Media Celebrities

Conceptual Approaches

Various theories address the relation between young people and media celebrities. McCutcheon, Lange, and Houran recently introduced the concept of celebrity worship and distinguished intensities of commitment with a celebrity, which range from mild forms (such as keeping informed about a celebrity) to extreme and pathological forms (such as overidentification and obsession with a media star). Hoffner investigated wishful identification, which refers to young media users' imagining that they are like or actually are a media character. This notion thus includes elements of positive admiration and imitation of star behavior. Yet another body of theory is parasocial interaction and relationships (PSI/PSR). PSI/PSR research has demonstrated that young media users perceive and process media characters in ways similar to individuals from their real social environment. PSI/PSRs can display highly diverse qualities, including admiration and idolization, but also negative dispositions (e.g., toward singers performing a disliked style of music). The concept thus can encompass a range of attachments from weak ties between audience and celebrity to very intense relationships. Cohen, for instance, reports that teenagers suffer from breakups of PSRs with favorite TV performers (e.g., if the celebrity disappears from a TV series), which indicates the affective relevance of such relationships, especially for young people. Overall, a variety of similar theoretical models of the involvement of young audiences with media celebrities have been advanced, and they do not necessarily assume solely idolization as the major quality of such involvement.

Impact of Celebrities on Identity Formation

Young people's interest in media celebrities has raised the questions of whether and how such media relationships contribute to identity development. Boon and Lomore report that strong commitment to media celebrities (even for characters that are fictional or dead) is common among adolescents. Most important, a substantial portion of their sample of young people reported that the bond with their favorite celebrity had motivated them to change parts of their identity. For [Page 494]instance, 60% of the respondents said that their preferred celebrity had altered their personal attitudes and values, and almost 15% confirmed that they had changed their appearance to become more similar to their idol. Inspired by their favorite celebrity, many respondents also modified their lifestyle and engaged in activities their idol had framed in a desirable way. These findings suggest that social learning as described by Bandura is the most likely psychological mechanism behind the effects of celebrities on identity formation.

Brown, Basil, and Bocarnea studied audience responses to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. They found that involvement with Diana not only increased use of media content related to her death, but also facilitated a worse image of the tabloid press, whose paparazzi were considered by some to be partly responsible for Diana's lethal accident. This study thus demonstrated the effect of involvement with an idol on specific attitudes. Overall, the literature suggests that stars are important agents of adolescent identity development and socialization. Direct effects are accompanied by indirect effects of celebrities on youth culture (e.g., the impact of hip-hop celebrities on American gang style), which add to the overall relevance of media idols on young audiences. The determinants of the quality and intensity of young people's parasocial relationships with celebrities (as well as the determinants of the actual celebrity preferred) remain to be investigated in more detail, however.

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