Actors of public space and rising stars

• Author: Elena-Lidia Dinu
• Position: Central University Library 'Carol I' of Bucharest
• Pages: 111-118

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 9 (58) No. 1 - 2016

ACTORS OF PUBLIC SPACE AND

RISING STARS

Elena-Lidia DINU1

Abstract: We wish to investigate the role of actors in public space and

stars, with specific reference to the Romanian media system. In particular,

we mean to analyze the way in which they have become more and more

visible in people’s everyday life and why we consider them to play a

dominant role in the media – especially on TV – as the reports about their

private life hold a central place in the news coverage. This article also

provides an overview of the institutional background as it reviews the related

literature and develops new research questions.

Key words: patterns, construction of identities, politics, newspapers,

notoriety.

1. Media Culture: a Short Introduction

Media culture keeps playing an increasingly important role within the society by

exerting a great deal of influence on people's everyday life, offering patterns to the young

generations. Those patterns are trying to extend the classical Star system by creating,

promoting and exploiting stars on their own.

Douglas Kellner (2001, p. 13) defined media culture as “a culture of image that often

captures eyesight and hearing. Different types of media (radio, movies, television, music

and written press – such as reviews, newspapers and comics) privilege either eyesight or

hearing, or combine them, at the same time drawing upon a wide range of emotions,

feelings and ideas at the same time.

Media culture is the manufacturing culture, organized as a series production model and

aimed at a wide audience through types (genres) which stand on formulas, codes and

conventional remarks. So, it becomes a form of commercial culture and its products –

commodities, whose final purpose is to generate profit, are made by big companies,

interested in capital accumulation".

Aligning with Douglas Kellner’s words, French sociologist Edgar Morin, in three

chapters of his book "Les stars" (entitled, respectively, "Stars’Age", "The stars of the

Age" and "Appendices") delivered an overview of the phenomenon of stardom, focusing

on archaism and modernity, topic which he dealt with from two different perspectives:

contemporary and anthropological. He set out the path to become a Hollywood movie star

and synthesized the essential stages of the phenomenon of stardom (Morin, 1977, pp. 51-

53) as shown in the figure below:

1 Central University Library “Carol I” of Bucharest, elenalidia_dinu@yahoo.ro.