Constructing celebrities as political endorsers: parasocial acts, cultural power, and cultural capital

Abstract

This article explores three underlying codes that construct celebrities as political endorsers: parasocial acts, cultural power, and cultural capital. These mechanisms drive contingent endorsement abilities among popular media celebrities in the prominent context of political opinion leadership during national elections. The social, cultural, and political contexts situated in the Philippines provide rich avenues of understanding of how celebrities are constructed as a social influence emanating from everyday socialization among social groups. A series of focus groups in Quezon City involving voters stratified by socioeconomic class and gender and exemplifying everyday interactions among individuals served as linguistic resources for analysis. Findings suggest that celebrities are symbolically constructed as intimate and significant others (parasocial acts) created through everyday media consumption complemented by amplified social interactions. These parasocial acts with celebrities serve as foundations for their cultural power directly influencing individuals in their political decisions, such as during elections. Finally, such parasocial acts are a function of the social groups’ pronounced cultural capital. Implications are offered in understanding the significant role celebrities play in Philippine elections as an indication of their sociopolitical significance to individuals’ preferences and decision-making processes during elections.

Keywords:

• celebrities
• political endorsers
• cultural power
• parasocial acts
• cultural capital
• The Philippines
• focus groups

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the University of the Philippines and the Commission on Higher Education, Republic of the Philippines for providing financial support for this project. He also thanks the participants in the focus group discussions held for this research, this journal’s editor Maria Ela Atienza, managing editor Jan Robert Go, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. All shortcomings are the sole responsibility of the author.

Notes

1. For example, in 1998, a resolution in Quezon City, Metro Manila, was approved declaring the city the “City of Stars” to attract cultural activities, but rooted in the fact that Quezon City politics was then “dominated by popular personalities known for their respective roles in the entertainment, media and sports industries” (Chavez 2014).

2. “Hindi Ka Nag-iisa” TVC for Kris Aquino and Sharon Cuneta’s endorsements of Noynoy Aquino; “Ikaw” TVC for Sarah Geronimo’s endorsement of Loren Legarda; “Kings endorses Manny Villar” TVC for Manny Pacquiao’s endorsement of Manny Villar.