Public Persona Research Articles

Pronoun shifts in political discourse

Abstract This article examines the English translations of former Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s statements on the international stage and the shifts in the first-person pronoun. Looking at interpersonal positioning through a systemic functional linguistic lens, we found that the translations underline the explicitness of agency, highlighting the variation of stylistic choices and interplay with source-text politics. The shifts come with a modified degree of willingness, a more active agency, an increase in the modality of inclination, and more force in attitude. These interpersonal overtones largely contribute to recasting the image of the Thai government to ensure its legitimacy, promote national unity, and appeal to the international community. These crafted translated texts seem to hone the leader’s public persona in front of global audiences by continuing to enhance the country’s reputation, thereby maintaining the speaker’s dignity and prestige–an essential for the national leader’s image.

Influencers as role models

ABSTRACT The claim that celebrities have special duties to be good role models is prominent in the philosophical literature on fame. We investigate whether these arguments can be extended to social media influencers. According to the role model argument, the fact that celebrities are widely known and admired gives them a high degree of influence over others’ behaviours. This gives them strong moral reasons to act as a good example to others. While celebrities have a right to privacy, this is forfeited when they choose to open their private lives to the public or present themselves as role models. Influencers seem to be paradigmatic examples of celebrities who have strong duties to be good role models; they are the focus of high levels of attention and admiration, and offer their private lives for public consumption. However, we argue that influencers do not have stronger duties to be a role model in comparison to traditional celebrities. Influencers generally do not present genuine versions of their private lives to the public, but rather curated public personas. Influencers should be entitled to the same privacy protections as other celebrities, provided they are transparent about the accuracy of what they represent as their private life.

Royalty and Its Representation in Popular Culture

Royalty and Its Representation in Popular Culture

The Royal Treatment

The Royal Treatment

The improvised expert: Staging authority at an OECD Nuclear Energy Agency workshop in Fukushima.

In recent years, concerns about a crisis of expert authority have been expressed across the globe. Japan is no exception to this trend. Scandals surrounding the (mis)management of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster severely damaged public confidence in state institutions, posing an additional challenge for those engaged in radiological protection. This article examines how claims to expert authority are made in these conditions of low public trust. To this end, I offer an ethnographic account of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency's (NEA) Workshop on Post-Accident Food Safety Science-an event staged at the request of the Japanese Cabinet Office with the aim of inspiring confidence in Fukushima produce. I analyse the practices through which the organizers craft a credible public persona using the idiom of dramaturgical improvisation; drawing attention to the 'performed resourcefulness' with which they adapted extant institutional scripts in response to a discerned crisis of public reason. Concretely, improvisation invites us to consider how and why nuclear policy actors have sought to demarcate two variants of the deficit model: the (psychological) discourse of 'radiophobia' and the (economic) discourse of 'reputational damage'. Where prior scholarship has identified the continuities between the two discourses, an attention to this boundary work reveals the dramaturgical advantages of 'reputational damage' over 'radiophobia' in contesting critics' claims to the mantle of victimhood, securing international support, and producing the expert's body as a site of evidence.

Transformation of Identity for Artists Joining Musawarah Discussion Community

Objective: This study aims to explore the identity transformation process undergone by artists who choose to shift their lifestyles and join Musawarah, a Young Person's Discussion Community promoting a peaceful, loving, and spiritually blessed way of life.
 
 Theoretical framework: The study identifies key stages in the identity transformation process. The study identifies a six-stage process, encompassing pre-transfer, stimulation, self-isolation, self-doubt, transfer, and post-transfer, as artists decide to make the shift.
 
 Method: The research is grounded in a qualitative approach, employing in-depth interviews to collect data from 19 male and 6 female artists from middle-class backgrounds who have undergone this transformation.
 
 Results and conclusion: The findings reveal that artists, influenced by the concept of hijrah, experience a Conversion-Reversion process, returning to their pre-artist identity with a renewed commitment to their religious beliefs. The transformation is an ongoing journey toward self-awareness and a more fulfilling life.
 
 Originality/value: This research contributes to the understanding of identity transformation among artists, shedding light on the impact of religious shifts on their lifestyles and public personas. The study highlights the emergence of a trend where artists become influential figures in spreading religious messages and shaping societal norms, challenging the conventional perceptions of the entertainment industry.

