Celebrity Culture

Over the past few decades, the public obsession with celebrity has exploded. There has also been a huge growth in the number of college and university courses and degrees on celebrity studies and celebrity journalism. Ellis Cashmore’s Celebrity/Culture was among the first textbooks to address this fascination, and remains the most comprehensive work of its kind. It explored the intriguing issue of celebrity culture: its origins, its meaning and its global influence.

This fully-updated and rewritten second edition investigates issues in celebrity culture from the paparazzi to politics, from voyeurism to self-perfection. Cashmore presents engaging case studies to analyse how social media has changed the nature of celebrity culture, and explore how we consume celebrity in today’s society. His argument is driven by research, rather than invective. With pullout quotes and chapter summaries for ease of comprehension and teaching, this new edition is also available in tablet-ready format, with abundant links and tooltips.

Cashmore considers in detail the evolution, development and impact of celebrity culture in the public eye. This book will appeal to a wide undergraduate audience throughout the social sciences and humanities, in sociology, history, psychology and media studies.