The Democratic Worth of Celebrity Politics In
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JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 1 SESS: 9 OUTPUT: Wed Feb 29 18:05:05 2012 SUM: 7F4CD9AC /v2501/blackwell/B_journals/BJPI_v0_i0/bjpi_487 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2011.00487.x BJPIR: 2012 1 The Democratic Worth of Celebrity 2 3 Politics in an Era of Late Modernity 4 5 Mark Wheeler 6 7 In a seminal article published in 2004, John Street argued that celebrity politics has provided a 8 greater expression for the enhancement of democratic behaviour. Consequently, this analysis builds 9 on Street’s thesis to consider the worth of celebrity politics in an era of late modernity. To this end, 10 it employs Henrik Bang’s and John Keane’s constructs of Everyday Makers and Monitory Democ- 11 racy, which have emphasised the importance of ‘involvement’, ‘voice’ and ‘output’ in terms of 12 representation, to provide an ideological framework to capture the value of celebrity politics. 13 Subsequently, it may be argued that Barack Obama utilised a form of ‘liquid’ celebrity in his 2008 14 US presidential campaign to reconnect with a disenfranchised electorate. However, this article will 15 critically assess these types of celebrity politics to contend that aggregated forms of ‘input’ drawn 16 from celebrity activism may more truly affect political outcomes. 17 18 19 Keywords: celebrity politicians; late modernity; Barack Obama; political 20 aesthetics 21 22 Introduction 23 John Street’s article, ‘Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Represen- 24 tation’, argues that celebrity politics has a given a greater expression to the repre- 25 sentation of democratic behaviour (Street 2004, 449). To substantiate his thesis, 26 Street makes a distinction between those celebrity politicians (CP) who have used 27 populist techniques when seeking elected office (CP1s) and those celebrities who 28 have employed their fame to promote political issues (CP2s). In establishing these 29 typologies, Street provides an analytical framework through which to consider the 30 extent to which celebrity ‘performances’ may affect new forms of political engage- 31 ment (Street 2004, 447 and 2010, 256). 32 In this respect, Street’s work provides a critique of the common academic criti- 33 cisms of celebrity politics (Street 2004, 439). These arguments have viewed celeb- 34 rity as a ‘manufactured product’ that has been fabricated by media exposure 35 (Turner 2004; Louw 2005). According to Daniel Boorstin, public interest in celeb- 36 rity has been manipulated through contrived, pseudo-events staged by a cynical 37 media (Boorstin 1971, 65). Street, however, notes that with the further political 38 engagement of celebrities drawn from across the public sphere, this literature 39 requires a critical re-evaluation (Street 2010, 250). His analysis is part of an 40 alternative discourse which identifies the trends towards the celebritisation 41 of politics both theoretically (Corner and Pels 2003; Van Zoonen 2005) and 42 empirically (Holmes and Redmond 2006) through an exploration of celebrity 43 performance. © 2012 The Author. British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2012 Political Studies Association JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 2 SESS: 9 OUTPUT: Wed Feb 29 18:05:05 2012 SUM: 5F9B9180 /v2501/blackwell/B_journals/BJPI_v0_i0/bjpi_487 2 MARK WHEELER 1 Consequently, as celebrities and image candidates assume the authority to promote 2 political agendas among target audiences/citizens, it becomes necessary to reflect 3 upon their significance in election campaigns, policy agendas and activism. There- 4 fore, Street’s concerns about the relationship between political aesthetics and 5 democratic practice segue into a wider debate about the dynamics that are shaping 6 post-democratic societies (Street 2010, 259). Here it is contended that traditional 7 civic duties are being replaced by alternative forms of virtuous participation. Within 8 this new political environment, different types of agency such as celebrity politics 9 have become centrifugal forces for public engagement. Thus, Street demonstrates 10 that celebrity politics is consistent with a liberal democratic ethos; his work provides 11 a basis upon which alternative forms of political behaviour may be considered in 12 relation to their ability to enable citizens to reconnect with their societies (Street 13 2010, 260). 14 In this respect, Street’s analysis can be linked to Henrik Bang’s arguments that new 15 forms of political capital are emerging as ‘Everyday Makers’ utilise community- 16 based narratives to engage with one another (Bang 2003). Similarly, John Keane’s 17 concept of ‘Monitory Democracy’, in which consumer-led forms of representation 18 become the measurement of accountability, has considered how changes to the 19 matters of ‘voice’ and ‘output’ have reformed democratic practices (Keane 2009a). 20 In the light of these concerns, this analysis will critically assess how celebrity politics 21 operates in reference to the post-democratic changes that have been identified by 22 Bang and Keane. 