Abstract
This response to the special issue on ‘Governing Celebrity: Multiculturalism, Offensive Television Content and Celebrity Big Brother’ highlights its contribution to key socio-legal debates about popular legal consciousness, responsive regulation and social change through law. The response also discusses some of the methodological challenges posed by research into media regulation. How should such research be theoretically framed and is it necessary to distinguish clearly between deconstructionist and modernist understandings of human rights? Are social-psychological dynamics a relevant factor for explaining whether some forms of speech become labelled as racist? The concluding section provides suggestions for further research into the patterns that shape how socio-legal researchers read the social world and how the opening up of a new field of inquiry – the governance of celebrity – can be extended to understanding celebrity politics.
Highlights
Dania Thomas‟ contribution further adds to the theme of fragmentation of law in popular legal 5 consciousness by highlighting that TV viewers‟ complaints were not indicative of support for racial equality but only objected to a particular form of „racism lite‟, that is racist statements in the context of a reality TV show from which contestants – including Shilpa Shetty - would reap significant economic benefits
The special issue of the journal, raises questions about how its various 8 contributions approach the discussion of key socio -legal issues
British TV viewers to complain to Ofcom about Jade Goody‟s and some of her fellow contestants‟ comments about Shilpa Shetty? Perhaps as Edwina C urrie‟s unmeasured response to the C BB race row during the „Question Time‟ TV program seems to suggest - in which she contrasted the „beautiful lady‟ Shilpa with the three „slags‟, who were „witches with a capital “B”‟ (Sue Holmes, para. 5) - those character traits we find difficult to accept within ourselves we must reject so vehemently when we observe them in others, that at the end our responses do not seem to be so different from those of the people we accuse of inappropriate behaviour
Summary
This response to the special issue on ‘Governing Celebrity: Multiculturalism, Offensive Television Content and Celebrity Big Brother’ highlights its contribution to key socio -legal debates about popular legal consciousness, responsive regulation and social change through law. Gies‟ contribution focuses on the local construction of the meaningof human rights in a specific context, the aftermath of the C BB program in January 2007 in Britain She confirms the idea that popular legal consciousness should be understood as a cultural practice http://go.warwick.ac.uk/es lj/ iss ues/volume7/number2/ la nge in which consciousness can be unstable, inconsistent and fragmented Dania Thomas‟ contribution further adds to the theme of fragmentation of law in popular legal 5 consciousness by highlighting that TV viewers‟ complaints were not indicative of support for racial equality but only objected to a particular form of „racism lite‟, that is racist statements in the context of a reality TV show from which contestants – including Shilpa Shetty - would reap significant economic benefits.
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