It takes two to tango: the relationship between the press and celebrities in Belgium

Abstract

The objective of this paper is twofold. The first aim is to examine the characteristics of the celebrity press in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) in comparison with the foreign celebrity press. The second aim is to characterise the interaction between local celebrities and journalists, as conflict, cooperation or negotiation. To this end, a content analysis was performed on the three Flemish celebrity magazines and leading journalists, editors and celebrities were interviewed. The results show that, first, the majority of the articles cannot be typified as ‘gossip’ stories and, second, most journalists and celebrities label the mutual relationship as one of cooperation and negotiation. However, as a result of market competition, Flemish celebrity journalists are increasingly pushing ethical boundaries. The paper discusses how the press can both make and break a celebrity’s career. Specifically, ordinary people who rise to unexpected fame through their participation in reality shows have very limited negotiation leverage.

Keywords:

• celebrity press
• celebrity journalists
• magazines
• reality television
• Belgium

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Els Van Herbruggen (MSc in Communication Science) and Suzanne Bastiaensen (MA in Journalism) for their collaboration on data-gathering and for insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

^1. While the winners of the Flemish series of Pop Idol (Idool) have quickly faded from the media spotlight, some of the other participants have gained celebrity status. For instance, Natalia Druyts, one of the interviewees in our ‘achieved celebrity’ category, was a runner-up in season one (2003) but has since become the most popular Flemish singer. In this article, I use the international names for the reality television formats rather than the Flemish versions (the Belgian television format The Mole (De Mol); the Australian television format My Restaurant Rules (Mijn restaurant); the British format Pop Idol (Idool); the British television format Farmer Wants a Wife (Boer zkt. vrouw)).

^2. Most of the interviews, apart from van Raak, were conducted in spring 2010. Consequently, they date from before the July 2011 closure of the British tabloid News of the World as a result of the UK phone hacking scandal and the announcement in the same month of the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press. See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Baldwin Van Gorp

Baldwin Van Gorp (PhD, University of Antwerp) is associate professor of Journalism at the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium. From 1995 to 1999, before the start of his academic career, he was active as a freelance journalist, including for tv-Ekspres, a magazine that is mentioned in this paper. His research interests include, in addition to journalism, the concept of framing and communication management.