For decades authenticity has been of great interest in media and communication research. With this study, we aim to contribute to the research with a new perspective where authenticity is examined in artists who use influencer marketing on social media. With two qualitative focus group interviews, we examine how two previously separate professional roles, influencer and artist, now merge in their interests and strategies to influence their audience via social media platforms. By analyzing and interpreting young Swedish women’s experiences of artists’ advertising collaborations, we seek to understand the concept of authenticity's influence, power and meaning in the digital era. This is done using the three theories: influencer marketing, social capital and branding. The results confirm the dynamic role of the concept of authenticity in society and that whether something or someone is authentic is situational. The concept of authenticity is perceived as important in some contexts and less important in others. There is a clear tolerance for inauthentic behavior within the artist community. However, there is also a perceived limit to how much advertising through influencer marketing an artist can do before it has a negative impact on the artist’s perceived authenticity. The most significant factor is the artist's choice of brand to collaborate with. Our conclusions also show that there is an awareness of the intertwining of the two professional roles and a feeling that most artists and influencers are in a “gray area” where the boundaries between the roles are blurred. This means that new relationships and patterns of cooperation between artists and companies are created, and the dynamics of both the entertainment and advertising industry is changing.

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This thesis applies a sociological framework to the North American celebrity career of Canadian pianist and broadcaster Glenn Gould (1932-1982) to account for Gould's iconic status as an artist in modern musical culture. Despite the persistent cultural fascination with Gould, as evidenced in the seemingly endless supply of biographies, films, novels, and fan texts which narrate and celebrate his life and work, modern Gould scholarship has consistently neglected issues relating to his artistic reception. This thesis proposes that the modern Gould phenomenon is productively analysed in terms of the contexts of its historical production in North America, where it first originated. Focusing on the circumstances of Gould's career during his lifetime, it identifies three areas of overlapping conceptual interest that provide the basis for an explanatory account of his modern mythology: i) Gould's relationship to the culture of his time, particularly in Canada; ii) Gould's relationship to the mass media; iii) Gould's relationship to his own artistic identity. This approach is refined through the application of Stuart Hall's 'Circuit of Culture' model, which yields an understanding of Gould's celebrity in terms of the processes of its representation, production, regulation, and consumption. Against this theoretical backdrop, and consistent with the premise of my thesis, I ask some key questions: what was Gould's relationship to Canadian cultural nationalism and, specifically, a nationalist discourse of public broadcasting? How did media institutions brand his image, and for what commercial purposes? How did Gould mobilise understandings of his genius and Canadian identity through his artistic discourse and experimental media self-representations as a 'Northerner' and a technologist? Based on this analysis, the thesis concludes that Gould continues to fascinate because of the unique ideological work performed by his cultural identities, and because of the highly mediated nature of his celebrity. The ubiquity of his image on video-sharing websites and social media platforms is a vindication of his radical belief in the validity of a musical career pursued primarily through the electronic media.

Bakgrund: Det finns problem kring att avgöra exakt hur effektiva reklamkampanjer är. TV-reklam är det mest inflytelserika mediet och fastän det inte finns belägg för att det direkt leder till något köp så kan det leda till att TV-reklamen förblir i vårt medvetande. Det finns därmed ett behov av att förstå vilka faktorer och strategier som anses vara effektiva i konsumentens ögon.  Syften: Studien har som ändamål att identifiera och undersöka potentiella faktorer bakom effektiv TV-reklam, samt utöka förståelsen utifrån konsumenters synsätt. Studien utforskar även konsumenters vana att undvika TV-reklam och om denna vana upplevs annorlunda när de exponeras för in-stream video ads i stället.  Teorier: Den tidigare forskningen har anknytning till fyra faktorer som ligger i grund för studien. De fyra faktorerna är Kreativitet, Moment-to-Moment (EV & IV), Brand Image och Celebrity Endorsement. Studien utgår även ifrån tidigare forskning kring konsumenters vana att undvika TV-reklam.  Metod: En kvalitativ studie där fokusgrupper har använts som forskningsmetod. En deduktiv ansats har tillämpats. Urvalet bestod av studenter från Södertörns Högskola.  Slutsats: Vissa potentiella faktorer bakom effektiv TV-reklam var mer effektiva än andra. Celebrity Endorsement och Brand Image ansågs leda till ett faktiskt köp medan de andra faktorerna endast visade sig påverka intention kring köp. Konsumenter om de får möjligheten väljer att undvika TV-reklam i stor utsträckning av anledningen att det är irriterande och stör handlingen. Reklam undveks mer på traditionell TV än på in-stream video ads av anledning att TV-reklampausen varar längre.                                          