The aim of the study was to examine how Swedish tabloid journalism presented the contestants in the Swedish version of the reality show Idol 2009. We wanted to see which approaches tabloid news papers use when constructing the public identities of them. We have used text analysis to examine 37 articles and nine front pages with focus on the words, propositions, comparisons and parables that describe four of the contestants. In addition we have looked at myths and connotations shown in the pictures by using a semiotic analysis. The results show that the Swedish tabloids tend to describe the contestants in relation to their performances and personalities. They also compare them to stereotypes, music genres, celebrities and the other contestants. The pictures tend to enhance the propositions made by the articles.

The research has investigated the celebrity effect¡¦s relationship between brand image, perceived quality, and purchase intention. Using the case of the world-renowned brand: Minute Maid, Coca-Cola, it has only been introduced to Taiwan for two years, yet it made a huge success. It has faced the issue of changing spokesperson recently. The research uses ¡§Judgmental sampling¡¨ to get the samples and data that we need. We use factor analysis and reliability analysis to check our questionnaire, and then the data was analyzed mainly on Pearson correlation analysis and regression to check out whether the factors are effective. The results showed: 1. Consumers would think that the better the product¡¦s celebrity effect is, the better the product¡¦s perceived quality and brand image is. 2. Consumers would think that the higher the perceived quality and brand image is, the higher their purchase intention would be. 3. Overall, the celebrity effect would affect consumer¡¦s purchase intention. Companies which try to use these kinds of marketing strategy should really be aware of it.

Endorser is common in advertising for marketing strategies. The firms spend hundreds of million dollars to hire celebrities to endorse their products and brands. Appropriate endorsers are beneficial in brand differentiation and help competitive advantage building. Previous researches in match-up between endorser and product image have two diverse points of view (congruity vs. incongruity). The latest research reveals that in moderate incongruity would accommodate the two different views. Based on the three inconsistent findings, this study explores the effects of gender-based trait through different match-up levels of endorser and service type. The present study uses experimental design to investigate the advertising effects of endorser¡¦s gender (male vs. female), endorser¡¦s gendered traits (male vs. female), and service type (masculine vs. neutral vs. feminine). Thus, a 2x2x3 factorial design is conducted. The ad effects are measured by perceived quality, attitudes toward the brand, and purchase intention to observe the responses under twelve different and fictitious scenarios. The results indicate that a male endorser with female traits is more effective than a male endorser with male traits, especially promoting feminine-based service marketing. Besides, consumers¡¦ perceived quality is different when evaluating match-up combinations based on endorser¡¦s gender. Moreover, when promoting a masculine-based service, a female endorser with female trait is more effective than a male endorser with male traits in perceived quality and purchase intentions. According to these findings, the research provides implications for researchers and marketers on match-up between endorser and service type.

Celebrity as endorser is one of the important facilitators in advertising activities. Most of the extant master theses on advertising endorsement have focused on the present celebrity people. Seldom did they study intensely the communicative effects of celebrity-past as endorser in advertising. The current research investigates celebrity-past¡¦s effects as endorser on communication in print advertisement, using an quasi- 3x3x2 factorial design of experimental method to test the various empirical hypotheses. Measurement of the dependent variables¡Xcommunicative effects¡Xincluded: purchase intention, attitude toward product, and product concept. In addition to the main effect of celebrity-past as endorser, product category and advertising slogan are also involved in as two moderator variables, so that the interaction effect can be detected as well. Three past celebrity persons included in the current experiment are Terisa Teng, Audrey Hepbum, and Xi Shi, separately and solely acting as endorser in the print advertisement pages for skin-cream, watch, and chicken-essence, in that sequence. Participants of the experiment were 56 female undergraduate and master students at National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In the research results, many of the hypotheses were supported significantly by the empirical data, such as interaction effect on purchase intention from celebrity-past and product category, interaction effect on attitude toward product from celebrity-past and advertising slogan, and the main effect of celebrity-past on product concept.

<p>The purpose of this study is to examine the possible theoretic and (f)actual role(s) of pop-culture icons in peace and evelopment-related global issues, using the qualitative research methods of text- and discourse analysis. Do pop-culture icons have a role to play at all in this field? If so, what is that role? What are these celebrity activists currently saying and doing on the international development scene and what are their analyses like? What are their current and historical functions? There is support in the academic literature suggesting that celebrity activists can possess vast power resources (scope of influence), (soft) power and (charismatic) authority, which in turn enables them to influence the attitudes and values of (especially young, receptive) people. The findings also show that the most successful celebrity activists have a global reach, as well as access to the international arenas of political power (e. g. the G8 and the World Economic Forum). Celebrity activists seem to be able to "sell" messages in a way that the politicians and officials of today cannot. When they speak, people listen. They further employ a two-level outreach, as they connect with political and economical elite groups as well as with the masses of world citizens in a way that politicians and officials, whose influence is more often limited by traditional nation state boundaries, cannot. I argue that the celebrity activists should be seen as a complement to the civil society and the work of NGO's and INGO's, since it is by further enhancing their work and strengthening their agendas that most of them act.Celebrity activists offer an alternative to the political establishment, which is viewed by suspicion by large groups of citizens, and can play a role in empowerment, inspiration, education, information, awareness raising, fundraising, opinion building and lobbying and function as diplomats, spokespersons, ambassadors, entrepreneurs, convenors and heroic voices.</p>

China in the new millennium has witnessed the surge of the digital wave, which has played a pivotal role in reshaping the social and cultural landscapes. This dissertation employs institutional and content analysis to link the ascendance of Internet culture with the state-led marketization, commercialization, and modernization project. By systematically examining blog and Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs), two of the most dynamic online spaces in China, it brings to the fore the intertwining official, commercial, individual, and social forces conducive to the vitality, ingenuity, and diversity of Internet culture in China. The main body of this dissertation is divided into four chapters. Chapter one describes the developmental history of the Internet and blogging industry in China, and discusses how the rule of the attention economy dominates the industrial practice of commercial Internet portals. By taking Sina.com as a primary case study, this chapter elucidates how the strategic structuring of attention is paramount for Sina.com’s success in promoting celebrity blogs. In turn, celebrity blogging has fundamentally changed the social and cultural landscape of China. The following three chapters delineate three prominent cultural modes digital media have fostered: fun-seeking, trailblazing, and taboo-breaking. Each formulation epitomizes how a particular style of attention rule is implemented in online space. Chapter two investigates how the playful collective attention projected on an alternative media type fosters the birth of China’s first Internet celebrity: Furong Jiejie (Sister Lotus). Chapter three explores how the “attention-haves,” represented by such celebrities as Yang Lan and Xu Jinglei, innovatively capitalize on the attention rule and engage in new modes of cultural production via new media. In chapter four, I use blogs of Mu Zimei and Han Han as examples, and detail how their taboo-breaking practices disrupt preset parameters of social, cultural, and political norms. I contend their particular style of blogging greatly contributes to catching public attention and engaging in contentious issues, which further fosters the emergence of a literal public sphere in contemporary China. / text

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of the documentary film in the relationship between the artist and the fan; specifically how Bob Dylan fans use the documentary films Dont Look Back, directed by D.A. Pennebaker, and No Direction Home, directed by Martin Scorsese. Dylan, Pennebaker, and Scorsese are three important figures in American popular culture, and these are the two most prominent films about Dylan. These films discuss relatively the same time period, yet delineate two different versions of Dylan's identity. Dont Look Back, released in 1967, documents Dylan's 1965 tour of England. Because of Pennebaker's rhetorical placement and treatment of particular scenes, Dylan often comes across as mean and spiteful, lashing out at reporters and those around him. Scorsese's 2005 film combines archival footage with contemporary interviews to create a different picture of Dylan--- a picture of an artist who was mistreated and misinterpreted by the folk community, his fans, and the press. By conducting interviews with passionate Dylan fans, I concluded that these films demonstrate the rhetorical presentation of identity. Fans use the images found in these films to construct their identity of Dylan. The documentary film is unable to fully capture one's identity, but, as these films show, can only rhetorically construct the celebrity persona.

