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A Qualitative Content Analysis of Kanye West's Twitter Practice

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The Life Of Kanye A Qualitative Content Analysis of Kanye West’s Twitter Practice. 15.08.2016 Lund University M.Sc. in Media and Communications Studies Gloe Lucas 920721-T197 !1 ABSTRACT Celebrity Twitter use has recently been the subject of celebrity studies. Performing authenticity and intimacy as well as engaging interactively with followers are considered central characteristics of ‘micro-celebrity’ practice, which is widely considered to be extensively utilized by celebrities in their use of Twitter. Taking this framework suggested by celebrity studies as a point of departure, this thesis focuses on the case study of Kanye West, whose recent use of Twitter has been given much attention by celebrity news media due to his controversial tweets. In carrying out a content analysis of this case study’s tweets, this thesis aims to understand the way Kanye West is using Twitter, what strategies he is employing and how this links to the structural implications of celebrity. As the findings suggest, Kanye West employs two main strategies in his usage of Twitter: In his first strategy he uses Twitter as a tool to promote his celebrity commodity, increase his celebrity capital and create an elite network of fellow celebrities. The second strategy aims at creating an authentic and personal narrative that redefines and extends Kanye West’s celebrity persona. Within this second strategy, “stream-of-consciousness” writing was identified as a unique strategy employed by Kanye West in his Twitter practice. Keywords: Celebrity, Twitter, Micro-Celebrity, Authenticity, Intimacy, Performance. Number of words: 20.650 !2 Acknowledgements I hereby want to thank those that enabled and helped to create this paper. Thank you to the Department of Communication and Media at Lund University for allowing me to write this paper. Thank you to Annette Hill, for her helpful advice. A special blessing to Wenzel and Steven for lecturing early versions of the paper and giving their advice. Extra shout out to Jakob for giving me his last minute comments. Love to my Family for supporting me; my mum, dad and my sisters. Thank you to my brothers Lars, Valentin, Eddie, Joe, David, Nils, Daniel, Lando, Hannes, Felix and everyone who helped me stay on track when I was about to get lost in the sauce. !3 A. INTRODUCTION 6 B. LITERATURE REVIEW 10 1. Ordinary celebrities, celetoids and celebritization 13 2. Twitter 14 3. Celebrity Twitter Practice 16 1. Intimacy and Authenticity 17 4. Performance 20 5. Attention Economy 23 6. Reflection on Twitter Celebrity Studies 24 C. METHODOLOGY 27 1. Methodological Reflection 27 2. Case Study 29 3. Content Analysis 30 4. Data Collection 32 5. Thematic Categorization 34 Table 1.1. Categories, Description, Indicators and Examples of the Thematic Categorization 36 6. Stream of consciousness Categorization 37 7. Favorite and Retweet Categorization 38 8. Limitations 38 9. Validity 39 10. Analysis Methodology 40 D. FINDINGS 43 Table 2.1. Tweets per category, consecutive tweets per category 43 Table 2.2. Average of favorites and retweets per category 45 1. Promotional 46 2. Content 48 3. Fanship 49 4. Opinion 51 5. Prayer 52 6. Criticism 56 7. Self-Admiration 58 8. Private 60 9. Interactivity 62 10. Stream of consciousness 63 E. CONCLUSION 67 References 70 Appendix 1 76 !4 Appendix 2 86 !5 A. INTRODUCTION Kanye West has been one of the most controversial celebrity personalities of the 21st century. Critically acclaimed and commercially successful as a musician, he has been one of the central figures and driving forces in developing and innovating the aesthetic of the hip-hop genre over the last decade (Bradley, 2014, Boeck, 2014). Simultaneously, his public appearances have created controversies, especially his “George Bush doees not care about black people” comment after Hurricane Katrina and his interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 Grammy Awards (Krebs, 2014). His outspokenness about political taboo issues such as structural racism in America and his criticism of the structural implications of the entertainment industry, coupled with his often egocentric and aggressive behavior, have triggered intense media and fan reactions that regularly portray Kanye West as a narcissistic villain and aggressor (Leonard, 2014). As one of the most successful yet controversial celebrities and musicians, Kanye West has been the subject of numerous studies. These have researched many facets of his musical output and celebrity persona from various angles encompassing multiple disciplines. While the majority of studies focus on Kanye West’s creative output (Neal, 2014, Houston, 2014 and Lewis, 2014), other studies have analyzed Kanye West from a gender perspective (Battle, 