Celebrity culture and audiences: a Swedish case study

Abstract

This article examines how media consumers of different age, gender and socio-economic backgrounds in Stockholm relate to and talk about celebrities and celebrity media. Based on 16 small focus groups with 17 year olds and 45–55 year olds, with male and female participants from working-class as well as academic backgrounds, I investigate a range of responses to celebrity content in connection with overall media developments in Sweden, in order to gain insights into what the contemporary cultural emphasis on celebrity can mean on an audience level within a particular context. Some of the pleasures gained from celebrity content but also elements of celebrity ‘hatred’ and experiences of media manipulation are explored. Likewise, some of the articulations of individual celebrities and celebrity media are discussed as interlinked with socially determined identity positions such as age, gender and social class.

Keywords:

• celebrity
• audience
• Sweden
• celebrity culture
• cultural identity

Notes

1. A satellite channel, broadcast from the UK, had been introduced in 1987.

2. See, for example, von Feilitzen and Petrov (2011, pp. 14–20) for a more developed overview of the media market in Sweden and Stockholm.

3. The main findings from this project have been reported on in Use and Views of Media in Sweden & Russia edited by project leaders Cecilia von Feilitzen and Peter Petrov (2011a), where I have analysed discourses on online and social media in the Stockholm context (Johansson 2011). This report does not include analysis of the parts of the group discussions that centred on celebrity, and I am grateful to von Feilitzen and Petrov for granting me the right to revisit the data for the purpose of this article.

4. ‘Practical’ study programmes offer work-oriented studies and do not always provide access to the university, whereas ‘theoretical’ programmes’ are assumed to be more popular with young people from academic backgrounds.

5. The participants were strategically recruited on the basis of their partaking in a postal questionnaire, which included an option to be contacted for further research. The teenagers were recruited from their pre-existing context at school, whereas the adult groups consisted of people who did not previously know one another but were of similar socio-economic standing. The groups were very small, with up to four participants, but since they were set up to promote discussion among the participants, rather than as question-and-answer sessions, I define them as small focus groups (see Kitzinger and Barbour 1999, p. 20).

6. All discussions were recorded and fully transcribed, with the author present as moderator for all groups. Pseudonyms are used to protect participants’ identity, and the citations have been translated from Swedish into English.

7. The Swedish word used in this citation is ‘lagom’, for which there is no exact English translation. ‘Not too much and not too little’ or ‘in moderation’ comes close to its meaning.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sofia Johansson

Sofia Johansson is a senior lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University, Sweden, with a PhD from the Communication and Media Research Centre at the University of Westminster, UK. Her research interests centre on media audiences and popular culture, with current projects examining music and social media use, as well as celebrity culture in Sweden.