Reading Celebrity Gossip Magazines (eBook)

Andrea McDonnell (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2014
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-7456-8453-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Americans are obsessed with celebrities. While our fascination with fame intensified throughout the twentieth century, the rise of the weekly gossip magazine in the early 2000s confirmed and fueled our popular culture's celebrity mania. After a decade of diets and dates, breakups and baby bumps, celebrity gossip magazines continue to sell millions of issues each week. Why are readers, especially young women, so attracted to these magazines? What pleasures do they offer us? And why do we read them, even when we disagree with the images of femininity that they splash across their hot-pink covers?

Andrea McDonnell answers these questions with the help of interviews from editors and readers, and her own textual and visual analysis. McDonnell's perspective is multifaceted; she examines the notorious narratives of celebrity gossip magazines as well as the genre's core features, such as the 'Just Like Us' photo montage and the 'Who Wore It Best?' poll. McDonnell shows that, despite their trivial reputation, celebrity gossip magazines serve as an important site of engagement for their readers, who use these texts to generate conversation, manage relationships, and consider their own ideas and values.

Andrea McDonnell is Visiting Assistant Professor at Emmanuel College, Boston.

Inhalt

Introduction: Celebrity Gossip Magazines in American Popular Culture

1. Gendering Celebrity Gossip

2. All About Us: Celebrity Gossip Magazines and the Female Reader

3. Stars on Earth: The Paradox of Ordinary Celebrity

4. Making Morality Meaningful

5. Ambiguously Truthful

Conclusion: On Pleasure and the Popular

Appendices

References

Rezensionen

"Andrea McDonnell's sympathetic study of celebrity magazines brings
a fresh and original approach to what she calls 'the popular
feminine'. With humor and understanding she shows what the
magazines mean to their twenty-something readers as they engage
with the challenges and contradictions of being female at that
particular moment in their lives. An essential read for all
students of gender and popular culture."

Paddy Scannell, University of Michigan

"Andrea McDonnell's book is a real treat. Reading Celebrity Gossip
Magazines offers a much needed integration and update of the study
of women's popular culture by integrating reader, writer and
textual perspectives in a strong analysis."

Joke Hermes, University of Amsterdam

"An outstanding analysis of the explosive rise and appeal of
celebrity magazines in the early twenty-first century.
Exceptionally well-written, thoughtful and nuanced, this study
breaks new ground in identifying the types of visual strategies the
magazines deploy, which kinds of normative messages are most
salient in them, and why these magazines, despite being recognized
as 'trashy', have enormous appeal to young women. Highly
recommended."

Susan Douglas, University of Michigan

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.10.2014
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Schlagworte: celebrity culture, gossip magazines, cultural studies • Communication & Media Studies • Cultural Studies • Kommunikation u. Medienforschung • Kulturwissenschaften • Media Studies • Medienforschung • popular culture • Volkskultur
• ISBN-10: 0-7456-8453-X / 074568453X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8453-6 / 9780745684536