Celebrity capital: redefining celebrity using field theory

Abstract

This article proposes to redefine celebrity as a kind of capital, thereby extending Bourdieu's field theory. This redefinition is necessary, it is argued, because one of the main limitations shared by current definitions of celebrity is their lack of explanatory power of the convertibility of celebrity into other resources, such as economic or political capital. Celebrity capital, or broadly recognizability, is conceptualized as accumulated media visibility which results from recurrent media representations. In that sense, it is a substantial kind of capital and not a subset or special category of social or symbolic capital, the latter being defined as legitimate recognition by other agents in a social field. Rather than adding another definition of celebrity next to many others, the proposed notion of celebrity capital should be seen as an attempt to integrate the existing approaches of celebrity into one comprehensive conceptualization which can enable us to better grasp this societal and cultural phenomenon.

Celebrity Capital of Actresses of Color: A Mixed Methods Study

“…Following Molina-Guzmán (2013) in her study of how Black Latina actors and actresses are employing their racial capital, the present study will also explore media representations of capital of Hollywood actresses of color due to the visibility in the media they achieve when nominated for the Oscar award, which we treat as a instance of symbolic capital. Such study is further warranted by Driessens' (2013) argument about the utility of Bourdieu's filed theory in the study of celebrity capital.…”

YouTubers, online selves and the performance principle: Notes from a post-Jungian perspective

“…In particular, the meteoric rise in popularity of YouTube vloggers (such as Zoella, Pewdiepie, Smosh, Caspar Lee, Miranda Sings and shaycarl) has given new impetus to these fields, helping to redefine the popular understanding of how celebrity status is sought, conferred, and consumed; and ultimately, transforming how celebrity is defined (see Biressi & Nunn, 2010;Chen, 2016;Click, Lee & Holladay, 2013;Davis, 2013;Driessens, 2013;Hill, 2014;Jerslev, 2014;Marshall, 2014;Rojek, 2015;Stever, 2011). Whereas a number of formative studies on YouTube, performance and identity have facilitated debates in this area that are largely confined to orthodox media studies concerns (Snickars & Venderau, 2009;Lange, 2014;Burgess & Green, 2009), there are some efforts that focus on emotional and parasocial connections (Walker Rettberg, 2008Papacharissi, 2010Papacharissi, , 2011Baym, 2010).…”

“…Whereas distinct public and private spaces do exist today, and are valued according to their own qualities, there is also something new in the conceptual sense where public and private distinctions are no longer upheld as conventions of social relationships, and intimacy is signified through a kind of public-private interchangeability on social media platforms. In this latter scenario, we are dealing with worldviews aligned to everyday mediatised experiences, negotiated through a sort of consent within the relations of labour, consumption and exchange outlined above, and shaped through values associated with celebritization (Driessens, 2012(Driessens, , 2013.…”

Stay in Your Own Part of the Bookshop! Legitimation in the Literary Field and the Limited Exchange Value of Celebrity Capital

“…In this paper I am examining a somewhat different type of boundary crossing, one in which the agent would appear to carry a good deal of useful capital, but where that capital proves to be of limited use in achieving full legitimation in a different cultural field. I am speaking specifically of celebrity capital (Driessens, 2013) and its exchange value in the literary field, particularly at its high-status end, the sub-field known as 'literary fiction'.…”