Week 4- news value of celebrity

This week’s lecture focused on the news values necessary for journalist’s stories concerning news coverage of elite persons attributed to the changes in political economy of news media. The key reading, ‘The economy of celebrity’ concentrates on how the traditional news values are diminishing from journalism and public relations. My found reading, evaluates Galtung and Ruge’s news values, concluding that they not to be recited.

A strength of my found reading is that it clearly identifies the aspects of news values declining in journalistic practices as the power shifts towards public relations. These news values were identified by Galtung and Ruge, however, they’re known to be problematic. The authors of the found reading have proven them to be outdated; Harcup and O’Neil have developed innovative values as they consider the traditional values to be inspiration for thought rather than taken literally. Similarly, the key reading recognises that the necessity of positive publicity has slowly developed into “a corporate issue” (Turner., 2004:8). This necessity results in journalists compromising their news values because publicists have been “massaging the truth” (Turner., 2004: 8) through the media. Therefore, I understand that their work processes are purposefully ambiguous as it’s essential in conserving an effective rapport. Thus, this serves the interests of both the publicists and the journalists.

A ‘celetoid’ is a media generated form of an attributed celebrity who is famous for a short amount of time. The key reading refers to Rojek’s definition, acknowledging that a celetoid can go from intense fame to being irrelevant within weeks. This is to enable a “reliable supply of interchangeable celebrities” (Harcup and O’Neill., 2001: 5) in relation to the television industry. To ensure maximum opportunity for success, these celetoid’s need publicists who have mutual beneficial relationships with journalists to guarantee media coverage. I disagree with this perspective that publicists are not manipulative because their job is to negotiate situations for their clients to avoid negative publicity. Promotion of these celebrities across several platforms is common as it increases profitability. For example, Danielle Bregoli, received her five seconds of fame when she appeared on the popular TV show Dr. Phil. To maintain fame, she has now moved across platforms to social media and even collaborated with a rapper in the music industry. This helps to preserve her relevance by giving the illusion that she isn’t old news.

Personally, I’m interested in the consequences for the journalism industry if the celebrity remains a dominant news worthy topic. Using an audience study, I would consider the positive and negative impact on society that the celebrity obsessed media may have.