The celebrity entrepreneur on television: profile, politics and power

This article examines the rise of the ‘celebrity entrepreneur’ on television through the emergence of the ‘business entertainment format’ and considers the ways in which regular television exposure can be converted into political influence. Within television studies there has been a preoccupation in recent years with how lifestyle and reality formats work to transform ‘ordinary’ people into celebrities. As a result, the contribution of vocationally skilled business professionals to factual entertainment programming has gone almost unnoticed. This article draws on interviews with key media industry professionals and begins by looking at the construction of entrepreneurs as different types of television personalities and how discourses of work, skill and knowledge function in business shows. It then outlines how entrepreneurs can utilize their newly acquired televisual skills to cultivate a wider media profile and secure various forms of political access and influence. Integral to this is the centrality of public relations and media management agencies in shaping media discourses and developing the individual as a ‘brand identity’ that can be used to endorse a range of products or ideas. This has led to policy makers and politicians attempting to mobilize the media profile of celebrity entrepreneurs to reach out and connect with the public on business and enterprise-related issues

Systematik vermeidungsorientierter Produktnutzungskonzepte - Optimierung der Produktnutzung als Beitrag zum Umweltschutz

During the last few decades, the world has witnessed a dual democratic transformation. On the one hand and beginning with the fall of communism, the number of electoral democracies worldwide almost doubled between 1989 and 2011 (Freedom House, 2012). The victory of democracy and capitalism may not have marked the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992), but today there is no alternative political system that enjoys the same worldwide support and legitimacy as democracy (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Inglehart, 2003). On the other hand, many established democracies have witnessed a transformation towards increasing complexity, less deferential and increasingly critical and dissatisfied citizens (Norris, 2011), lower electoral turnout and trust in politicians and political institutions (Franklin, 2004; Norris, 1999), and increasingly autonomous, market-driven and critical media (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Hamilton, 2004; Patterson, 1993). National political institutions and actors thus find themselves under increasing pressure from both citizens and the media, while the need to find solutions to major challenges such as global warming, rising inequalities, weak growth and increasing deficits appears both more urgent and more difficult to tackle