An ESRC-funded

research project

Heather Mendick, Kim

Allen and Laura Harvey

‘X FACTOR CULTURE FUELLED THE UK RIOTS’:

INTERVENING INTO DEBATES ON CELEBRITY

AND YOUTH ASPIRATIONS

1. Interest in young people’s aspirations and inequalities in youth transitions

2. Policy and public concern about effects of celebrity as eroding aspiration

3. Absence of empirical work with young people

“X Factor culture fueled the UK riots… Kids are meant to believe that their stepping stone to massive money is The X Factor. Luck is great, but most of life is hard work. We do not celebrate people who have

made success out of serious hard work” - Iain Duncan Smith MP

“Kids nowadays just want to be famous. If you ask little girls, they either want to be footballers' wives or win The X Factor…Our society

is in danger of being Barbie-dolled “ - Barbara Follett MP

CELEBRITY STUDIES: Mainly textual analysis of reps of celebrity

Empirical work is limitedFAN STUDIES: extreme, intense rather than mundane, everydayPSYCHOLOGICALLY INFORMED WORK: ’parasocial relationships’

– deficit, pathologised status

CELEB AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE (Turner) – NEGOTIATED MEANINGS

Young people’s media and cultural practices – bring back from the margins of ‘the classroom’ and school life

UNDERSTANDING CELEBRITY AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S ASPIRATIONS

The study is located in sociology of education specifically work on aspirations, choices and transitions that sees these not as individual acts but regulated and shaped by wider inequalities.

We are drawing on recent work on audience engagement with celebrity and RTV in relation to moral economies of selfhood. Celebrity as a discursive and disciplinary field where social distinctions are made and relations, behaviours and people are given or denied value (Imogen Tyler & Bruce Bennett; Bev Skeggs and Helen Wood).

Thus, we see young people’s talk about celebrity as ‘performance practices’ through which they position themselves and others (Linda Duits 2010, p.249).

UNDERSTANDING CELEBRITY AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S ASPIRATIONS

THEORETICAL APPROACH

‘A DISCOURSE-BASED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH WOULD SET ITSELF THE WORK OF TAKING THAT WHICH OFFERS ITSELF AS COMMON-SENSICAL, OBVIOUS, NATURAL, GIVEN OR UNQUESTIONABLE, AND TRYING TO UNRAVEL IT A BIT – TO OPEN IT UP TO FURTHER QUESTIONING.’ (MAGGIE MACLURE, 2003: P9)

PULL APART THE ‘FABRIC OF TEXTS’ - DECONSTRUCT DISCOURSES OF ASPIRATION, TALENT, HARD WORK, AMBITION ETC AS CIRCULATE IN AND ABOUT CELEBRITY

WHAT FUNCTION DO THESE SERVE?- WHAT SELVES DO THESE PRODUCE?-WHICH ‘FUTURES’ (CHOICES, PATHWAYS) BECOME ESTABLISHED AS VALUABLE, POSSIBLE, DESIRABLE?

EXPLORE HIERARCHIES OF VALUE ESTABLISHED IN POSITIONING OF SELF (AND OTHER) VIA TALK OF ASPIRATION AND CELEBRITY

Understanding Celebrity Discursively

THINKING ABOUT AND ACCESSING AFFECT?

PRODUCTION OF CLASSED OTHERS VIA AFFECTIVE RESPONSES TO MELODRAMATIC MOMENTS IN RTV AND CELEB – SHAME, DISGUST AND

SOCIAL ABJECTION (SKEGGS AND WOOD; TYLER)

BUT ALSO… REFUSAL OF JUDGEMENTS AND RECLAIMING OF VALUE

ASPIRATIONS AS AFFECTIVE PRACTICE – ORIENTATIONS TO ‘GOOD’ AND ‘BAD’ OBJECTS AND FUTURES; LOCATED IN MORAL ECONOMIES (SARA

AHMED, 2010)

ROLE OF FANTASY AND IMAGINATION IN CLASS TRANSFORMATION - LOCATE CELEBRITY AS OPENING UP NEW WAYS OF BEING (VALERIE

WALKERDINE)

THE STUDY

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

WHAT DISCOURSES (POWERFUL AND CONFLICTING SOCIAL STORIES) OF ASPIRATION CIRCULATE IN CELEBRITY REPRESENTATIONS?

HOW DO YOUNG PEOPLE TAKE-UP THESE DISCOURSES IN TALKING ABOUT THEIR OWN ASPIRATIONS?

HOW DO DISCOURSES OF ASPIRATION IN CELEBRITY AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S TAKE-UP OF THESE RELATE TO SOCIAL CLASS AND GENDER?

RESEARCH DESIGN

KEY PRINCIPLES

YOUTH CENTRED

QUALITATIVE – GROUP (24 WITH 144 YOUNG PEOPLE) AND INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS (48)

PLUS TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF 12 CELEBRITY CASE STUDIES

ONLINE AND OFFLINE METHODS : CAPTURING COLLECTIVE SOCIAL PRACTICES OF MEANING MAKING

‘Social networking sites play a pivotal role in the production, circulation and reception [of celebrity culture], where online discussions offer a fascinating insight into how televisual characterisations become animated in struggles over identity and value’. (Imogen Tyler, 2011)

RESEARCH DESIGN

• 6 secondary schools (11-18) in England, rural and urban, reflective of local demographics

• In each:• 4 Group interviews with 6 students each (24

pupils - 12 from year 10 and 12 from year 12)• Follow up individual interviews with 8

students per school• Online forum – collective discussion of celebrity • Textual analysis of 12 case study celebrities

(generated from young people interviews)

TENTATIVE FINDINGS

TOP TWELVE CELEBRITIES?

• Tom Daley• Emma Watson• Will Smith• Nicki Minaj

• Kim Kardashian• Barack Obama• Justin Bieber• Keith Lemon• Miley Cyrus• Bill Gates• Katie Price• Mike Tyson

www.celebyouth.orgTwitter: @CelebYouthUKFacebook: CelebYouthUK