Begrepp: När begreppet konsument nämns hänvisar vi till personer som exponeras för TV-reklamen, alltså inte de som köper produkten utan de som konsumerar marknadsföringens innehåll. In-stream video ads innefattar TV-reklam som koncept överfört till internet. / Background: There are problems with determining exactly how effective advertising campaigns are. TV advertising is the most influential medium and although there is no evidence that it directly leads to any purchase, it can lead to TV commercials remaining in our consciousness. There is thus a need to understand which factors and strategies are considered effective in the eyes of the consumer. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to identify and investigate potential factors behind effective television advertising and expand understanding from the perspective of consumers. The report also explores consumers' habit of avoiding TV commercials and whether this habit is experienced differently when exposed to in-stream video ads instead. Theories: The study is based on previous research and this research is related to four factors that form the basis of the study. The four factors are Creativity, Moment-to-Moment (EV & IV), Brand Image and Celebrity Endorsement. The study is also based on previous research concerning consumers' habit of avoiding TV commercials. Methods: A qualitative study where focus groups have been used as a research method. A deductive approach has been applied. The sample consisted of students from Södertörn University. Conclusions: Some potential factors behind effective TV advertising were more effective than others. Celebrity Endorsement and Brand Image were considered to lead to an actual purchase while the other factors only led to intention regarding purchase. Consumers, if given the opportunity, choose to avoid TV commercials largely for the reason that it is annoying and disrupts the action. It was avoided more on traditional TV than in-stream video ads for the reason that the TV commercial break lasted longer.  Concept: When the term consumer is mentioned, we refer to people who are exposed to TV advertising, not those who buy the product but those who consume the content of the marketing. In-stream video ads entail TV-commercial as a concept transferred to the Internet.

The purpose of this study was to examine how male and female celebrities are represented on the 24 covers of e+, a weekly entertainment magazine that was published by Dubai-based Al Nisr Publishing. This cross-sectional, exploratory study used a qualitative visual semiotic analysis and quantitative content analysis to examine how male and female celebrities are constructed and represented on covers published between October 2010 and September 2011. In addition, the study explored whether the myths and ideologies found on the covers made an impression on the perceptions and tastes of teenagers living in the UAE. A subsequent self-administered questionnaire was completed by 30 teenagers living in the UAE aged between 16 and 19 with the purpose of determining how teenagers experienced representations of celebrities. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of how teenagers experienced celebrity culture, three focus-group interviews, each comprising of six participants, are conducted. The study found that both male and female celebrities were represented in gender stereotypical roles. Results showed that male celebrities were represented as active, strong, decisive and dominant. Male celebrities were associated with success, fast cars and dangerous weapons. On the other hand, female celebrities were predominantly represented as submissive. The representations of female celebrities focused on beauty and fashion. The survey and focus-group results revealed that celebrity culture does have an influence on teenagers. Participants reported that they bought products that they saw celebrities wearing or using, emulated the celebrities’ behaviour and copied hairstyles and make-up looks. However, the study found that, in addition to celebrity culture, teenagers’ perceptions are also shaped by their peers, parents and other people they interact with such as teachers. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Science)

Definitions of celebrity authorship and material textuality at the turn of the twenty-first century have predominantly emphasised the implicitly negative aspects of contemporary developments in the literary marketplace. Particularly prominent are arguments that the practice of authorship has become subject to homogenisation by the matrix of celebrity in which successful writers are now expected to function; and, further, that the changing nature of texts themselves and the ways in which they are marketed is eroding the implicitly superior position traditionally held by literature in the cultural marketplace. This thesis views such readings as pessimistic, and offers an alternative, seeking to formulate a new critical approach to literary value in the contemporary sphere which would appreciate notions of celebrity, populism, and digital mediation as integral and productive aspects of how literary value is formed today. Through in-depth focus on the cases of a number of unconventional contemporary American authors whose work demonstrates differing, innovative approaches to the process of authorship, this thesis exposes the ways in which contemporary, atypically ‘literary’ instances of writing can and do work within and develop beyond traditional conceptualisations of authorship and literary value. Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, largely critically considered prototypical ‘celebrity’ authors, are in the first chapter reconsidered as writers whose understanding of their position within the literary marketplace affords them a self-conscious, critical perspective on the notion of celebrity in their work and public personae. The productively self-conscious author-figure is reconsidered in the second chapter, which reads the individual and joint works of author Paul Auster and visual artist Sophie Calle as foregrounding the process of creative collaboration as uniquely illuminating and transformative within the contemporary literary sphere. The notion of dual authorship is revisited and reconceptualised in the third chapter, which considers JT LeRoy and the practice of hoax authorship, outlining how this process forces the reformulation of literary value, particularly in a contemporary setting in which authors are accountable for their work in newer, more visible ways. The final chapter expands these previously-introduced themes to consider bloggers-turned-authors, particularly Tucker Max and Julie Powell, and the impact of the merging of old and new textualities on both the orientation of the figure of the writer and the way in which value is attached to his texts by readers. Ultimately, the unconventional nature of these examples is shown to belie the universality of the representations of value they enact, contributing to a full and salient account of how literary value is determined at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Ce mémoire vise à comprendre comment, par la représentation de politiciens en tant que personnalités publiques « célèbres », se pose un ensemble d’enjeux de pouvoir. L’analyse de la récurrence et des particularités de ces représentations, qui circulent dans et à travers le discours, permet de mieux comprendre comment s’exerce le pouvoir par, entre autres, la naturalisation. Cette recherche s’appuie principalement sur les concepts de représentation proposé par Hall (1997) et de pouvoir élaboré par Foucault. Le cas de Justin Trudeau, objet d’un ensemble de discours de célébrité produits à travers le discours médiatique à l’occasion de la course à la chefferie du Parti libéral du Canada (PLC), constitue un terrain riche pour l’analyse. Dans un premier temps, les représentations existantes et en circulation dans des textes médiatiques portant et produisant diverses significations sont analysées discursivement. Dans un deuxième temps, l’analyse s’attarde aux savoirs que ces représentations participent à produire et aux effets de pouvoir qu’elles induisent. Il est alors possible de comprendre que les représentations dont fait l’objet le politicien célèbre d’aujourd’hui sont organisées par la filiation et que ce mode d’organisation procède à la fois de la biographisation et de l’hétéronormativité. / This master’s thesis aims to understand how, by the representation of politicians as public individual celebrities, arise power issues. The analysis of recurrence patterns and particularities of those representations, which circulate through discourse, enable a better understanding of how power is exercised by, among other things, naturalization. This research is supported by Hall’s (1997) concept of representation and Foucault’s definition of power. The case of Justin Trudeau, object of celebrity discourses produced through media discourse at the time of the Liberal Party of Canada Leadership contest, was a prolific ground for analysis. Firstly, existing and circulating representations by media texts producing diverse significations are discursively analysed. Secondly, the analysis is concerned with knowledge these representations participate to produce and with power effects they induce. It is then possible to understand that representations which produce today’s celebrity politician are organised by filiation which proceed through biographisation and heteronormativity.

This thesis analyses the content, tone, form and authorship of the national newspaper gossip column 1918-1939, as a new means through which the qualities of the popular press in this period can be more closely defined. Often dismissed as an example of the sensational, Americanization of early twentieth-century popular culture, the celebrity gossip column has been loosely grouped with the friendly, informal language and bolder formatting of the ‘New Journalism’ of the late nineteenth century and the development of the dramatic ‘human-interest’ stories of ‘everyday life’ in the interwar period (LeMahieu, 1988; Wiener, 1988). Through a comparative study of six newspapers including the Daily Express, Daily Mail and News of the World, I analyse the changing representation of the celebrity subject, and, originally, the shifting character and persona of the gossip columnist. Whereas some historians have analysed the content of newspapers without considering the questions of the newspaper’s production, I analyse newspaper employment records, gossip columnists’ memoirs and their unpublished letters and diaries to define the specific economic, social and cultural circumstances which, I argue, influenced their public portrayal. Also, in examining the unpublished correspondence between editors, proprietors and columnists and the burgeoning print culture of journalistic training manuals and professional memoirs, I provide a history of the press’s professionalization in this period. The national popular press has often been used as a historical source to define national character and national identity in the interwar period (Bland, 2008; Kohn, 1992). By scrutinizing the content and production of the gossip column and particularly the class, behaviour, interactions and subject matter of the columnist, I argue that the gossip column presented a version of ‘Britishness’ that was not so inward-looking and domesticated as so many accounts of interwar Britain suggest.

