Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Oct 12, 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 196 pages
The areas of publicity, public relations and promotions have been considered to be on the periphery of the media. Yet this revealing new book demonstrates that they form a fundamental component of the media industries, with the decline of hard news being accompanied by the rise of gossip and celebrity. In addition to making a substantial contribution to our understanding of the cultural function of celebrity, Fame Games outlines how the promotion industry has developed and how celebrity is produced, promoted, and traded within the Australian media. While their analysis will inform academic debates on media practice internationally, the authors have taken the unique step of investigating the workings of the Australian promotion industry from within. Interviews with over 20 publicists, promoters, agents, managers, and magazine editors have provided a wealth of information about the processes through which celebrity in Australia is produced.

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Contents

Celebrity and the Media
1
Flashpoints the everyday and junk journalism
2
The meaning and significance of celebrity
8
Media survey results
16
Filling the gap in media research
23
The Rise of Promotional Culture
29
Public relations in Australia
34
Promotion publicity and the celebrity
43
Damage control
100
Theres no such thing as bad publicity
105
Accidental heroes
110
Regulating the mad dogs
114
Core Territory Celebrities and the Womens Magazines
116
Womens magazines in Australia
117
The enduring value of scandal
124
The personal the new and the exclusive
126

The normalisation of publicity
55
Producing Celebrity
60
The agent
61
The manager
69
The publicist
79
The media feeding the media
85
Australias Hollywood
86
Public relations and value
91
Managing the Media
93
Product enhancement
95
Magazines and the celebrity industry
141
Celebrity and gossip
144
Teen magazines
153
Changes in the Media Landscape
160
The meanings of celebrity
164
The critique of promotional culture
170
What do we make of all this?
177
Notes
179
Index
189
Copyright

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