Social Mediation of Higher Education: The Public Visibility and ‘Celebrification’ of Academia in the Cyberspace

Alenka Jelen

University of Central Lancashire

Introduction•Can you work with the ‘stars’?

•Celebrity culture and celebrification of academia

•Social media: visibility, production and reproduction of the ‘stars’

•Changes and impacts?

The concept of ‘academic fame’?• Work publicly well known• Media profile: authoritative and expert comments• A name that guarantees a publishing/research contract (a

Hollywood star funding for a movie)• The discourse of fame in lectures, conference

presentations etc. (a figure that ‘dresses, talks and walks for the part’): to amuse and keep the audience interested (PPT, images, jokes, reflections etc.)

• Academic ‘fans’ and para-social relationships• The stairway to stardom: talent, ‘specialness’, hard work

and professionalism• Awards for outstanding achievements • The world of interpersonal competition, inflated egos,

justification of expenditures (Herrick, 2005)

Academics as celebritiesStill a ‘silly’ idea?

Concepts in sociology of fame• Adulation, identification and competition• The desire for fame • Originates from the primary need to be wanted • Encouraged by egoistical, fractured and

incomplete (post)modern identity• Fame offers material, economic, social and

psychological rewards (and working around the clock)

• Access to social space and the centre of meaning generation

• If you are not famous: periphery of power networks, ‘fan’ status, co-produce impressions

Differences between academic and celebrity culture• Public vs. private disclosure (maintenance of a

‘private world’)• Invasion of privacy• Academics usually strive to remain impersonal,

‘objective’, detached, and admired as ‘wise’ • The level of intimacy in relationships with the

‘fans’

• Less image and possessive-self domination (?)• Less psychological damage (?)• Loneliness and destructive devices (?)

Social media and academic circulation• Production, circulation and consumption of

‘academic fame’ transformed by new media

• New spaces and dimensions of public visibility

• Shifting the line between public and private• New reputation management?• ‘Fame’ and visibility manufacture and

construction?

Constructing an on-line ‘self’•Blogging•LinkedIn •Facebook •Twitter•Academia.edu•Google Buzz?•Private vs. public

The importance of self ‘on-line’ •The power of Google: students googling

us before joining university/courses/classes

The presentation of self on-(everyday)line• Institutional:

▫ Official university website

• Personal:▫ Blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc.▫ Academia.edu▫ Own websites (Teun A. van Dijk)

• Positive stories in building academic image: PR?• Preference for university profile websites (‘third

person’ endorsement)

Co-construction of ‘self’• Twitter: quotes• Facebook:

▫ Status updates▫ Facebook groups etc.▫ To be or not to be friends?

• Blogs written about us by our students/ followers/ listeners/ opponents

• You have been YouTubed:▫ Lectures▫ Social situations

Reputation management?• It is not just you who defines your reputation

▫ How often students and other people who discuss things about you on-line?

▫ What are they saying? Why?▫ With who?

• Management and control of our on-line presence and appearance?

• Hire a PR consultant/assistant?

Issues for consideration• High potential visibility in the cyberspace

▫ Students as ‘ambassadors’ of our image (the level of control?)

▫ High self-monitoring: Be careful what you say or do, you might end up on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc.

▫ How to manage personal information/reputation on-line?

• Increasing visibility and ‘celebrification’ of academia in the cyber space

• ‘Panopticonisation’ of academia• The same route as politics?

Future research•Potential research:

▫Visibility of PR academic community on-line?

▫Comparison with other fields?

▫How well do we practice what we preach?

Thank you!

Alenka JelenUniversity of Central Lancashire

AJelen@uclan.ac.uk