How Has Social Media Affected the Relationship Between Celebrities and Fans free essay sample

What is particularly interesting about Twitter (and to a lesser extent Facebook) is the newfound proximity we ‘normal people’ have to modern celebrities. These Celebrities once performed their professional duties at a distance and were only accessible through one-way relationships; third parties such as tabloids, TV shows, and interviews. Now, however they are within our reach. Newsstand and tabloids enjoyed being filled with negative portrayal of celebrities: Twitter acts as a way for celebrities let their fans know what is happening in their lives, circumventing (equally) biased third parties, and allowing them to portray their own Star Persona. On the surface it seems as though the use of Twitter is bringing celebrities and their fans closer together by bypassing the filter of the media and conducting a â€Å"direct† conversation. Questions remain, however, about the authenticity of the celebrities’ image established and sustained on Twitter. An article by Prof Laura Portwood-Stacer stated that Denver Bronco’s wide receiver Eddie Royal has over 100,000 likes on Facebook and has surpassed 50,000 Twitter followers not by being a great athlete, but through the â€Å"connection† with his followers, posting often enough and almost always offering something personal to the fans: a video shoutout, a picture, and the most popular, free tickets to a Broncos game, the article went on to state that Royal has a â€Å"social media coach† named Jeff Weiner whose motto is that his clients should interact consistently with followers and engage with them on video, using these social networking sites in a strategic way to help cultivate and maintain a healthy fan base through creating the illusion of first-person glimpses into their lives, a personal relationship: This is a perfect example of the postmodernity of the Internet. The master narrative of the established â€Å"dead tree press† of newspapers and magazines has been rejected, in favour of the pluralism and freedom of interactivity that the internet provides. Celebrities can now be portrayed as â€Å"normal people we could have relationships with†, Jean Baudrillard posits that we are living in a word of â€Å"hyper-reality† constructed largely of surface media images that challenges and undermines modernist notions of reality and truth. The problem is the presentation of the Star Persona as the ‘real’ person, and the Twitter users’ ability to distinguish reality from this constructed ‘simulation’ of the celebrity as they are intertwined together, creating the possibility of losing sight of where one ends and the other begins. It could also be argued that Twitter and other social media networks do not create the private relationships that they appear to, rather an open, mass media one. The familiarisation of celebrities can only be attained if the fan realises that they belong to a large group of fans, a fandom, and are not having a personal relationship but more like an impersonal relationship with the stars. The relationship between star and fandom is symbiotic which both celebrity and fan need and benefit from, They help them meet new business and social contacts, or reconnect with old friends. With so many celebrities starting to use Twitter and other sites, they help their Fans keep up with their favourite stars and what theyre doing at that exact moment in time, which helps maintain their popularity with fans, agents, and filmmakers, so ultimately, theyre helping maintain their careers, too. On the other hand there is always a negative side to these relationships, that involve abuse to and from both celebrities and fans. This is where the freedom of speech the internet allows comes into full practise, the abundant unregulated content of the internet as no limit. The internet has evolved to give people this sense of freedom, which inevitably results in abuse.. This is perfectly explained by David Gauntlett’s Web 2. 0 theory. Web 2. has enabled all kinds of people to be creative, to share the things theyve made, and to collaborate with others. Gauntlett argued that Web 2. 0 as allowed us to become our own producers and create our own identities and even influence ot her people just as celebrities do. A great example of this is the story of Justin Beiber, a now worldwide superstar followed by many, started by using the web 2. 0 to the fullest by regularly posting creative videos of himself on YouTube, another powerful mass media median. The freedom allowed by web 2. 0 allowed him to reach an audience without strong support from television and radio. This lifted him to superstar status. Take or example the twitter accounts of such a celebrity like Justin Beiber, who is effortlessly portraying a persona of a super loved mega star on twitter by having over 37 million followers, however new research claims out of his 37. 3 million followers, only 17. 