Towards an Inclusive Society: De-Centering Heteronormativity in Tendai Huchu’s the Hairdresser of Harare and Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees

The portrayal of queer sexuality in African literature is something that is getting more and more attention, as a way of highlighting what happens in various societies in the world. This paper explores the portrayal of queer individuals in two African novels: Tendai Huchu’s The Hairdresser of Harare and Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees. Having observed that in the two novels queer individuals are forced to mask their sexuality and adopt heteronormative public personae in order to fit into mainstream society, this paper observes the two authors have used diaries and letters to accord agency to their repressed queer characters. The paper argues that diaristic and epistolary writing, in which individuals of queer sexuality reveal their intimate feelings for each other, are strong tools which the authors have used to accord agency to their repressed queer characters. The paper also uses Andy Alaszewski’s idea of “social suffering versus the diary.” Alaszewski (2006) observes that diaries provide a way of avoiding some of the moral dilemmas created when researchers solicit narratives of suffering and represent accounts which contextualize suffering within a personal biography. This study also observes the authors’ representation of heterosexual characters who accept the presence of queer individuals in their societies. It is in this line that this paper argues that the two authors offer a glimpse into a possibility of an inclusive society which accommodates people’s sexualities that are considered non-normative.

Challenges of the Right to Fame and the Consequences of Its Violation in the Iranian Legal System

The right to fame, though increasingly relevant in today’s digital age, remains underdeveloped within Iran’s legal framework. This article explores the challenges and consequences of violating the right to fame in Iran, where legal protections are primarily derived from defamation and privacy laws, lacking explicit recognition of fame as a protectable legal right. By employing a descriptive analysis method, the article examines the existing legal provisions, key cases, and the interaction between fame, media law, and freedom of expression in Iran. A comparative analysis with legal systems in the United States and the European Union reveals significant gaps in Iran’s approach, particularly in addressing the economic and commercial exploitation of public personas. The study identifies legal loopholes, inconsistent enforcement, and the complexities introduced by the digital age as key challenges. Recommendations for reform include the formal recognition of fame as a distinct legal right, the introduction of specific legislation to regulate the commercial use of fame, and stronger enforcement mechanisms. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for comprehensive legal reforms to protect individuals from unauthorized exploitation of their fame, aligning Iran’s legal system with international standards in an increasingly digital world.

Legal Protection of Marks in the Perspective of Property Rights Law

The brand is the manufacturer's public persona, a barometer of the company's public standing, and a watershed moment in the company's overall business strategy. There's no getting around the fact that a product's brand serves as its identity; after all, it's what sets one firm apart from another. The protection of registered marks, however, is sometimes the source of intricate legal challenges that obscure the mark's true significance. The purpose of this research is to evaluate and analyze the legal protection of registered trademarks and to determine the reason of the termination of its protection using a normative juridical approach. The research uncovered a number of potential triggers for a brand's registration to be revoked, such as the end of the brand's validity period, a request for revocation by the brand's owner, ministerial initiative based on the recommendation of the brand appeal Commission, or a lawsuit filed by a third party. Once the trademark is registered, it is protected for a certain length of time that may be extended. Legal action, criminal prosecution, and administrative measures like trademark cancellation or registration rejection all serve as deterrents. Defending corporate identities through trademarks is crucial in today's period of intense global competition. This study delves deeply into the value of brands to manufacturers and the legal hurdles that must be overcome to ensure a brand's long-term viability in a competitive market. With this knowledge in hand, company stakeholders may take the necessary initiatives to establish a brand that will endure. Protecting your name and your ideas are essential.

THESE GIRLS (STRIP) FOR THE CLOUT: EXPLORING ASPIRATIONAL, EMOTIONAL AND EROTIC LABOR OF BLACK WOMEN HIP-HOP ARTISTS ON ONLYFANS

In the digital age, OnlyFans is suggested to be a new form of sexual empowerment, financial autonomy and social agency for Black women working as strippers, backup dancers and video models, particularly those ancillaries to the rap music industry. Through interviews and participant observation, I examine the everyday labor of Black women who work as sexually explicit content creators on OnlyFans while also building a public persona as artists in Hip-Hop culture. Findings suggested that despite financial opportunities, respondents felt ambivalent by the monetization opportunities afforded by this digital space. Even so, respondents enjoyed the affordances of promoting their OnlyFans content on social media to gain digital clout - a form of Hip-Hop influenced cultural capital that follows the logic of likes, followers, and re-shares of one’s social media content. Ultimately, this study introduces insights on the evolution of Hip-Hop culture’s relationship with sex work, digital Black feminism and the attention economy.

