Page 207 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

STEPHEN HINERMAN

that of the Frankfurt School theorists. Stars are empty figures – fool’s gold –
which dazzles, but offers little of value to its audience.
Such negative reasoning, of course, is not the only way to explain the sig-
nificance of the rise of celebrity in global culture. Yes, it is true that stardom
permeates the globalized economy. Famous people are recognized across
borders. Their images are common coins in a cultural economy driven by
media, the culture industries, and information technology. But this does not
mean that the relationship of stars to fans is without deep meaning, that stars
‘dupe’ their publics, or that media-intensive cultures of celebrity are less
meaningful than earlier, ‘genuine hero’-oriented cultures.
Previous critical accounts of stardom and celebrity lack complex discus-
sions of how modern audiences work with star images culturally. As P. David
Marshall observes in one of the few studies to treat celebrity as a positive
cultural resource, for many theorists the ‘meaning of celebrity is largely an
elitist strategy’ in that it appears to materialize hierarchically from the ‘top’
(the star and the media corporation) down, ignoring the audience (Marshall
1997: 27). While stars do help media corporations sell their products world-
wide, they also help people form positive identities in postmodernity. They
grant audiences pleasure. To argue therefore that modern stardom is less vital
or less worthy than earlier forms of hero-worship demeans contemporary
identities unfairly and ignores the vital roles that media play in postmodernity.
A less didactic approach to the study of stardom and celebrity in modernity is
needed. I will argue in this chapter that stardom as one imaginary glue of
globalization is not a ‘problem’ but a blessing in the chaotic conditions of
modern life.

The parameters of global media stardom

To be well understood, any theory of global media stardom must account for
two phenomena. First, it must consider how images are produced by media
corporations and consumed by media audiences. Second, it must locate the rise
of celebrity in the nexus of time and space that characterizes modernity. If
global media stardom can be understood in terms of these two parameters,
perhaps it can be rescued from critiques which assign it a dangerous role in
modern history.
Returning, then, to the first of the two phenomena – the production and
consumption of media images – it is clear that the means of production in
media industries in modernity and late modernity have undergone vast trans-
formations. Global corporations flourish, constantly recombining in mergers
and buy-outs, which in turn reduces the number of smaller, localized media
producers. These multinational, mega-entertainment companies make videos,
CDs, movies, television shows, webcasts, and countless other cultural forms,
often using the same properties and personalities across the various media. They
sponsor rock concerts, theme parks, ice capades, and sporting events. Stars are

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