American Idolatry: Celebrity, Commodity and Reality Television - Paperback

by Christopher E. Bell (Author)

The popular definition characterizes celebrity as a product of manufacture rather than merit. If fame is taken to represent the recognition of achievement, then modern celebrity, in contrast, must be based on something other than achievement, for celebrity and fame are not the same thing. This book explores the process by which celebrity is created, using the first seven seasons of Fox Television's American Idol as a framework for analysis of how celebrity is defined, generated, nurtured, and intensified.

Author Biography

Christopher E. Bell is an associate professor of media studies in the department of communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, specializing in the study of the ways in which race, class and gender intersect in different forms of children's media. He is a TED speaker, a diversity and inclusiveness consultant for Pixar Animation Studios, a 2017 David Letterman Award winning media scholar and the 2017 Denver Comic Con Popular Culture Educator of the Year.