Page 98 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Celebr ty Worsh p and Fandom |

celebrities and audiences is in turn emphasized in Horton and Wohl’s notion of
“para-social interaction.” According to Horton and Wohl, the interaction between
stars and audiences “characteristically, is one-sided, nondialectical, controlled
by the performer, and not susceptible of mutual development” (1956, p. 215),
thus leaving audiences largely disempowered. To some, then, celebrity works as a
powerful form of social and crowd control in the era of mass societies.
That such control has been attempted rather than successful (cf. Marshall
1997), however, reflects the complex power of relations between celebrities and
their fans. John Thompson describes the relationship between fan and celebrity
as “non-reciprocal intimacy at a distance” in which the celebrity does not “talk
back.” In contrast to face-to-face communication, audiences’ encounters with
celebrities are thus forms of “mediated quasi-interaction.” Thompson suggests
that audiences gain rather than lose control over such relationships: it is pre-
cisely because celebrities are so familiar to us, yet are not part of our daily face-
to-face interactions or our social environment, that audiences have the capacity
to shape their relationship with distant others. Celebrities are available at the
press of a button or by opening a magazine when and where we like and require,
while the communicative distance between celebrities and audiences creates
the space for idealized readings of celebrities—a circumstance that explains the
often profound disappointment of fans who meet their favorite celebrity face-
to-face. Thompson thus describes an interest in given celebrities and the act of
becoming a fan as a “strategy of self,” a way to meaningfully build an identity in
a mediated world.

FandoM as religion?

The intense emotional attachment many fans display towards their favorite television show,
sports team, band, or film star has triggered frequent comparisons between fandom and
religion. Equally, stars and popular icons span the extraordinary world of media celebrity
with the mundane life of audience members in ways similar to how religious iconography of-
fers a link between the divine and the believer. Indeed, journalistic and academic discourses
employ a range of religious terminology: “worship,” “devotion,” and “pilgrimage” are all
popular concepts to describe fan practices. Even the word “fan” finds its etymological root
in fanaticus, the Latin word for a member of a temple.
Despite such linguistic parallels, the differences between fandom and religion are pro-
found: however intense the emotional bond between fans and stars, it is rarely attributed
with transcendental significance by fans. Equally, while certain fan cultures employ reli-
gious symbols in fan art, as, for example, Jesus-like depictions of Elvis, such symbolism is
employed by such fans to express their simultaneous fandom and faith. The link between
religion and fandom is thus largely one of shared spaces identity construction: in today’s
mediated world, the consumption of popular media and icons has created an alternative
space for identities to be formed and negotiated, thus filling a void created by the seculari-
zation of modern life.