Celebrity Power: Spotlighting and Persuasion in the Media
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Celebrity Power: Spotlighting and Persuasion in the Media BY ©2014 Mark Harvey Submitted to the graduate degree program in Political Science and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Committee: ____________________________________ Chairperson Mark R. Joslyn ____________________________________ Donald P. Haider-Markel ____________________________________ Burdett A. Loomis ____________________________________ John J. Kennedy ____________________________________ James F. Daugherty Defended April 1, 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Mark Harvey certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Celebrity Power: Spotlighting and Persuasion in the Media ____________________________________ Chairperson Mark R. Joslyn Date Approved: April 1, 2014 ii Abstract As technological and business demands have transformed the operation and demands on news and entertainment media, celebrity activists have proliferated. Only a few years ago, the notion that these celebrities were anything other than opportunistic was laughable. Less likely was the prospect that celebrities might have real power to change minds or affect outcomes. It is difficult enough for politicians to set public agendas. Can celebrities compete? This dissertation compares celebrities to politicians and focuses upon one key area of potential power: media agenda setting. If celebrities hope to change the public agenda to focus on the issues they think are important, can they gain attention for those issues and are they persuasive? The results of a time series analysis and an experimental study conclude that they are capable of not only competing with politicians in “spotlighting” and persuasion on political issues, but may at times, exceed their abilities. These findings potentially upend what many political scientists assume about power, particularly scholars who study policymaking, policy entrepreneurship, and social movements. According to the data presented in this dissertation, celebrities produce larger spikes of media attention when advocating on a public issue than politicians do, a relationship that bears out across media types. More celebrities generates more media attention, while politician/celebrity joint interventions seem to have mixed results, implying that politicians benefit more from the public attention celebrities generate than celebrities benefit from public association with politicians. Moreover, celebrities are capable of persuasion on political issues of public importance, despite whatever personal feelings people have for them. The more perceivably important the issue, the more likely the celebrity is to be persuasive. However, celebrities are more likely to persuade on issues that are less polemic. Celebrities do not have iii the legitimacy or credibility/expertise of politicians, but many make up for these weaknesses by allying with credible transnational advocacy groups. The more institutionalized they are, the more likely they are to be able to persuade target audiences. Finally, the more they are perceived to be “authentic” based on their skills and talents, the more effective they are at persuasion. iv Acknowledgements Throughout my life, two subjects have dominated and competed for my academic interests and passions—one is politics and the other is music. When I was in the sixth grade, I was playing trombone in the school band, singing with the choir at the state capitol building, composing a long biography of the Beatles for a writing class, drawing political cartoons for social studies, practicing a solo guitar performance of “Here Comes the Sun” for the talent show, writing songs for a rock band I would undoubtedly start in the future, and polling kids about whether or not they would (if they could) have voted for Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter on the playground. (My 60-70 responses were hardly derived randomly, but I was happy with the sample size). By the time I was an undergraduate, many concerts, gigs, and debate tournaments later, I had to choose between being a political science and a music major. I decided to make political science my academic profession and make music my creative outlet. The idea of marrying them in an academic work must have been rushing around my head for a while. To pay for my graduate degrees, I had been playing in bands and teaching music lessons at a music store while teaching politics classes to gifted teenagers and college students. By bringing political psychology into the music studio, I was teaching young potential performers how to stage their events and plan their recordings. By bringing my guitar and protest music into the classroom, I was teaching young politics students about identity, symbolic politics, and manipulation. In my politics classes, discussions about organizing, citizen engagement, and the media led to historical and contemporary questions about musicians and celebrities. Had George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh actually raised consciousness about starvation and oppression in Southeast Asia? Had John Lennon’s organizing with Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman amounted to any real changes? Does it make a difference when politicians v play music at their rallies? How did Ronald Reagan co-opt Bruce Springsteen’s critical and subversive “Born in the USA” as a campaign theme? Why was President George Bush publicly consulting with Bono from U2 about issues in the developing world? I was skeptical. However, students became more emotionally and academically engaged with the subject matter as I began to explore what it was about music and musicians and celebrities that entangled them with politics. I strictly considered these topics a tool to communicate with students and graphically illustrate subject matter, not as a serious area of study in political science. While my teaching blossomed, I struggled with finding a dissertation topic. After a long period of frustration with various proposals, the idea to write about music or celebrity and politics literally came to me in a dream. Why hadn’t I thought of it before when it was right in front of me? Because the topic was completely beyond the norm of what seemed acceptable research for a political scientist. The next day’s visit to the library revealed that there was very little serious research on music and politics that would pass as serious social science: an anthology of interpretive essays entitled Resounding International Relations (Franklin, 2005), Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison’s Music and Social Movements (1998), John Street’s Rebel Rock (1986), and Mark Mattern’s Acting in Concert (1998). Even including the subject of celebrities in politics did not enlarge the literature much when I began this research. I knew that in writing an altogether new research proposal, I was taking a risk. I would have to anchor my project to a nearly non-existent music in politics literature. I knew that many would be as cynical as I once was about the prospects of celebrity power. Yet I held to the notion, though, that if celebrities are wasting their time and have no effect, the result would still be interesting and important. Thus, the major challenge of this project was not actually doing the research or the writing. The most difficult part was finding the topic and convincing people that the research vi could be done and was worth doing. Citing George Harrison’s “Awaiting on You All,” I was “awaiting” the academic community to “awaken and see” the potential in this research area. Once I eventually persuaded people that this was a worthy topic, the slow, frustrating, and lonely process that so many describe as dissertation writing was—in fact—fast, joyful, and cooperative. I truly enjoyed this experience and by the end received more support than I could have possibly expected. Thus, this introduction is an acknowledgment that this challenging, insurgent accomplishment could not have been completed without my community. Thanking such a large community is a daunting task. My support group extends from Kansas across many countries. At the risk of adding additional pages to this work, I will thank those who directly and indirectly helped me whether or not they were aware of their powerful contributions to my academic success, hoping that I do not miss anybody. The few words or the mention of a name below do not adequately express my deep appreciation for those who brought me to this point. Among those most directly responsible for the success of this project, I must first thank Mark Joslyn, my dissertation advisor. He was an inspirational teacher and a supporter of my research early in my Ph.D program, encouraging me to submit articles and present at conferences. Later, he placed his confidence in me by believing in this project. He encouraged me to pursue methodologies and analyses that I assumed were beyond my reach and served as an indispensable editor. He has given me academic, professional, and personal advice, and I could not have asked for a better partner to shepherd me through what could have been a grueling process of research, writing, and review. My committee has also been very supportive. Donald Haider-Markel and John Kennedy particularly provided valuable feedback and suggestions at the proposal stage and final revisions vii that helped to focus the project and improve the methodology. It was a blessing to have Jim Daugherty as an external member of the committee, bringing his specialized knowledge of music. He was also encouraging during my break. In addition to being a member of the committee, Burdett Loomis was a key figure in the earliest stages of the project, pushing me to think more about how musicians are like policy entrepreneurs, working within networks—that Bono the political actor is not just Bono, but in his words, “Bono, Inc.” Before departing for the LBJ School of Public Affairs, Kate Weaver was on the committee and was also among the first to support the project, encouraging me to utilize case studies such as the John Sinclair Freedom Rally to illustrate key points.