The celebrity culture refers to the culture of popularizing certain people who have certain attributes that society perceives as desirable and exceptional. In this modern era, these attributes may or may not be genuine. Our media history of actors, actresses, singers, authors, producers, artists, sports people and dancers were all people who needed to have certain talents to be known publicly and throughout society. Now we allow people to be well-known and in the media forefront due to their unethical behaviour or reluctant self-promotion. People sometimes attempt at becoming famous by entering into reality TV or dating someone of high status. By glorifying people who seek stardom through these methods has created a new celebrity culture based on infamy not fame. However this only causes an increasing dislike for talent-less celeb’s.
Unfortunately the celebrity culture has and will continue to have an influence on society. As they are constantly in the media, they have become role models for adolescents and teenagers. Interest in celebrities makes for a multibillion dollar business in celeb sites. This has raised a number of issues, many of them controversial and causes major debates concerning the influence of celebs on the younger, more easily influenced members of society. For example, the appeal of drug and alcohol abuse has increased due to images of intoxicated celebrities spread across magazines and television. Furthermore casual celebrity sex appears to be the norm amongst youths. Unfortunately nothing can be done to monitor who does or doesn’t become famous as the power in is in the hands of the media. They are able to control what children see. Unfortunately sex, drugs, rock and roll and any form of controversy is where the money lies.
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This obsession with the media and celeb culture has etched its way into our own personal mediums of communication, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or other like minded social networking sites. Celeb culture has led us to our own digital narcissism, social networking sites giving us the platform to inflate our own sense of self importance. Site’s such as Facebook have allowed us to promote our own personal celeb magazine page between friends. We can visually promote our life’s highlights through status’s and photos, giving us the ego-boost to broadcast a perception of an exciting and desirable life to those who view the page.
In a new study published in the journal ‘Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, University at Buffalo’ [March 2011] researcher Michael A. Stefanone, PhD, and colleagues found that females who base their self worth on their appearance tend to share more photos online and maintain larger networks on online social networking sites.
The results suggest that females identify more strongly with their image and appearance, and use Facebook as a platform to compete for attention
In the study, 311 participants with an average age of 23.3 years, 49.8 percent of which were female, completed a questionnaire measuring their ‘contingencies of self worth’. The subjects were also questioned on their typical behaviors on Facebook.
‘“Those whose self esteem is based on public-based contingencies (defined here as others’ approval, physical appearance and outdoing others in competition) were more involved in online photo sharing, and those whose self-worth is most contingent on appearance have a higher intensity of online photo sharing,” Stefanone says.’ (Reference 1)
Stefanone noted that the women in this study who based their self worth on appearances were the most prolific photo sharers
‘“Participants whose self worth is based on private-based contingencies (defined in this study as academic competence, family love and support, and being a virtuous or moral person),” says Stefanone, “spend less time online.” For these people, social media are less about attention seeking behavior.’ (Reference 1)
The study shows the obsessive behaviors on social networking sites, allowing us to understand how personal identities on these sites are developed and maintained allowing users to compete with one another for mental hierarchy through the physical advertisement of themselves, much like celeb magazines. It further emphasizes the construction of our identities and social interactions with media use in a rapidly changing communication environment.
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