[ecrea] New publication - Television Personalities: Stardom and the small screen

> James Bennett (2010) Television Personalities: 
> Stardom and the Small Screen, Routledge.
>
> Praise for the book:
> 'Television Personalities is going to be one of 
> the defining texts in teh fields of television, 
> and celebrity studies. It is an outstanding 
> piece of scholarship that is beautifully, 
> accessibly written' - Sean Redmond, Editor of Celebrity Studies Journal
>
> 'In this useful, thoughtful book, Bennett 
> investigates a crucial element that has gone 
> missing from our current understanding of 
> television: prceisely how it participates in the 
> production and consumption of celebrity. He 
> explores the longstanding assumptions about how 
> television stardom works, making the book 
> essential reading for anyone interested in 
> contemporary television'. Graeme Turner, 
> Professor of Critical and Cultural Studies, 
> University of Queensland, Australia.
>
> About the book:
>
> Celebrities have come to increasingly dominate 
> the media and its study in contemporary culture. 
> Although acknowledged as part of this general 
> rise in the importance of celebrity culture, 
> televisionâ??s specific forms of stardom have 
> until now remained largely under-theorised. 
> Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small 
> Screen examines how television personalities 
> function as commodities, and also function 
> ideologically, thus relating them to issues of 
> class, national identity, sexuality, gender and social history.
>
> Television Personalities sets out a new way of 
> considering televisual fame, arguing that it 
> must be understood on its own terms, and 
> establishing the television personality as a 
> particular set of performers whose celebrity is 
> constructed through discourses of ordinariness, 
> authenticity and intimacy. It demonstrates how 
> televisual fame is the product of skilled 
> performances that function at the very heart of 
> why we enjoy television, and the cultural and 
> ideological role television plays in society.
>
> The book is divided into three sections that 
> trace the historical development of televisual 
> fame from the 1950s through to the emergence of 
> â??DIYâ?? celebrity in the digital era. It 
> examines the economics, aesthetics, production, 
> histories, futures and ideological functions of 
> the television personality across a range of examples, including:
>
>     * Benny Hill, Steve Irwin, Oprah Winfrey, 
> Cilla Black, Simon Cowell, Ricky Gervais, Alan Titchmarsh, Nigel Lythgoe
>
>     * the stars of YouTube and televisionâ??s smaller screens
>
>     * Extras, Top Gear, The Naked Chef, The Weakest Link.
>
> Television Personalities offers an exciting, 
> engaging approach to studying and understanding 
> the most prominent and popular performers in 
> television and celebrity culture. It is an 
> original, indispensable guide for undergraduate 
> and postgraduate students of media, television 
> and celebrity studies, as well as those 
> interested in digital culture more widely.
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Television-Personalities-Stardom-Small-Screen/dp/0415481899/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286983982&sr=1-1

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