Commercialising Celebrity Persona

This book investigates the commercialisation of celebrity persona in the UK, New York, and California. Interviews with 68 practitioners across the advertising, merchandising, film, and video game industries provide insight on the differences in approaches across jurisdictions, as well as the similarities caused by non-legal factors. Furthermore, the book addresses the developments in technology, social media, and social norms that have made collaboration attractive to maintain favour with fans. The book considers how the extension of passing off in the UK to include persona rights impacts the dispute resolution and transactional spheres involved in the commercialisation of persona. It compares the industry landscape to that of the US where the right of publicity has been recognised since 1953 and has gone as far as to protect 'identity'. The book argues that nonlegal factors significantly impact the commercialisation of persona across the jurisdictions and interact with the law to encourage permission-based behaviours. However, there remains a divergence in the dispute resolution sphere. Anyone who is interested in the multi-million dollar business of celebrities as assets will benefit from this book.

9.1 A Pragmatic Cultural Framework for Legal Analysis -- 9.2 Concluding Remarks -- Bibliography -- Index

This book explores human creativity to illustrate how the legal system can protect a wide variety of authors from attribution failures and other assaults to the intended messages of their works.

Based on extensive interviews with key players in the media and football industry, this text analyzes the impact of media change on soccer in Great Britain.

This book focuses on the meaning and experience of digital practice, emerging from work in the world of business and drawing on recent anthropological thinking on digital culture. Tom Maschio suggests that the digital is a space of a new "story culture" and considers the lived experience of new technologies. The chapters cover: storytelling in journalism and business with the new technology of virtual reality, the emerging meanings of social media and community building in the digital space, the uses and meanings of visual imagery online, and the cultural meanings of smartphone technology use and the "mobile life." The book incorporates ideas from humanistic anthropology and phenomenology in order to bring business problems into alignment with human concerns and desires, and to show the application of anthropological ideas to real-world issues. As well as anthropologists, the book will be valuable to business students and professionals interested in the digital realm.

Disassembling the Celebrity Figure: Credibility and the Incredible explores the construction of celebrity brands, articulating consumers’ dependence on the perceived authenticity these brands portray. It examines this authenticity through an exploration of fandom, media representation, branding and celebrity deaths.

"An outstanding achievement... Graeme Turner writes with power and persuasion, and brilliantly explores what it is about celebrity today that should concern us all" - Sean Redmond, Deakin University "A key touchstone for celebrity studies. Turner thoughtfully illuminates the variety of production and consumption practices through which celebrity circulates today, whilst remaining sensitive to the complexity of power relations in play. An essential read for students and scholars in the field" - Sue Holmes, University of East Anglia "Cements Turner’s status as the most important figure in celebrity studies... Turner’s gaze fixes on developments in digital, social and global mediascapes, drawing media and celebrity studies into complex critical, political and cultural debates in his indomitable style" - James Bennett, Royal Holloway, University of London "An extraordinary synthesis of research and theory... Understanding Celebrity remains the go-to text of celebrity studies" - Joshua Gamsom, University of San Francisco Where does the production of celebrity end and its consumption begin? Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and reality TV allow us a previously unimagined engagement with the manufactured ′persona′ of celebrity. Understanding Celebrity has become the go-to text for understanding the connection between the production and consumption of this ′persona′. The long-awaited second edition assesses the changing nature of this pivotal relationship in celebrity studies. The book: Explains how social media is key in establishing an online presence for celebrities Critically analyses the changing nature of fan culture within the online environment Delves into a richer and more detailed account of the history of celebrity Examines in greater depth the increased role of reality TV Incorporates recent contributions from feminist scholars to the field Enriched with new examples drawn from popular culture, this is a contemporary and incisive look at celebrity studies. Understanding Celebrity is not only an essential text, but a stimulating read for students studying celebrity and popular culture across media studies, cultural studies and sociology.

This edited collection brings together scholarly works of both a theoretical and empirical nature to critically analyse the forms and functions of the contemporary celebrity activist and to examine how these intersect with the political economic structures in which celebrity activists operate. Collectively, the volume illuminates some of the inherent tensions between the ethos of solidarity and compassion that the celebrity activist works to generate on the one hand and the processes of corporate sponsorship and discourses of individualism upon which the celebrity often depends, on the other. By offering empirical case studies that situate instances of celebrity activism within specific political contexts, the collection highlights how celebrity activism intersects with some of the underlying structures of gender politics and political discourses such as neoliberalism. In addition, the volume discusses how the tensions between, for example, individualism and solidarity can raise important questions about the authenticity of individual celebrity activists and how individual celebrity activists work, with varying degrees of success, to obfuscate such tensions and obscure the potential contradictions of their work. This book will be of great interest to students and academics within the fields of politics, international development, political communication, social movements, activism studies, and celebrity culture.