The production and construction of celebrity advocacy in international development

Abstract

There has been a proliferation of celebrity within development publicity, media events and representations, which has received little attention from development scholars. This paper charts the rise of celebrity within development, drawing from over 120 interviews conducted with development, media and celebrity professionals. I examine how the presence of celebrity within development is mediated and the political economy of the celebrity-charity-corporate complex which results. I use these findings to interrogate recent writings on the work of celebrity advocacy in development and demonstrate that understanding the production and construction of celebrity development interventions helps substantially in understanding their effects.

Spectacular environmentalisms: media, knowledge and the framing of ecological politics

“…This was a victory of "authoritarian environmentalism." This conclusion is similar to Brockington's (2014) work on the role of celebrity in post-democratic politics. Publics may not be listening, but elites do notice what celebrity spokespeople say.…”

Signifying the public: Celebrity advocacy and post-democratic politics

“…(2004: 19-20) More than that, post-democracy is also characterized as a particular alliance between capitalist elites and government elites such that the task of government is to manage societies and economies in the interests of corporate power -and they do so with at least the passive consent (little more is possible) of most of the electorate (Rancière, 1998). As Brockington explains elsewhere, post-democracy is useful for helping to explain the rise of celebrity advocacy -for it is driven by corporate interest in getting access to celebrity and NGOs' desire to use celebrity to build better relationships with corporate partners (Brockington, 2014). It also provides a useful framework for understanding the results reported here.…”

Non-western celebrity politics and diplomacy: introduction

“…Not only has our understanding of politics and diplomacy developed beyond the usual suspects of government representatives to embrace informal actors, this under-55 standing has also been enhanced both empirically and conceptually over recent years by the recognition of the multi-dimensional salience of celebrities (Cooper 2008, Wheeler 2013, Brockington 2014. We now talk about celebrity politicians, celebrity diplomats and political celebrities, and apply categories such as CP1 (essentially politicians who instrumentalise aspects of celebrity) and CP2 (celebrities typified by U2's Bono 60 who enter into the field of politics and international diplomacy; see Street 2004).…”