scholarly journals Stars in their eyes: magazines and celebrity content

Author(s):  
Victoria Fulford

The purpose of this research paper is to examine the celebrity phenomenon as it relates to consumer magazines produced in the United States. Boorstin's definition of the term celebrity is a broad one, encompassing all persons who are known simply for their "well-knownness," regardless of vocation (Boorstin 57). For the purposes of this paper, this classification will be abridged, focussing solely on well-known persons or celebrities engaged in the dramatic arts. George Simmel, a first generation German sociologist whose work has had a seminal influence on the development of modern philosophy and sociology, addresses the role of the actor in shaping public opinion and, in turn, reality. More recently, scholars across a diversity of fields from sociology to film studies, such as Alberoni, Dyer, Gamson, Kellner, and Moran, have examined the influence of celebrities on societal values and culture. Film critic Richard Schickel has gone so far as to call celebrity "possibly the - most vital shaping (that is to say, distorting force) in our society" (xi).

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Fulford

The purpose of this research paper is to examine the celebrity phenomenon as it relates to consumer magazines produced in the United States. Boorstin's definition of the term celebrity is a broad one, encompassing all persons who are known simply for their "well-knownness," regardless of vocation (Boorstin 57). For the purposes of this paper, this classification will be abridged, focussing solely on well-known persons or celebrities engaged in the dramatic arts. George Simmel, a first generation German sociologist whose work has had a seminal influence on the development of modern philosophy and sociology, addresses the role of the actor in shaping public opinion and, in turn, reality. More recently, scholars across a diversity of fields from sociology to film studies, such as Alberoni, Dyer, Gamson, Kellner, and Moran, have examined the influence of celebrities on societal values and culture. Film critic Richard Schickel has gone so far as to call celebrity "possibly the - most vital shaping (that is to say, distorting force) in our society" (xi).


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Melchionne

Unintended pregnancy often leads to undesirable outcomes for both mothers and children. However, the definition of unintended pregnancy in the sociology of family formation has been restricted to the intentions of mothers. The intentions of fathers—and, with them, the possible role of disagreement about pregnancy intention—remain outside most conceptual frameworks and research programs. This article draws together a number of indicators of unilateral pregnancy in research on contemporary family formation in the United States. Studies of pregnancy intendedness and contraceptive use consistently provide evidence suggesting a significant role for unilateral pregnancy in family formation. Working on the assumption that unilateral pregnancy presents great potential for social dislocation, this article argues for the integration of the concept of unilateral pregnancy into the theoretical framework informing research on family formation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 2-27
Author(s):  
Brent M. S. Campney

This study investigates anti-Chinese violence in the American West—focusing primarily on events in the Arizona Territory between 1880 and 1912—and the role of diplomatic relations between the United States and China in tempering the worst excesses of that violence. Recent scholarship asserts that the Chinese rarely suffered lynching and were commonly targeted for other types of violence, including coercion, harassment, and intimidation. Building on that work, this study advances a definition of racist violence that includes a broad spectrum of attacks, including the threat of violence. While affirming that such “subtler” violence achieved many of the same objectives as the “harsher” violence, it seeks to explain why whites used such radically different and less openly violent methods against this minority and explains why this difference mattered. Using these insights to interrogate the complex relationship between the United States and China, this essay shows that Chinese diplomatic influence stifled anti-Chinese mob violence by white Americans. It argues that this relationship denied white racists the same agency against the Chinese immigrants as they possessed against other racial and national minorities and thus forced them to “choose” the “subtler” acts of violence against this group rather than those usually employed against these others.


2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 305-330
Author(s):  
Wesley V Jamison ◽  
Caspar Wenk ◽  
James V Parker

AbstractThis article reports original research conducted among animal rights activists and elites in Switzerland and the United States, and the finding that activism functioned in activists' and elites' lives like religious belief. The study used reference sampling to select Swiss and American informants.Various articles and activists have identified both latent and manifest quasi-religious components in the contemporary movement Hence, the research followed upon these data and anecdotes and tested the role of activism in adherents' lives. Using extensive interviews, the research discovered that activists and elites conform to the five necessary components of Yinger's definition of functional religion: intense and memorable conversion experiences, newfound communities of meaning, normative creeds, elaborate and well-defined codes of behavior, and cult formation. The article elaborates on that schema in the context of animal rights belief, elucidates the deeply meaningful role of activism within a filigree of meaning, and concludes that the movement is facing schismatic forces not dissimilar to redemptive and religious movements


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1005-1033
Author(s):  
Tara Gonsalves