Thèse de doctorat effectuée en cotutelle au Département d’histoire de l’art et d’études cinématographiques, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal et à l’Institut de recherche sur le cinéma et l'audiovisuel (IRCAV), Arts et Médias, ED 267, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 / L’œuvre de William Klein est reconnue pour ses stratégies formelles innovatrices et avant-gardistes qui attireront l'attention des artistes et des professionnels de sa génération, non sans provoquer au passage quelques scandales ni sans subir les contrecoups de la censure. La trentaine de courts, moyens et longs métrages réalisés par Klein, forme un corpus hétérogène qui affiche à première vue des incohérences sociologiques, politiques, économiques et culturelles potentiellement discutables. Dans ces conditions, la position critique de Klein paraît ambiguë, inconséquente voire, contradictoire, parce que les films diffèrent également par leur thème, leur cible, leur mode de production et leur genre. Nous croyons cependant que l’engagement politique de Klein est le fil d'Ariane qui unit son œuvre cinématographique et dissipe toute idée de rupture que ses contemporains pourraient lui reprocher. Au cours de cette période cruciale qui s'étend de 1965 et 1970, alors que le libéralisme en tant qu’idéologie officielle du système capitaliste cherche à vaincre le communisme pour s'imposer à l'échelle mondiale, Klein pose son regard sur les célébrités en tant que figures médiatiques et identitaires comme autant de moyens des pouvoirs politiques, économiques et religieux. À l'ère de la guerre froide, de la guerre du Vietnam et des combats pour la décolonisation, il prend le parti des mouvements de droits civils et de libération et se range du côté des révolutionnaires qui les défendent. Il brosse notamment le portrait de personnalités associées à la contre-culture américaine; il remet en question les modèles qui s'étaient jusque-là imposés dans la culture de masse et les idéologies dont ils étaient investis et va jusqu'à critiquer le concept même de célébrité. En procédant notamment à une démystification des moyens de la représentation de l'American Dream et de l’American way of life, William Klein s'en prend aux faux-semblants issus de ces industries (du divertissement) et de ce champ (politique) qui mettent en place des systèmes de production et d’exploitation de la célébrité en tant que symbole, destiné à orienter les goûts esthétiques, les comportements commerciaux et/ou les opinions politiques des individus. Il dénonce ainsi les injustices raciales, les inégalités sociales, les abus de pouvoir et les débordements des gouvernements attribuables à l’impérialisme occidental qui est à l'époque sous l'influence des États-Unis. Le corpus qui nous permettra de développer notre argumentation comprend quatre films, soit deux films de fiction et deux films documentaires. Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? (1966) et Mister Freedom (1968) sont les deux films de fiction que nous avons qualifiés de « parodies satiriques ». En ces termes, le film Polly Maggoo parodie les contes de fées pour faire la satire de l’industrie de la mode, tandis que le film Mister Freedom parodie les super-héros de bande dessinée et autres justiciers des films hollywoodiens, pour faire la satire de la politique étrangère américaine. Les documentaires politiquement engagés sont à notre avis expressionnistes, comme le propose le critique américain Jonathan Rosenbaum. Muhammad Ali, The Greatest (1964-1974) ; Eldridge Cleaver Black Panther (1970) mettent en scène ceux que William Klein appelle les « Super Noirs américains » et par des moyens réflexifs, ils démontrent de l’inter-subjectivité entre le cinéaste et ses sujets. / Satirical parodies and expressionist documentaries: The Critical Representation of the Celebrity in the Films of William Klein. The films of William Klein are still little known. His filmography includes thirty titles which appear at first sight heterogeneous, while their sociological, political, economic, and cultural inconsistencies seem questionable. As such, and because the themes of his films, their targets, their production modes and their genres are constantly moving, Klein’s critical position seem ambiguous, inconsistent if not contradictory. Yet, we believe that the political commitment of William Klein is at the core of all of his films and dissipates all discrepancies. Between 1965 and 1970, while liberalism as the official ideology of the capitalist system is fighting against communism to expand its power around the world, Klein is looking at celebrities as vectors of the political, the economical and the religious powers. While the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the anti-colonial armed struggles are shaking the world, he associates with the counter-culture and youth culture movements and questions the role models advertised in the mass media, and the ideologies they represent. Portraying the modes of representation that shapes the American Dream and the American Way of Life, William Klein criticises the makes-believes found in the entertainment industry and the political field that aim at shaping our identities, our commercial behaviours and our political opinions. We propose to analyse two fiction films and two documentaries in the course of our argumentation in order to demonstrate how he condemns racism, social inequalities and abuses of power associated with Western imperialism. Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? (1966) and Mister Freedom (1968) are what we have called after Daniel Sangsue, satirical parodies. Accordingly, Polly Maggoo parodies fairy tales to satirize the fashion industry, while Mister Freedom parodies the superheroes of the comic books to satirize American foreign policies. Based on Jonathan Rosenbaum thesis, we consider Muhammad Ali, The Greatest (1964-1974) and Eldridge Cleaver Black Panther (1970) as expressionist documentaries. The reflexive strategies found in these films are symptomatic of an inter-subjectivity between the filmmaker and his subjects.