The Two-Step Flow of Communication suggests that opinion leaders have a greater impact on consumers' product choices and decisions than marketers. With the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, many consumer researchers expanded the study of opinion leadership to incorporate electronic Word-of-Mouth behavior (eWOM) into the Two-Step Flow of Communication. Yet, with the recent and increasing prominence of social media, there appears to be a gap within the opinion leadership literature. Several studies have examined how the Internet and social media empower opinion leaders to instantaneously influence large crowds with eWOM. Marginally few studies, however, have considered how the production of user-generated content (UGC) among opinion leaders can further expand their peer influence. Furthermore, emergent research illustrates that social media is transforming into an enclave for celebrity culture, wherein celebrities use social media to invoke gossip and fantasy in consumers. These technological and cultural shifts within the Internet and social media necessitate an understanding of how UGC, social media and celebrity culture fit within the Two-Step Flow of Communication. In order to address these gaps, the current study probed the relationships amongst parasocial interaction, opinion leadership and willingness to participate in UGC and eWOM. Specifically, parasocial interaction is a history of interactions between a consumer and celebrity that manifest into a fantasized, personal relationship. Relevant hypotheses were developed and used to construct a theoretical model. Data were collected from a nationally representative sample (n = 555) and a Structural Equation Model was subsequently run to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that social values, knowledge and parasocial interaction are positively related to opinion leadership. In turn, opinion leadership is positively related to willingness to participate in UGC and eWOM. Parasocial interaction, too, is positively related to willingness to participate in UGC and eWOM. A mediation effect was supported whereby opinion leadership significantly mediates the relationship between parasocial interaction and UGC, but not eWOM. The production of UGC is shown to be dependent upon parasocial interaction and opinion leadership. Nonetheless, eWOM does not seem to necessitate opinion leadership and can be produced directly from parasocial interactions.

Abstract Title: A gaze says more than a 1000 words – a study of the portrayal of female celebrities in the photographic material on the online portals of Aftonbladet and Expressen En blick säger mer än 1000 ord - en studie av porträtteringen av kvinnliga kändisar i Aftonbladetsoch Expressens bildmaterial på Internet Number of pages: 58 (59 including enclosures) Author: Sofie Backman Tutor: Amelie Hössjer Course: Media and Communication Studies D Period: Spring 2008 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University, Sweden Aim: The aim of this essay is to study in what ways female celebrities are portrayed in the photographic material of the Swedish tabloid press. In which situations does she appear? What function does she seem to behold in the pictures? Further the thesis explores whetherthe portrayal of the female celebrity shows signs of stereotyping. Method/Material: The study combines a quantitative and a qualitative method. A picture analysis of photographic material from the online versions of the Swedish tabloids Aftonbladet and Expressen has been conducted. To do this, a model based on categories from gender and celebrity research in the media field was created and then applied on the material. The study included 40 photographs of Swedish and international female celebritites from the popular culture industries and was studied in-depth according to elements such as activity, smile, gaze, distance and roles. Main Results: The main results from the picture analysis show that the female celebrity is seldom shown performing any clear activity in the pictures; she is often passive and posing and she is portrayed as an object to be looked at. She also seems to be aware of this position. There is great focus on body and looks, which even further enhances the objectification. The pictures of the female celebrity show clear signs of stereotypisation. The female role in the pictures can be described using the keywords: inactive, available, personal address, body and looks and an object to be looked at. Keywords: women, celebrity, stereotypes, picture analysis, Swedish tabloid press

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