In this article, I argue that the medical conceptualization of gender identity in the United States has entered a “new regime of truth.” Drawing from a mixed-methods analysis of medical journals, I illuminate a shift in the locus of gender identity from external genitalia and pathologization of families to genes and brain structure and individualized self-conception. The sexed body itself has also undergone a transformation: Sex no longer resides solely in genitalia but has traveled to more visible parts of the body, implicating racialized aesthetic ideals in its new formulation. The re-imagining of gender identity as genetically and neurologically inscribed and the expanding locus of sex correspond to an inversion of the relationship between gender identity and the sexed body as well as shifts in medical jurisdiction. Whereas psychiatrists in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s understood gender as stemming from genital sex, the less popular idea that gender identity precedes the sexed body has gained traction in recent decades. If gender identity once derived from the sexed body, the sexed body must now be brought into alignment with gender identity. The increasing legitimacy of self-defined gender identity, the expanding definition of racialized sex, and the inversion of the sex–gender identity relationship elevates the role of surgeons in producing racialized and sexed bodies.


2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 571-598
Author(s):  
Roger C. Henderson

Tort awards for non-economic loss have grown in an almost geometric progression in the United States since first recognized nearly 150 years ago. Not only have courts constantly expanded the areas in which claimants are permitted to recover pain and suffering awards, but at the same time they have liberalized the definition of pain and suffering itself This may be traced in part from the way the judicial system was designed after the American Revolution, the role of lawyers in the system, and the affluence of the country. Consequently, awards for non-economic loss have taken on ever increasing importance, an importance that does not bode well for the prospects for future adoptions of no-fault auto insurance plans that would curtail such recoveries. This article sketches historical influences on the tort-liability insurance system and summarizes modern developments in the law of damages for non-economic loss in the United States. It then raises questions regarding the prospects for adoption of the federal Choice No-Fault Auto Reform Act now pending in the U.S. Congress, a plan that would offer auto accident victims the choice of being compensated on a no-fault basis, while waiving their right to recover for pain and suffering. It concludes by offering a possible scenario of how future efforts to reform the tort-liability system in the United States may occur as we move into the 21st century.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaela Sifuentes

The search for a universal definition of death is a relatively new objective in human history, framed by complex biological, technological, and socio-political factors. While it is widely understood that “life” and “death” describe inverse states of being, what separates these two states has been vigorously debated by scientists, ethicists, and theologians. Far from merely an academic distinction, the definition of death has implications that extend to end-of-life healthcare, organ transplantation, and inheritance law. This review explores the historical and current definitions of death in the United States, the role of technological advances, and the resultant social and legal applications.


2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Jamison ◽  
James Parker ◽  
Caspar Wenk

AbstractThis article reports original research conducted among animal rights activists and elites in Switzerland and the United States, and the finding that activism functioned in activists' and elites' lives like religious belief. The study used reference sampling to select Swiss and American informants. Various articles and activists have identified both latent and manifest quasi-religious components in the contemporary movement. Hence, the research followed upon these data and anecdotes and tested the role of activism in adherents' lives. Using extensive interviews, the research discovered that activists and elites conform to the five necessary components of Yinger's definition of functional religion: intense and memorable conversion experiences, newfound communities of meaning, normative creeds, elaborate and well-defined codes of behavior, and cult formation. The article elaborates on that schema in the context of animal rights belief, elucidates the deeply meaningful role of activism within a filigree of meaning, and concludes that the movement is facing schismatic forces not dissimilar to redemptive and religious movements


Author(s):  
Adedayo Ladigbolu Abah

Using the media accessibility function from self-categorization theory, this study examines the role of the Nigerian video film in mediating the twin issues of culture and identity among African immigrants in the United States. Africans in diaspora constitute the majority of the transnational audience for Nigerian video films outside of Africa. Using a combined method of surveying and personal interviews, several African immigrants, their children, and friends living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, USA were interviewed for their views on the role of the nascent Nigerian video industry in the way they sustain and straddle their multiple identities and culture in their society of settlement. Results indicate that most of the immigrants view the videos as affirmation of the values they grew up with and with which they still identify. This is in direct contradiction of professed cultural denigration they feel in their everyday professional lives in the United States. Most of the younger immigrants and first generation immigrants view these videos as a convenient way of accessing their Africanness as part of their multi-stranded identity and culture. Based on the expressed motivations for use and expressed outcome of use of the video-film, results indicate that the use of the video-film may have contributed to the accessibility of the African in diaspora label as a social category for this group of immigrants.


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