Celebrità e metateatro: ‘Adriana Lecouvreur’ per Adelaide Ristori

In the first half of the 18th century, Adrienne Lecouvreur, diva of the Comédie-Française, brought about a profound change in the French recitative style. Triumphs with the public, rivalries, unhappy love affairs, mysterious circumstances of death and excommunication made her a myth. In 1849, Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé wrote a successful drama for the famous actress Rachel, whose biography resembled that of her 18th century colleague. Adelaide Ristori played Adriana Lecouvreur for fifteen years from 1852. Just as Lecouvreur, who came from humble beginnings, was able to build up a public persona thanks to her talent and high-ranking acquaintances, Ristori, coming from the world of the guitti, had the same fierce ambition and was only recently able to bear the official title of Marquise Capranica del Grillo. Through contemporary printed sources and unpublished documents, mainly from her big archive (correspondence, administrative papers, and scripts), this essay has a twofold aim: on the one hand, to examine the instrumental use that Ristori made of the Lecouvreur character to consolidate her fame among Italian and international audiences; on the other, to identify the peculiarities of her interpretation, the stage evolution, the textual variants.

Defining queer in UK and French press coverage of Christine and the Queens

This article, informed by concerns of queer theory, features of celebrity journalism, and ethical developments in journalism, discusses how British and French generalist press coverage of the popular music artist Héloïse Letissier and his associated public media personas, conceives of the term queer. Coverage relating to the term emphasizes (auto)biographical and career developments, gender and sexual identities, non-normativity, a lack of commercial motivation, mainstreaming (although not unproblematically so), and creativity informed by negative personal experiences and the development of “transfilial” (Provencher) bonds. Moreover, coverage of queerness is, for the most part, sympathetic and respectful.

Contemporary Female Pop Singers Empowerment of Female Self-Consciousness

In modern-day society, women are progressively exerting their influence and authority in diverse domains, such as the dynamic realm of the music industry. This transformation indicates a noteworthy progression in the role and impact of women as they persist in defying and adjusting to the traditionally male-dominated landscape of music. This paper comprehensively explores the impact of pop music culture on womens self-awareness from a feminist perspective. The purpose is to analyze the intricate relationship between pop music and womens self-perception in contemporary society. In the first section how women are portrayed in the music industry is discussed, analyzing how they construct and present their public personas. This scrutiny reveals the intricate network of societal expectations and stereotypes that can hinder female musicians, providing valuable insight into the obstacles they face in forming their identities. The following section explores the empowering possibilities that lie within feminist pop music by analyzing how the creative works of these artists go beyond mere entertainment, actively promoting strong and positive self-awareness among women. Their lyrical content, music videos, and live performances challenge traditional norms and encourage self-empowerment. The final section of this essay examines the complex landscape of obstacles and criticisms encountered by feminist pop music culture, recognizing the unavoidable discussions and disagreements that arise in this constantly evolving field. Through a comprehensive exploration of these three elements, this research seeks to reveal the intricate connection between pop music culture and womens self-awareness, emphasizing its potential to bring about transformation in the ongoing quest for gender equality and empowerment.

Illegally blonde: Performing femininity in the mediated courtroom

When facing criminal charges, female defendants face a difficult double bind; they are simultaneously judged for the crimes they have committed and for breaching socially defined boundaries of femininity. An unfair portrayal in the media may cause a crisis in any instance, but when the subject is facing criminal charges, the stakes are much higher. To appeal to the court of public opinion, female defendants must consider implicit gender biases by performing a type of femininity that is perceived as authentic and earnest yet appropriately moderated. These expectations are most evident in high-profile celebrity scandals as the defendant is measured against their public persona – even if that persona is entirely constructed. This article examines how dress affects the way female celebrity defendants are perceived in the courtroom and how attained fame and American mass media influence this perception as is evident in the cases of Alexis Neiers, Patty Hearst, Winona Ryder and Anna Delvey.

Bodies, beauty, brands: Professional, personal and everyday life online

This article focuses on two successful Italian web personalities who work in the beauty industry and embody the overlapping between business and public identity. Clio MakeUp (Clio Zammatteo, @cliomakeup) and Estetista Cinica (Cristina Fogazzi, @estetistacinica) are two professionals whose success and personal histories are similar and different at the same time. Coming from low-to-middle-class backgrounds, they are both ‘self-made-women’ who managed to build two beauty enterprises (a make-up brand of the same name, the former; a skincare and beauty brand, VeraLab, the latter) tightly intertwined to their public personas. In both cases their business’ success is strictly connected to two loyal online communities: Clio Zammatteo built her whole career around her online presence, starting in 2008 as the first successful Italian make-up YouTuber, reaching a large community way before she entered the beauty business with her make-up brand; Cristina Fogazzi worked her way from beautician to businesswoman, and successfully used Instagram to communicate her brand and personal philosophy, conquering a large and engaged community of followers and customers. This article will address Zammatteo’s and Fogazzi’s interconnected personal and professional identities from different perspectives. First, I will explore how they put themselves and their own non-conforming bodies at the centre of a communication strategy that defies conventional beauty standards and constantly connects their social media presence to their brands’ body-positive and non-judgemental approach. Second, I will focus on the habit of sharing their everyday life to reinforce their public personas and their brands. Third, I will analyse how their fashion choices intersect their media presence and the conversation about normative appearance, and how they resonate with their respective communities. Finally, building on the recurring presence of their domestic space on social media, I will investigate how both Zammatteo and Fogazzi negotiated their presence, bodies and personal spaces online during the pandemic.

