Page 214 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

STAR CULTURE

Stars and trust
With modern identity formation being so problematic, institutions that nor-
mally provide and rely upon stable identities are threatened too. As Giddens
observes, the changing nature of time and space has implications for basic social
concepts like trust, where premodern kinship, local community, and religion
are replaced by abstract systems and future-oriented thought (1990: 102).
Searching for any sort of stable identity, people increasingly seek intimacy from
a distance and fashion their identities from mediated forms of communication.
Giddens does not mention stardom, and actually has very little to say about
media and the culture industries overall. But we can extend his argument to
assert that, if trust is no longer provided by the Church or state, it can be
bestowed by allegiance to mediated images that are recognizable, predictable,
and consistent.
As an example of this phenomenon, many of us today feel a sense of loss
when we enter our local bank. New tellers seem to arrive daily, and the desks
that used to accommodate loan officers are empty. Those officers now are
only accessible by phone, on-line, or in some mythical central office far away.
Such changes may very well make us feel that the bank can no longer be
trusted. This experience can be repeated at any number of institutions – the
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), where our ‘family doctor’ changes
daily, or the customer service phone operator, whose name changes with each
call. In a world of constant flux, uncertainty, and impersonality, the common,
stable, recognizable faces we encounter most often are those of pop culture
celebrities, and media narratives are some of the rare stories we hold in common
with others.
Stardom, as it is served up by modern telecommunications industries for
global consumption, is thus a perfect trust-building, self-locating mechanism.
Stardom has become a ‘glue’ that can connect individuals across time and
space, create identities, and hold them together. Stars grant modern people a
sense of self and a sense of (placeless) place. Rather than argue that star culture
engenders only a ‘hollow, superficial’ human experience, therefore, it is far
more interesting to consider how stardom provides significant emotional
connections for otherwise relatively disconnected individuals.

The production of stardom
If fame and its heroes characterize premodern forms of renown, then stardom
and celebrity reflect renown in late modernity and postmodernity. Stardom
stitches together cognitive and cultural elements that have been loosened by
modernity. The contemporary brands of stardom, however, emerged only
when modern communications technology came into wide use. Production of
star images by media corporations must therefore be seriously taken into
account in any theory of stardom and modernity.

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