2014, West, 2014), a racial perspective (Bradley, 2014, Curry, 2014), and in relation to religion (Miller, 2014) and politics (Krebs, 2014). Given his visibility and controversiality in the media, it is surprising that only a small number of studies have touched on Kanye West as a celebrity and if so, often only in relation to his controversial public appearances. While these articles research the representations of Kanye West in traditional news media channels, there are no published studies focusing on his relatively recent adoption of the online communication platform Twitter, making it an under-researched yet relevant field of study. This study hopes to offer an initial perspective on Kanye West’s usage of Twitter, which may contribute to the general understanding of the unique and widely researched phenomenon of Kanye West. !6 Making use of online representation to achieve an intimate, direct and unedited insight into their private lives and interactively engaging with their followers or fans has become a widespread practice among celebrities — a practice mastered by Kanye’s wife Kim Kardashian-West. Celebrity Twitter practice in particular has recently become a focus of celebrity studies, highlighted through a recent issue (Volume 5, Issue 4) of the celebrity studies research journal (Bennett and Thomas, 2014) devoted entirely to celebrity Twitter practice. Understanding Twitter practices as a ‘micro-celebrity’ (Senft, 2008) phenomenon — a celebrity technique that can be adopted by any ‘celebrity practitioner’ (Marwick and boyd, 2011a) — many studies focus on the interactivity between celebrity practitioners and their fans or followers (Page, 2012, Honey and Herring, 2009, Boyd et al., 2010). Twitter promises the followers of celebrity accounts a backstage impression of the private and everyday life of the celebrity (Muntean and Petersen, 2009). Consciously performing intimacy and authenticity through their tweets has become a necessity for Twitter celebrities (Marwick and boyd, 2011a, Marwick and boyd, 2011b). Because of the constant observation of media and fans and simultaneously the need for constant updates by the celebrity him/herself, maintaining a constant celebrity narrative, the former possibility of having one’s Twitter feed by curated by a publicist has now become a near impossibility (Muntean and Petersen, 2009). Fans and followers are highly aware of the possibility of mediating publicists interfering with a celebrity’s representation and manipulating the presumably authentic content being published. Thus, despite markers of authenticity (Dyer, 1991) — a lack of control and premeditation – the category of authenticity is always in dispute. For a celebrity to successfully make use of the advantages of Twitter — a direct and unmediated channel to communicate with fans or followers — it is essential to create content that is perceived as authentic and intimate. Whether this content is true or staged eventually becomes irrelevant. Successfully using Twitter will lead to an increasing in visibility which will sustain the celebrity’s status and generate celebrity capital (Driessens, 2013b). Understanding and researching the techniques and strategies through which celebrities create or perform authenticity and intimacy is therefore a central concern of celebrity Twitter research. !7 Kanye West’s tweets are provocative, controversial and often paradoxical. For example, they include several contradicting promotional announcements concerning his Album The Life Of Pablo (2016), harsh criticism towards fellow musicians, critics and media outlets and an infamous proclamation of personal debt coupled with a call for help to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — through rival platform Twitter. His chaotic style of unconventional, confusing and purposely incoherent tweets sets Kanye West’s Twitter practice apart from fellow celebrities’ sleek and streamlined Twitter performances as analyzed in other studies (e.g. Dare-Edwards, 2014, Spirou, 2014, Jerslev and Mortensen, 2016). Mirroring his unconventional yet successful management of his celebrity persona in traditional media, his non-conformist tweeting style makes him a unique case worth investigating through an in-depth analysis. In researching an unconventional case study of celebrity Twitter practice, this thesis hopes to broaden the understanding of celebrity Twitter practice by identifying new and unique strategies. By qualitatively analyzing the content of his tweets, this thesis seeks to identify strategies applied by Kanye West in his usage of Twitter. Therefore this thesis will extract patterns in his Twitter practice and relate these to the celebrity Twitter strategies outlined in the literature review. This thesis hopes to extend previous research on celebrity Twitter practice by identifying new and unique
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