Celebrity

Abstract

Celebrity culture is a vibrant and rapidly expanding facet of the contemporary mediascape and it has aroused analysis both in the media and in the humanities and social sciences. Fame is central to the production of meaning in modern everyday life: Hollywood stars personify the desire for social mobility; social media microcelebrities embody the cultural logic of self‐branding that values visibility in the competitive economy of attention; and reality TV celebrities reify the cultural hierarchies at play in celebrity culture. These forms of media visibility are tied to specific gendered form of embodiment and consumption. Not only is the production and circulation of fame gendered, but fan and audience engagement with stars also informs complex processes of gender identification. Consequently, critical inquiries into regimes of fame are crucial to understanding modalities of public personhood in consumerist capitalism. The polysemy of celebrity makes it an important field of inquiry within media studies, rife with social, political, and cultural implications.