Celebrities As Political Representatives: Explaining the Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital in the Political Field
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Celebrities as Political Representatives: Explaining the Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital in the Political Field Ellen Watts Royal Holloway, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics 2018 Declaration I, Ellen Watts, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Ellen Watts September 17, 2018. 2 Abstract The ability of celebrities to become influential political actors is evident (Marsh et al., 2010; Street 2004; 2012, West and Orman, 2003; Wheeler, 2013); the process enabling this is not. While Driessens’ (2013) concept of celebrity capital provides a starting point, it remains unclear how celebrity capital is exchanged for political capital. Returning to Street’s (2004) argument that celebrities claim to speak for others provides an opportunity to address this. In this thesis I argue successful exchange is contingent on acceptance of such claims, and contribute an original model for understanding this process. I explore the implicit interconnections between Saward’s (2010) theory of representative claims, and Bourdieu’s (1991) work on political capital and the political field. On this basis, I argue celebrity capital has greater explanatory power in political contexts when fused with Saward’s theory of representative claims. Three qualitative case studies provide demonstrations of this process at work. Contributing to work on how celebrities are evaluated within political and cultural hierarchies (Inthorn and Street, 2011; Marshall, 2014; Mendick et al., 2018; Ribke, 2015; Skeggs and Wood, 2011), I ask which key factors influence this process. I conclude celebrity capital and social media, class, institutional connections, and consistency aid acceptance of celebrity representative claims. I consider the role of multiple media, situating claims within the political information cycles they provoke (Chadwick, 2017). I find social media are valuable tools for performing claims and provide a rhetorical shortcut for constructing constituencies, but do not enable celebrities to bypass ‘reading back’ (Saward 2010). This thesis also contributes to debate over the democratic implications of celebrity politics, by asking what political benefits result from this process. I argue celebrity representative claims offer additional opportunities for citizen engagement and valued sources of representation, but often capitalise on distrust in elected representatives to provide the same. 3 Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank my supervisors, Andy Chadwick and Ben O’Loughlin, for showing such interest in my ideas and being so generous with theirs. They have encouraged me to think independently and creatively, to take risks, and to challenge myself at every turn. Thank you both. I would also like to thank my examiners John Street and Nick Couldry, for their encouragement and guidance. There are many others who have provided invaluable help along the way. I would like to thank Julia Gallagher and James Sloam for their encouragement and feedback. I am also grateful to Nick Allen, Oliver Heath and Kaat Smets for their part in my development and interest in my future. Steve Ward steered me toward Royal Holloway in the first place. Having gone a round with University by the time I got to Salford, I will always be grateful for the encouragement (and occasional use of mild threat) to help me back up. I was incredibly lucky to join a department where wonderful women were already at work, and get to celebrate in their successes. Thank you Mersiye Bora, Daniela Lai, Amy Smith, and Nikki ‘the boo’ Soo for being amazing and hilarious. I would also like to thank Declan McDowell-Naylor for comradeship, Rahel Podobsky-Stucki for acts of bravery, and James Dennis for frankly ridiculous levels of enthusiasm. Finally, I thank Cláudia Ferreira for putting up with me these last few months as we shared a single garage and a stolen cat. My family are the best (citation needed). Thank you for being unendingly supportive and encouraging. My mum Lucy is undoubtedly responsible in part for my interest in celebrity culture, my brother Marcus for keeping me up to date, and my Dad a classic example of distancing (we all know you were reading Heat too, Colin). James Heath has become my daily reminder that not everyone is more interested in Queen Bey than the Queen. He has been unfailingly interested in this, and in me. I cannot thank you enough. Finally, I could not have completed this thesis without everyone who shared their thoughts about politics and celebrity with me. Thank you for answering my questions and raising many more. This ended up being a thesis about the power which comes from speaking for other people. I’d like to dedicate it to my brother Gregory. 4 Contents List of Tables ................................................................................................................... 8 List of Figures ................................................................................................................ 10 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 11 1.1 Argument and Contribution .............................................................................. 13 1.2 Questions and Cases ............................................................................................ 17 1.3 Plan of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 20 2. Celebrity, Capital, Representation: A Literature Review ..................................... 26 2.1 Defining (and Defending) ‘Celebrity Politics’ .................................................. 27 2.1.1 Debating the Democratic Impact of Celebrity Politicians ............................. 29 2.2 Conceptualising Celebrity as a Form of Capital .............................................. 32 2.2.1 Explaining the Varied Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital ......................... 33 2.3 Evaluating the Political Value of Celebrities .................................................... 37 2.4 Celebrity Influence: Citizen Opinion and Candidate Evaluations ................. 39 2.5 Promoting Engagement, Promoting Themselves: Celebrity Issue Campaigning ........................................................................................................ 44 2.5.1 Influence on Issue Agendas and Citizen Engagement ................................... 45 2.5.2 Celebrity Single-Issue Campaigning.............................................................. 48 2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 53 3. Theoretical Framework: Explaining the Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital through Representative Claims ............................................................................... 55 3.1 Bourdieu and the Social World: Fields, Capital, and Migration .................... 56 3.2 Celebrity Capital and its Value .......................................................................... 59 3.3 Celebrity Capital and the Political Field: Class, Trajectory, and Hierarchy 63 3.4 Celebrity Capital and the Political Field: Representation .............................. 67 3.5 Constructing Representative Claims ................................................................. 70 3.5.1 Claim Types and Supporting Resources for Unelected Actors ...................... 73 3.6 Evaluating Claims: Authenticity, Authority and Legitimacy ......................... 76 3.6.1 Situating Claims in Political Information Cycles........................................... 81 3.7 Explaining the Exchangeability of Celebrity Capital through Representative Claims ...................................................................................................................... 83 3.7.1 Capital and Resources: Supporting Claims .................................................... 84 3.7.2 Representative Claims: Constructing Claims and Constituencies ................. 85 3.7.3 Evaluation of Claim ....................................................................................... 86 3.7.4 Political Information Cycle ............................................................................ 86 3.7.5 Exchange of Capital ....................................................................................... 87 3.7.6 Political Capital .............................................................................................. 87 3.7.7 Other Political Benefits .................................................................................. 88 4. ‘At least he’s doing something’: was Russell Brand able to ‘Amplify’ the Voices of Housing Campaigners? ........................................................................................ 90 4.1 Context and Theoretical Expectations .............................................................. 92 4.1.1 Brand: The Joker ............................................................................................ 92 4.1.2 Brand: Agitator and Housing Activist ........................................................... 94 4.2 Methods and Data ............................................................................................... 97 4.3 Analysis ................................................................................................................ 99 5 4.3.1 ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner’: