This dissertation focuses on the production and development of a conspicuous, widespread
culture phenomenon in contemporary Japan, which is characterized by numerous young, mediapromoted
personalities, or pop-idols, who are groomed for public consumption. The research,
based on eighteen months of in-depth fieldwork in the Japanese entertainment industry, aims to
contribute to the understanding of the allegorical role played by pop-idols in the creation of
youth culture. Pop-idols are analyzed as personified symbols that function as vehicles of
cultural production. The principal issues suggested in this research include: the criteria of popidol
production; the ways in which pop-idols are produced; the perceptions of pop-idol
performances by producers, performers, and consumers; the ways in which idol personalities are
differentiated from each other; the ways in which pop-idol performances are distinguished from
other styles or genres; and the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical roots as well
as consequences of pop-idols' popularity. These issues are explored through the examination of
female pop-idols.
The single, most important function of pop-idols is to represent young people's fashions,
customs, and lifestyles. To this end, the pop-idol industry generates a variety of styles that can
provide the young audience with pathways toward appropriate adulthood. They do this within
their power structure as well as their commercial interest to capitalize on adolescence - which
in Japan is considered the period in which individuals are expected to explore themselves in the
adult social world. The stylized promotion, practiced differently by promotion agencies that
strive to merchandise pop-idol images and win public recognition, constitutes a field of
symbolic contestation. The stage is thus set for an investigation of the strategies, techniques,
and processes of adolescent identity formation as reified in the construction of idol
personalities.
This dissertation offers a contextualized account of dialogue that occurs between capitalism,
particular rhetoric of self-making, and the lifestyle of consumers, mediated by pop-idols and
their manufacturing agencies that function together as the cultural apparatus. The analysis
developed in this dissertation hopes to provide theoretical and methodological contributions to
the study of celebrities in other social, cultural, and historical settings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9936 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Aoyagi, Hiroshi |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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