass media on celebrity culture as a whole, it is quite illuminating to note that the first academic essays and references to celebrities as a social group appeared only with the emergence of television as mass consumption product.

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Notes

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© 2015 Nahuel Ribke

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Ribke, N. (2015). Celebrity Politics: a Theoretical and Historical Perspective. In: A Genre Approach to Celebrity Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137409393_1

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