Volume 39, Issue 2

The concept of celebrity culture remains remarkably undertheorized in the literature, and it is precisely this gap that this article aims to begin filling in. Starting with media culture definitions, celebrity culture is conceptualized as collections of sense-making practices whose main resources of meaning are celebrity. Consequently, celebrity cultures are necessarily plural. This approach enables us to focus on the spatial differentiation between (sub)national celebrity cultures, for which the Flemish case is taken as a central example. We gain a better understanding of this differentiation by adopting a translocal frame on culture and by focusing on the construction of celebrity cultures through the ‘us and them’ binary and communities. Finally, it is also suggested that what is termed cultural working memory improves our understanding of the remembering and forgetting of actual celebrities, as opposed to more historical figures captured by concepts such as cultural memory.

“Social TV”, described as the use of social media such as Twitter or Facebook stimulated by TV programs, is highly topical in the television industry. Communication research has fallen behind in addressing this issue. In this paper we explore the simultaneous communication activities of Twitter users while watching TV. Additionally, we tested whether different TV programs stimulate different communication activities. The main findings of our quantitative content analysis of approximately 30,000 messages show that communication within the Twitter community as well as evaluations of shows and actors are the main subjects of the explored tweets. We also found that different TV programs evoke different communication activities. While talent shows produce expressions of fandom and critiques of the candidates in the show, live events evoke a critical debate about the show itself and what’s happening on screen. Political talk shows can stimulate a public discourse.

In the black metal subculture, authenticity is a central concept. While there are ample academic studies devoted to authenticity in hip hop, rock, country, punk, and other music genres, black metal authenticity remains relatively under-researched. This manuscript discusses how black metal fans construct authenticity. In-depth interviews with Dutch black metal fans reveal that they define authenticity along four highly interrelated dimensions: sincerity, commerciality, country of origin, and extremeness. While these dimensions are highly similar to those found in other music genres, our respondents’ constructions of authenticity are far from predictable. More specifically, they are much more complex and flexible than they might appear to outsiders to the subculture. We argue that this complexity is strongly related to the central role invocations of authenticity play in the drawing of boundaries around the subculture, as they ensure that authenticity cannot be easily staged but rather requires a profound investment in the subculture.

This study investigates the influence of (1) viewing situations (solo- vs. group-viewing) and (2) interpersonal communication in a group-viewing situation on television entertainment. In a field study combining a survey and video observation, (1) entertainment of participants watching television alone or in a group, and (2) entertainment between different groups was compared. To assess interpersonal communication while watching television, group verbal and nonverbal communication behavior was recorded. Results suggest that the presence of others did not influence viewers’ core enjoyment. Further, while the amount of nonverbal communication behavior did not affect viewers’ core enjoyment, particular topics of conversation influenced specific enjoyment qualities, with conversations indicating involvement in the television show intensifying viewers’ empathy, and conversations indicating emotional experiences while watching television decreasing viewers’ suspense. Results are discussed regarding nonverbal and verbal mechanisms that underlie entertainment in different social conditions.

Since Davison (1983) proposed the hypothesis regarding the Third-Person Effect (TPE), it has been widely accepted by researchers in communication. The objective of this study is to test both perceptual and behavioral components of TPE in Spain related to media in general, violent, pornographic, and trash TV shows (in particular, the TV show Sálvame, Save me! in Spanish). Relying on two different surveys, the study confirms the perceptual component of the third-person effect for media and controversial content. Moreover, respondents perceive Sálvame as the most negative content, with the majority stating that they have tried to protect family and friends from the contents of the program and would be in favor of censoring it.