Teaching Media Quarterly

Stars as Texts

Analyzing Celebrities Across Platforms

Caitlin Lawson

University of Michigan

Keywords: celebrity, social media, intertextuality, textual analysis, critical theory

Abstract

Whether we like it or not, celebrity culture fills our media landscape. Celebrities populate our social media feeds, the magazines we flip through while waiting in line at the checkout counter, and our radios and film and television screens. Most of us will never meet these celebrities, but we often feel like we know them as we see them posting photos of their pets on Instagram and sharing charming anecdotes on late-night talk shows. As intimately connected and knowledgeable as we may feel toward the celebrities we follow, for most of us, celebrities are just a collection of texts – red carpet photos, interview snippets, favorite scenes they act in or songs they sing, and quippy posts on social media. In this lesson, students will use critical theory to analyze celebrities as sets of texts. Along the way, they will practice intertextual analysis as well as consider medium/platform specificity.