23 Therefore, this article will begin by reviewing the contours of the academic debate 24 concerning the celebritisation of politics. Critical theorists such as Douglas Kellner 25 have argued that celebrity forms of engagement have been determined by his 26 concept of ‘media spectacle’ to distort the political agenda and misdirect the public 27 (Kellner 2009). Conversely, Liesbet van Zoonen, John Corner, Dick Pels and Street 28 have considered how the popular aesthetics employed by celebrity politicians may 29 be linked together with a reconfigured series of democratic practices. In turn, their 30 work provides an analytical framework through which to consider how Bang’s and 31 Keane’s propositions over reformed democratic values may be employed to define 32 celebrity engagement in an era of late modernity. To illustrate these ideas, this 33 analysis will include as a case study US President Barack Obama’s 2008 election 34 campaign to discuss how Obama defined himself as a celebrity politician and 35 utilised innovations in communication technologies to re-engage with the Ameri- 36 can electorate. 37 Finally, the article will critically examine Bang’s and Keane’s arguments concerning 38 the reconfiguration of democratic behaviour to consider whether they provide the 39 appropriate means through which to capture the value of celebrity politicians. In this 40 respect, it will ask to what extent celebrity politicians can ‘input’ aggregated forms of 41 ‘agency’ to affect political outcomes. From these differing perspectives, this analysis 42 will seek to define a normative position concerning the worth of celebrity politics. 43 44 The Traditional Paradigm: Style over Substance 45 Critics such as Neil Postman claim that the mass political communication process 46 has led to a decline in rationality as televisual style dominates substantive debate. © 2012 The Author. British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2012 Political Studies Association BJPIR, 2012 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 3 SESS: 9 OUTPUT: Wed Feb 29 18:05:05 2012 SUM: 5A145707 /v2501/blackwell/B_journals/BJPI_v0_i0/bjpi_487 DEMOCRATIC WORTH OF CELEBRITY POLITICS 3 1 This critique suggests that the ‘Americanisation’ of politics has had a negative 2 impact on the public sphere and civil engagement (Postman 1987). Boorstin argued 3 that under such conditions illusions were mistaken for reality and that fame has 4 been constructed as an industrial process (Boorstin 1971). In tandem, political 5 communications have evidenced the convergence of public relations (PR) tech- 6 niques with an increase in commercial pressures drawn from the global media. 7 8 These critiques of celebrity activism reflect the values of the Marxist Frankfurt 9 School whose critical theorists contended that the media had become a tool for the 10 expression of dominant ideologies. Such ideas culminated in Jürgen Habermas’ 11 concerns that there has been erosion of the public sphere. Instead of the mass media 12 providing an agora through which legitimate debate occurs, the public space 13 between the state and the electorate has become an arena for an irrational political 14 discourse. Therefore, distorted information has been presented as being represen- 15 tative when, in reality, it is controlled by powerful influences (Habermas 1992). 1 16 17 In such a commodification of politics, public interest in celebrity politicians has been 18 manipulated by a cynical media to construct a myth of individual expression. The 19 most sophisticated variation of this position has been identified by the American 20 scholar Douglas Kellner. He has employed his concept of the ‘media spectacle’ to 21 suggest that the emphasis on celebrity replaces the complexities of policy with 22 symbolic gestures (Kellner 2010b, 123). Kellner argues that the media coverage of 23 celebrity politics publicises issues in such a way as to ‘frame’ politicians and celeb- 24 rities as global ‘superstars’. He contends that substance has been replaced by a 25 stylistic form of politics in which the norms of democratic engagement have been 26 undermined (Kellner 2010b, 123). 27 28 Following upon this logic, Eric Louw has argued that there has been a narrowing in 29 the gap between politics and entertainment (Louw 2005, 192). In his definition of 30 ‘pseudo-politics’ Louw suggests there has been a PR-isation of issues ‘in which 31 celebrities are now enlisted to whip up mass public opinion’ (Louw 2005, 191). By 32 defining celebrity politics as the latest manifestation of the fame game, Louw views 33 the media as a site of ideological control. Thus, the most common analysis of 34 celebrity-ness has referred to the notion that the artifices of fame have distorted 35 rational debate to sell prescriptive ideas to a disengaged public (Louw 2005, 192). 36 37 Celebrity Politics, Political Aesthetics and Representation 38 The interlinkage between political rhetoric and behaviour may be seen to be part of 39 a historical continuum which offsets the modernist dismay directed to the person- 40 alisation of politics. As van Zoonen comments, the Greek Sophists contended that 41 virtue was a matter of great performance.