Global Politics of Celebrity

Mehdi Semati is Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, USA. His writings on international communication and global media have appeared in various scholarly journals. He is the co-author of Iran and the American Media: Press Coverage of the ‘Iran Deal’ in Context (2021). Kate Zambon is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA. Her research in global media studies focuses on the politics of nationalism, migration, and cultural difference in Germany and Europe through the analysis of international sporting events, news, and entertainment media.

Introduction 1. The commodified celebrity-self: industrialized agency and the contemporary attention economy 2. Offshoring & leaking: Cristiano Ronaldo’s tax evasion, and celebrity in neoliberal times 3. Speaking for the youth, speaking for the planet: Greta Thunberg and the representational politics of eco-celebrity 4. Celebrity migrants and the racialized logic of integration in Germany 5. Turkey’s TV celebrities as cultural envoys: the role of celebrity diplomacy in nation branding and the pursuit of soft power 6. Micro-celebrity practices in Muslim-majority states in Southeast Asia 7. Symbolic bordering: The self-representation of migrants and refugees in digital news 8. Refugee testimonies enacted: voice and solidarity in media art installations 9. How can we tell the story of the Colombian War?: Bastardized narratives and citizen celebrities 10. Transcendental meditation’s tipping point: the allure of celebrity on the American spiritual marketplace