Vehicle Strand Celebrity Culture/

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Vehicle StrandCelebrity Culture/ Celebrity
Gossip
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Celebrity Culture ? BS celebrity, stardom
marketing rise of the movie star, stars
and product endorsement, celebrity news ? The
pleasures of celebrity gossip ? Key terms
extended family, melodrama
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• Celebrity Gossip? Andy Warhol In the
  future, everybody will be world famous for 15
  minutes.
• Today more celebrities, more magazines,
  more gossip
• Why?

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Who are the Celebrities?? stars film and TV
actors? musicians and sports? royalty,
politicians, business? reality TV? chefs and
nutritionists? fashion advisers ? famous for
being famous ? why the interest?? consult the
experts
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Celebrity Gossip? Why do people find this so
interesting? ? Joke Hermes has an answer
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Hermes Theory? Joke Hermes (1999) ? 2 kinds
of pleasure from celeb. gossip (1) extended
family (2) melodrama
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1. Extended Family? Celebrities are brought
down to earth? You get to know them? Become
part of your life/family ? They embody ordinary
life? relationship problems, (potential)
parenthood, frustrations, ambitions ? Readers
relate to the celebrities ? Pleasure get to
know celebrities
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• E.g. heats big questions?Geordie Shores
  Vicky Patterson, 25 struggling with weight
  issues.
• ? Before and after photos.
• Article opens Just 600 seconds a day to get
  fit?
• Vicky Its tough, you definitely get a sweat
  on. But my workouts are only ten minutes long
  so come on, who cant do that? And the results
  are worth it this is the slimmest Ive ever
  been and the sexiest Ive ever felt in my life.

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• Fitness expert, Laura Williams
• ?The reason that these ten-minute workouts are
  so beneficial is because they are doable. If
  youre doing ten minutes of high-intensity
  exercise that get the heart rate up four or five
  times a week and youre watching what you eat,
  youll soon see the benefits.
• heat Right, theres our lunchtimes sorted for
  the next year.
• Relatable issues
• Possible solutions
• Inspiration if Vicky can do it, so can I!

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• 2. Melodrama? Celebrities are elevated into
  stereotypes/larger than life characters
• Melodrama over-the-top, sensational,
  clichéd, unrealistic
• ? Emotional, sentimental, overacting, heroes
  and villains, good and evil
• e.g. Made in Chelsea
• e.g. The Only Way is Essex
• e.g. Hollyoaks

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Melodrama Sensation? Pleasure celebrities
doing outrageous things ? We enjoy the drama,
misery, sensationalism, sentimentalism ? Life
is magnified? Celebrities play stereotypical
roles (heroes and villains)
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• Melodrama Morality? Pleasure passing
  judgement
• We enjoy the moral tone of stories
• Pleased if hero succeeds
• Pleased if villain punished
• Makes you feel good about own life
• All part of the melodrama

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E.g. heat exclusive? Article like an episode
of a soap? Actors larger than life ? I think
shes a very insecure person and a very difficult
person to maintain I found that she can be quite
possessive, jealous and insecure. ? We love the
drama and speculation ? Justice Life with
Jordan is exposed in an amazing no-holds-barred
interview...
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The Good, The Bad and the Monster 2 Celebrity
100 (2013) 19 (2014) 2 in press (2013) 2
101.5 mil followers 4 (2014) 3 40.7
mil followers on Twitter (2013) 6 60.8
mil fans on Facebook (2013) 7 in TV/radio 9 in
money 55 (2014) monstrous/ multiple
personality? Singer Activist Entrepreneur
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Internet CelebritiesE.g. Beckii Cruel (aka
Rebecca Flint, 19 yrs) YouTube vlogger pop
idol in Japan aged 14 dance cover videos,
beauty, hair, gaming 91,000 subscribers approx.
20m total views
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Internet CelebritiesE.g. Beckii Cruel "I
think the appeal of YouTube is that it's a very
personal relationship that people feel they form
with their viewers.... It's a different kind of
celebrity. Kids now trust their YouTube stars
more than regular celebrities with endorsement."
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Summary? Hermes two kinds of pleasure from
celebrity gossip (1) extended family
celebrities brought down to earth
pleasure get to know them (2) melodrama
celebrities become larger than life
pleasures drama and
passing judgement ? Mutations in celebrity
culture?
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Exercise Family Melodrama(1) Why do you like
celebrity gossip? If you dont, why
not? (2) Is Hermes account accurate? Are
there any other pleasures to celebrity
gossip? (3) What is new about new/internet
celebrities?
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Environment StrandClassroom or Cave?
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Environment StrandClassroom or Cave? ?
McLuhan (a 60s celebrity) ? Education
entertainment ? Classroom without Walls
(1960) ? There is no fundamental difference
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• Audio-Visual Aids? Todays audio-visual aids in
  class YouTube, DVD, live-streaming, PPT
• Implication book is primary
• Others are all just aids
• This not always the case...

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Books From Acoustic to Visual ? from acoustic
to visual space? prior to the book, instruction
was oral? people learned by listening,
watching and doing ? book a new visual aid
to oral instruction? (remember Socrates
worries) ? book is primary aid in the
classroom? everyone has same book (e.g. BS)?
learning is now primarily from books
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• Today? Most learning achieved outside
  classroom
• ? TV, magazines, the press, film, radio,
  internet, etc, i.e. the media
• Schools and books now less important
• the classroom walls have cracked

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• Entertainment or Education?? Many teachers
  denounce new media? The evils of TV, games,
  social media? mere entertainment
• New media threaten education
• Students are ungrammatical, poor attention,
  more interested in reality tv etc
• McLuhan students know better
• We must remember two points

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1. Classics? All classics were first light
entertainment e.g. Shakespeares Henry V ? For
everyone in Shakespeares day? 16th century
Hollyoaks or Made in Chelsea? Now considered
great classics ? Which will be the TV classics of
the future?
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• 2. New Media Forms? New media arent merely
  mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of
  illusion
• ? Not just entertainment
• They are new and unique means of
  communication and expression
• McLuhans interest how media work and what
  they do to us
• ? Two effects are interesting here

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(i) Increasingly Acoustic? New media
increasingly acoustic? Use of language evolves?
More spontaneous and free? New media push
written English toward the spoken form e.g.
email e.g. instant messaging apps e.g.
texting e.g. twitter ? these written forms are
more like spoken language
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• (ii) Increasingly Expressive? New media
  increasingly expressive? Emphasis on facial
  expression and bodily gesture (compared to
  books)
• e.g. EastEnders argument close-ups e.g. )
  P o ) SHOUTING

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• The Evils of New Media?? New media thus make
  communication less formal
• Traditional teachers this is terrible
• Students write essays like txts or email
  (forum vs. case study)
• McLuhan mass media do change verbal culture
• ? We must try to understand the changes

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McLuhans Conclusions (1)New media are
important for education for 2 reasons 1.
Whatever pleases teaches more
effectively ? to teach new theories, start from
what people enjoy e.g. post-feminism gt Sex
and the City e.g. ideology gt The Matrix
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• McLuhans Conclusions (2)2. Education should
  also be about understanding ordinary social
  experience
• Social experience today is mediated? Most people
  today cant
• analyse a newspaper, e.g. The Times
  analyse a film, e.g. The Matrix
• ? It is important to consider these media

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Conclusion? No fundamental distinction
between entertainment and education ? People
are learning all the time? We must seek to
become aware of what were learning Any
Questions?
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• Digital Games? Criticized for violence,
  time-wasting
• Not just entertainment, but a technology
• Look at medium, not message

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• BBC ? An explicit combination of education
  entertainment
• Free http//www.bbc.co.uk/schools/games
• Science, numeracy, history EYFS, 4-7 yrs,
  11-16 yrs, 16
• a pleasing teaching medium
• accessible form for digital natives

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Minecraft meets The Tate? Tate
Worlds http//www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/tate-
worlds-art-reimagined-minecraft
Minecraft maps that present virtual
environments inspired by artworks from Tates
collection. The maps allow players
of Minecraft to explore a range of paintings and
sculpture, undertaking various activities and
challenges that relate to the themes of the
artworks, or exploring how they were made.
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McLuhan argues? there is no fundamental
difference between education and
entertainment ? what pleases teaches
effectively ? education should help us
understand ordinary experience ? How
effective is BBC School Games or Tate Worlds? ?
Classroom or Cave exercise
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Classroom or Cave?(1) New Media (2)
Classroom Tuition (3) Understanding Media (4)
Plato's Cave (5) Illusion and Reality (6) Red
or Blue?
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• Understanding Media? 2 approaches to
  understanding media
• ? media as vehicles conveying messages
  meanings
• media texts Derren Brown, The Matrix,Buffy,
  Star Wars, Sex and the City, This is England,
  Bowling for Columbine, Videodrome, the news,
  Benetton, Heat
• theories semiotics, genre, narrative,
  representation, audience, realism, new media,
  ideology, branding, melodrama

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• Understanding Media? media as environments
  create new social surroundings
• media technologies literacy, print,
  television, film, radio, telephones,
  hypertext, blogs, Wikipedia, magazines digital
  games, social media
• probes visual and acoustic space, hot and
  cool, tetrad, discarnate man, global village,
  rear-view mirror, ubiquitous publishing,
  anti-environments, educational media

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Module Evaluation ? I hope youve found the
module interesting, challenging and enjoyable! ?
Module Evaluation Form U75102 Understanding
Media