8 million are linked to real accounts. The website Socialbakers found 47% of the singers followers on Twitter were genuine fans. Others are not so lucky, Rebecca Black, an American teen, released a self-made video on YouTube in an attempt to gain fame and sparking a frenzy of insults. She had over 51 mi llion people who view her video on YouTube and 1,036,504 people disliking her video; the fact that all the social medias are interlinked did not help her case because as more people conformed to a negative outlook on her made it inevitable for it to be a global media attack. This was very easy as her target audience are prone to following and conforming in the mass views. This ‘mob culture’ of social response on the internet – the ‘bandwagons’ that people are happy to belong to has created a new form of social conformity. Where social media’s â€Å"following† power has created a mass response to individuals.. In a 2007 study into how we assess group opinion on by weaver k. in the journal of personality and social psychology stated that hearing a opinion stated by the same person in a group had almost exactly the same affect as hearing the same opinion from three different people in the group. A million people stating this view is sure to influence a vast number of people to conform. People/fans would leave their beliefs and ideas to conform to the majority which may not even exist. Our inability to distinguish our self from, the fear of standing out has reduces us to mere as Twitter perfectly sums it ‘follower’; following does who had the courage to stand out and not conform. Social media is the human connection between media, in recent times these connections have developed to something more. This development in communication media as affected the traditional ways of socialising, it seems more like a one way relationship to the extreme as fandoms know everything about the celebrities and in return the celebrities know nothing about them. These extremes have reached the fact were people find it interesting to watch reality shows of celebrities being followed by cameras, documenting their everyday life, almost like a life version of twitter. Such shows include ‘Peter Andre, My life’ and ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’. These shows do not only give us a live â€Å"unscripted† view into the celebrity’s life but there is also the fact that we are being subconsciously sold products to. In fact, the study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that consumers are 67% more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter and 51% more likely to buy from a brand they follow on Facebook. This is the commercialism of social media these days, hyper-commercialism is seen in all these reality shows and now its on the social website YouTube, where you have to watch a commercial before watching the video you would like to watch. Following that, due to the strong fandom relationship (portrayed as an interpersonal relationship) eaves the fans oblivious making the companies get loads of new clients in an attempt to imitate and be more like their favourite celebrity. The internet these days is probably the best way to spread the messages. Therefore many companies have gained a lot from digital marketing and fans through social networking. Social Networking Websites including Facebook and Twitter which are now being used by various multinational companies in order to convey their message to the customers and what better way to do this then by making the people with the most power on the social sites to influence them. Social Media and social media celebrities have become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behaviour which leads to brand commitment. By liking your favourite celebrity’s page on Facebook, you can be bombarded with all different sponsors and advert links to the page and your choice. The social influence put to them by the celebrities is so strong that fandoms may look like they are in agreement with their celebrities choice of products in a social setting, but below the surface, the person has by no means been fully convinced. For instance, if in a conversation between two people, one person makes a racist comment and the other is offended and says nothing, this could be viewed as complying, so that the appearance of agreement is maintained. In other word they may be so influence by the relationship they think they are having with the celeb that they would go out of their way to get what they are literally told to get. Social medium such as twitter and Facebook will always have a huge amount of followers as they are able to tap into what we need and crave the most and that is off all things, attention and recognition, from our peers and most of all from our idols. Facebook allows people to get this recognition from people, whether it be through an accepted friends request or a liked status or hoto, or getting a follower on twitter, all these earns people recognition in the social word which they may not get in the real world, this of course boost confidence and self-esteem. So I guess it could be said that social media is a good thing in our society, just like live 2. 0 it helps us escape the cruelty of the world, however it’s not all jolly fun as I previously pointed out with the Rebecca Black situation, in the search of a better live on social sites some people may find much worse thing. The way social media has changed is that people are now moving in a direction to making live 2. 0, (a virtual world game that gives you the opportunity to live a second live in your computer) a reality. The vast and fast development of social mediums in the past years has given us an escape route from these lives we live in the real world and get lost in a desired hyper-reality were we are able receive comfort in the belief of being equals with the so calls stars of the real world. These stars have played a major part in assuring these social sites never fall, this is because most of them owe they large fan base and sometimes careers to these sites. They use social medium as a way of projecting a persona that is in their best interest and have the fandom believe in a true interpersonal relationship which is nothing but a fandom in an attend to project their persona even further into the status of social Gods.