Celebrity advocacy and public engagement: the divergent uses of celebrity

This article sounds a cautionary note about the instrumental use of celebrity advocacy to (re)engage audiences in public life. It begins by setting out the steps necessary to achieve public recognition of a social problem requiring a response. It then presents empirical evidence which suggests that those most interested in celebrity, while also paying attention to the main stories of the day, are also least likely to participate in any form of politics. However, this does not rule out the possibility of forging a link between celebrity and public engagement, raising questions about what would potentially sustain such an articulation. After discussing the broader cultural context of celebrity advocacy in which perceived authenticity functions valorised form of symbolic capital, the article outlines a phenomenological approach to understanding the uses audiences make of celebrity advocacy, using the example of a Ewan McGregor UNICEF appeal for illustration. It concludes that while media encounters with celebrities can underpin a viewer’s sense of self, this is as likely to lead to the rationalisation of inaction as a positive response to a charity appeal

Celebrity culture and public connection: bridge or chasm?

Media and cultural research has an important contribution to make to recent debates about declines in democratic engagement: is for example celebrity culture a route into democratic engagement for those otherwise disengaged? This article contributes to this debate by reviewing qualitative and quantitative findings from a UK project on 'public connection'. Using self-produced diaries (with in-depth multiple interviews) as well as a nationwide survey, the authors argue that while celebrity culture is an important point of social connection sustained by media use, it is not linked in citizens' own accounts to issues of public concern. Survey data suggest that those who particularly follow celebrity culture are the least engaged in politics and least likely to use their social networks to involve themselves in action or discussion about public-type issues. This does not mean 'celebrity culture' is 'bad', but it challenges suggestions of how popular culture might contribute to effective democracy

Constructing women’s leadership representation in the UK press during a time of financial crisis : gender capitals and dialectical tensions

A continuing challenge for organizations is the persistent underrepresentation of women in senior roles, which gained a particular prominence during the global financial crisis (GFC). The GFC has raised questions regarding the forms of leadership that allowed the crisis to happen and alternative proposals regarding how future crises might be avoided. Within this context women’s leadership has been positioned as an ethical alternative to styles of masculinist leadership that led to the crisis in the first place. Through a multimodal discursive analysis this article examines the socio-cultural assumptions sustaining the gendering of leadership in the popular press to critically analyse how women’s leadership is represented during the GFC of 2008–2012. Highlighting the media’s portrayal of women’s leadership as a gendered field of activity where different forms of gender capital come into play, we identify three sets of dialectics: women as leaders and women as feminine, women as credible leaders and women as lacking in credibility, and women as victims and women as their own worst enemies. Together, the dialectics work together to form a discursive pattern framed by a male leadership model that narrates the promise of women leaders, yet the disappointment that they are not men. Our study extends understandings regarding how female and feminine forms of gender capital operate dialectically, where the media employs feminine capital to promote women’s positioning as leaders yet also leverages female capital as a constraint. We propose that this understanding can be of value to organizations to understand the impact and influence of discourse on efforts to promote women into leadership roles

Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere

It is news journalism that is commonly considered the practice that reports on the political and invites us to act as citizens. However, there are other media genres, forms and content that may provoke the citizen in us. They not only provide talking points but also facilitate communicative spaces whereby active audiences transform into deliberating publics by bridging their knowledge, identities and experiences to society through everyday, informal political talk. The internet provides a public space whereby this everyday-life politicization can occur bottom-up. This article addresses this process of politicization in the context of political talk and discusses the boundaries between private and public by examining how it emerges in forums dedicated to British popular reality TV programmes. The article pays particular attention to the shift from non-political talk to the lifestyle-based political issues and the more conventional political topics that arise, and explores the triggers of such talk

Popularizing Party Journalism in China in the Age of Social Media: The Case of Xinhua News Agency

The phenomenon of the “popularization” of journalism has become widespread in the process of media marketization, globalization and digitalization. This phenomenon has been studied mostly in the Anglo-American context. This article instead draws attention to China, where the tendency toward popularizing (party) journalism is also occurring but taking a rather different form. It focuses on the case of Xinhua News Agency—the pioneer as well as the most representative case of traditional party journalism in the country. The article considers to what extent Xinhua’s online media content concerning the ruling party since 1949—the Communist Party of China—has been popularized both in terms of content and style. The changes to online media content made by Xinhua are indicative of the extent to which it is possible to combine the status of a state-owned central news organization with a new journalistic orientation that seeks to make the messages from and about the party more appealing to technology-savvy and entertainment-driven audiences in the new media environment in mainland China

Process evaluation of a stepped-care program to prevent depression in primary care: patients' and practice nurses' experiences

Background: Depression is common in patients with diabetes type 2 (DM2) and/or coronary heart disease (CHD), with high personal and societal burden and may even be preventable. Recently, a cluster randomized trial of stepped care to prevent depression among patients with DM2 and/or CHD and subthreshold depression in Dutch primary care (Step-Dep) versus usual care showed no effectiveness. This paper presents its process evaluation, exploring in-depth experiences from a patient and practice nurse perspective to further understand the results. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted. Using a purposive sampling strategy, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 24 participants (15 patients and nine practice nurses). All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Atlas.ti 5.7.1 software was used for coding and structuring of themes. A thematic analysis of the data was performed. Results: The process evaluation showed, even through a negative trial, that Step-Dep was perceived as valuable by both patients and practice nurses; perceived effectiveness on improving depressive symptoms varied greatly, but most felt that it had been beneficial for patients' well-being. Facilitators were: increased awareness of mental health problems in chronic disease management and improved accessibility and decreased experienced stigma of receiving mental health care. The Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9), used to determine depression severity, functioned as a useful starting point for the conversation on mental health and patients gained more insight into their mental health by regularly filling out the PHQ-9. However, patients and practice nurses did not widely support its use for monitoring depressive symptoms or making treatment decisions. Monitoring mental health was deemed important in chronically ill patients by both patients and practice nurses and was suggested to start at the time of diagnosis of a chronic disease. Appointed barriers were that patients were primarily motivated to participate in scientific research rather than their intrinsic need to improve depressive symptoms. Additionally, various practice nurses preferred offering individually based therapy over pre-determined interventions in a protocolled sequence and somatic practice nurses expressed a lack of competence to recognise and treat mental health problems. Conclusion: This study demonstrates both the benefits and unique demands of programs such as Step-Dep. The appointed facilitators and barriers could guide the development of future studies aiming to prevent depression in similar patient groups