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This article introduces the concept of designer notoriety to refer to calculated attempts to derail aspects of normative order so as to garner media attention. The objective is for otherwise unexceptional people to gain celebrity. The case of the alleged sabotage of Germanwings Airbus A320 Flight, by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, in 2015, is used as a case study. Drawing on the methods of content analysis from various media sources and historical sociology, the article examines the media claim that Lubitz sought celebrity and planned the crash as a means to acquire media interest. Public receptivity to the notion of designer notoriety is investigated. It is related to three key concepts: 'the demotic turn', 'mediatization' and the 'world historic event'. The application of each concept to designer notoriety is set out and justified. The article ends by expanding the Lubitz case to refer to other examples of designer notoriety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Medieval to Tudor times, the doctrine of the King's Two Bodies was fundamental in government and the reproduction of social order. The doctrine held that the body of the monarch is simultaneously mortal and immortal. In terms of the hegemony of the power regime, this was given by God. It has long been assumed that the rise of Liberal Plebiscitary Parliamentary Democracy put an end to Royal absolutism. This paper uses the political thought of Carl Schmitt and Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz to examine if this assumption is valid. The paper argues that the doctrine of the King's Two Bodies survives in greatly translated form. The highest achieved celebrities today have two bodies, the one (biological and incorrigible), the other (mediated and incorrigible). The paper uses data from the posthumous existence of the highest achieved celebrities to substantiate this proposition. In turn, this leads to the beginnings of an enquiry into what the role of achieved celebrity in Liberal Plebiscitary Parliamentary Democracy, i.e., a society based on the principle of homogeneous equality, might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural Studies has not devoted much notice to one of the keynote developments in modern culture over the last 30 years: namely, the rise of various charity projects fronted and, in the public mind, defined by celebrities. Celanthropy – the transformation of causes into cause celebres via the public involvement of celebrities – is striking for the subtle shift in devolving the responsibilities of the state onto the shoulders of the citizens. It purports to offer ‘stateless solutions’, articulated by ‘Big Citizens’ (celebrities), for domestic problems and the ills of the world (hunger, inequality, injustice, corruption, pollution). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]