The Book of Stars: Some Alternative Insights into Celebrity Fandom

Date

2008-07

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

ISSN

DOI

Volume Title

Publisher

Academy of Marketing (UK)

Type

Conference

Peer reviewed

Yes

Abstract

While consumers have had a keen interest in the works and private lives of celebrities since the dawn of the Hollywood star system in the early 1920s, some consumers experience a significantly more intensive level of interest and admiration for a particular celebrity and, subsequently, become what are commonly known as fans. However, scant attention has been paid to how the relationship between fans and celebrities expresses itself in everyday consumer behaviour. This paper is taking an existential-phenomenological perspective to discuss fan behaviour as a holistic personal lived experience from a fan’s point of view. By using subjective personal introspection, the lead author provides hereby insights into his private lived consumption experiences as the fan of the young and talented actress Jena Malone, which were obtained and recorded as contemporaneous data over a period of 15 months. In doing so, the paper demonstrates how drawing on narrative transportation theory may provide a deeper understanding on the nature of celebrity fandom. The study found that a consumer’s fan experiences derive from one’s personal engagement with the celebrity’s artistic work and public persona, which is essentially the consumer’s personal intertextual reading of what s/he perceives to be relevant and reliable media texts.

Description

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.

Keywords

Celebrity Fandom, Human Brands, Film Stardom, Experiential Consumption, Fan Studies, Narrative Transportation Theory, Autoethnography / Subjective Personal Introspection

Citation

Wohlfeil, M. and Whelan, S. (2008) The Book of Stars: Some Alternative Insights into Celebrity Fandom. Proceedings of the Annual Academy of Marketing Conference 2008 at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen/UK. July 2008.

Rights

Research Institute