Journalism and Celebrity: Celebrity Coverage as a Reflection of Society - today and throughout time

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Hanitzsch
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258389120

The project deals with the question of what role the coverage of celebrities in the media today plays and how this role has changed over time. Above all, we want to ask what social values and norms celebrity reporting conveys. The project does so against the backdrop of celebrity coverage's arrival in mainstream journalism and its evolution into an omnipresent phenomenon over the past 20 years. The proposed study is based on the assumption that the importance of people journalism lies primarily at the level of individual way of life. Here, it meets a growing need for orientation created by individualization, multioptionality, and the eroding authority of traditional institutions to provide collective orientation. The project will examine these processes in a conceptual module, as well as in two empirical studies. Using qualitative content analysis, we attempt to identify recurring narratives and frames in celebrity reporting with regards to identity and lifestyles in different areas of life. The resulting analytical framework will then serve as the basis for a quantitative content analysis. In this longitudinal study we examine the lifestyles, value systems and self-concepts conveyed in the coverage of celebrities and how it has changed over time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Dr. Katja Friedrich