Celebrity critiquing: hot or not? Teen girls’ attitudes on and responses to the practice of negative celebrity critiquing

Joining the clash or refusing to bash? Bystanders reactions to online celebrity bashing

“…In regions such as Flanders, Belgium, researchers have observed mostly neutral tones in celebrity news (De Backer & Fisher, 2012;Van den Bulck, Paulussen & Bels, 2015); however, at times, journalists have created subtle forms of sensation produced by, for instance, citing quotes out of context (Van Gorp, 2014). In those regions, the causes for concern are largely concentrated on the kinds of celebrity bashing that the audience engages in (Ouvrein et al, 2017;).…”

“…A social reality that is based on other actors' attitudes and behaviors is constructed among the community of celebrity-news consumers; this results in a set of implicitly shared collective behavioral norms that strengthen the group members' social influence on each other (Ferrans, Selman, & Feigenberg, 2012). Given the high prevalence of celebrity bashing-by journalists and readers alike (Johansson, 2008;-and the widespread tolerance of celebrity-focused aggression (Ouvrein, Vandebosch, & De Backer, 2017), it is reasonable to expect that the norms of the discussion context will influence the bystanders and thereby cause them to start engaging in similar behaviors (Cheng et al, 2017;Cicchirillo, Hmielowski, & Hutchens, 2015). However, some bystanders become aware of this social influence and try to resist it.…”

Intranasal Oxytocin Administration Reduces Bystanders’ Acceptance of Online Celebrity Bashing

“…Previous research suggested that this regular confrontation with online aggression towards celebrities seems to stimulate more acceptance towards this type of online aggression among bystanders (Ouvrein, Pabian, Machimbarrena, Vandebosch, & De Backer, 2018). In a focus-group study among adolescent girls, participants showed more acceptability towards celebrity bashing compared with cyberbullying, and interpreted this type of behavior as a normal and harmless part of the life of celebrities (Ouvrein et al 2017). This becomes even more problematic when bystanders translate these attitudes into their own behavior towards celebrities, and also towards other targets, such as peers (Paull et al 2012), as several studies found strong correlations between celebrity bashing and cyberbullying (Ouvrein et al 2018;Pyżalski 2012).…”

“…Moreover, the concept has regularly been related to cyberbullying. Indeed, both behaviors seem to show some clear overlaps concerning the three criteria used to define cyberbullying (Ouvrein et al 2017). First of all, just as with cyberbullying, celebrity bashing behaviors can take lots of different forms, but in order to call a behavior celebrity bashing, the practice should be adopted to intentionally insult and/or hurt celebrities (Dalla Pozza et al 2011).…”

“…Celebrity bashing clearly differs from cyberbullying on this point, as the perceived distance between the perpetrator and the celebrity-victim is quite high. Due to this higher perceived distance, audience members seem to show less empathy and are less able to correctly estimate the potential impact of the behavior (Ouvrein et al 2017(Ouvrein et al , 2018a.…”