Nation-Building Through Imperial Images Fragility and Charisma of Emperor Meiji’s Public Persona

This article explores the complex construction of Emperor Meiji’s public image, from a calculated fragility that promoted national unity to the projection of modern imperial charisma. It examines the extensive Meiji period regime of censorship of imperial representations in various forms, such as portraits, photographs, statues, and currency. The fact that the Emperor was forbidden to compose love poetry and the highly selective publication of his poems during his lifetime likewise emphasises the state’s control over the imperial persona and paints a vivid picture of the multifaceted image-crafting efforts surrounding Emperor Meiji.

“First in the Field”: Fashioning the Singular Identity of Harriet Boyd Hawes, Groundbreaking American Archaeologist

Abstract: American archaeologist Harriet Boyd Hawes was at the forefront of the discovery of the ancient Minoan civilization on Crete. Newspapers and periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic were fascinated with her excavation at Gournia, which they found particularly newsworthy because she was a woman. Boyd was not a passive recipient of the media’s portrayal, however, but actively developed her public persona. Press coverage from 1900 to 1910 reveals a preoccupation with framing Boyd through three dominant themes: her gender, the archaeologist as a romantic figure, and Boyd’s American nationality. This article demonstrates how Boyd fashioned her identity within and against popular media stereotypes, illuminating her adept subversion of the heroic (male) archaeologist model. Through her artful counternarratives, Boyd downplayed her role as an exceptional woman and emphasized fieldwork as a collective, scientific endeavor, underscoring the significance of Gournia as a Minoan town (not a palace).

Revisiting the Stardom of Yang Naimei: The Typecast, the Modern Girl, and the Femme Fatale

Abstract This paper aims to revisit Yang Naimei’s stardom by discussing her as China’s most famous femme fatale of the 1920s. She was the first Chinese film actress to be typecast according to her public persona, and the first to be cast in a series of anti-heroes. In my discussion, I treated her as an extreme case of the 1920s film actresses through which we could see more clearly their ambitions, their talents, their situations, and their struggles. I would like to argue that she is an extreme locus of modern femininity in 1920s China, where being a modern girl, a film star, or a femme fatale is one and the same thing. As a modern girl in search of her subjectivity, she exerted a vibrant energy in the search for visibility through performing stardom. This paper also examined the bense discourse that has been popular in China for almost a century, and in particular discussed why the film actress is always closely tied between her on-screen image and her off-screen image, as a response to an essentialist idea, attitude, and assumption that surrounds Yang Naimei, that she can effortlessly play a femme fatale on screen simply because she is a femme fatale herself.

Political Memoir, Celebrity, and the Reclamation of Feminism: Gendered Self-representation in Julia Gillard’s My Story and Hillary Clinton’s What Happened

Abstract Offering a close textual analysis of My Story (2014), the memoir of Australia’s first woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and What Happened (2017), by the 2016 US Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, this article explores their attempts—as is becoming common for celebrities—to use the memoir form to attempt to regain some control over their public personas and their feminisms. Focusing on the kind of feminist selves they seek to bring into being through these memoirs, this article examines the rhetorical strategies they each deploy to disrupt the dominant gendered narratives that came to circulate during their time in power and beyond.

Analysis of the Key Opinion Leader Marketing Strategy in the Era of Social Media

Key Opinion Leader (KOL) marketing strategy appears in the era of social media and has a certain influence on the audience's consumption behavior. Nowadays, KOL marketing mode has inevitably produced some problems in the process of its rapid development. These problems not only affect users but also has a great impact on the brand value and image. This paper introduces the value and approaches of KOL marketing, analyzes the problems it is facing, and proposes feasible solutions in the end. Conclusions can be drawn that KOL marketing faces problems including data falsification, short marketing cycles, and the collapse of the public persona. The construction of a scientific evaluation system to ensure a good marketing effect can be one of the solutions to these problems while developing long-lasting marketing plans to build lasting brand power and examining KOLs thoroughly to choose qualified partners are also necessary measurements.