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This article examines 'huns' – specifically celebrity huns in the public spotlight – as memetic 'figures' who are defined by their loud, tongue-in-cheek and humorous display of British femininities coded as working class. Unlike other female figures routinely mocked and laughed at in contemporary popular culture (such as the 'chav[ette]' in Britain and 'Karens' in America), huns have been celebrated online in a seemingly more progressive and supposedly politically aware sociocultural context. However, this article argues that laughter aimed at the celebrity hun, though deemed inclusive by her fans, is ultimately ambivalent, polysemic and multifarious. Transformations online have led to the discursive creation of the hun through her 'memeability'. Therefore, I will analyse this new classed and gendered figure via social media. Using the Instagram account 'loveofhuns' as a case study, I examine three memes from this page to showcase how huns are represented in complex and competing ways. Overall, this article questions whether the humour in memes uplifts huns or reinforces stereotypes of this typically derided image of (classed) femininity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article conceptualises home cook Jack Monroe as an 'austerity celebrity', a mediated figure who forged her public persona directly through articulations with austerity culture. Drawing on an intertextual analysis of her blogs, cookbooks, interviews, speeches and representations across the media, I argue that Monroe demonstrates the paradox of anti-austerity celebrity in becoming economically successful as the face of modern poverty. Monroe's navigation of a dual identity of celebrity and activist manifests in her critique of the government, her middle-class precarity, her status as a mother and her queer identity which requires consistent 'authenticity labour'. In Monroe's case, this labour is visible as a constant and politicised struggle over the terms of her 'authenticity'. While unable to manage her more complex middle-class, queer identity, which confronts the established grounds of 'feckless mothers', the UK tabloid media attempts to frame Monroe's success as a rags-to-riches style narrative reinforcing hegemonic rhetorics of resilience and creativity as routes to overcoming adversity. This analysis of the struggles at work in Monroe's mediated presence demonstrates how the moral imperatives for women to offer to resourcefully manage the 'challenges' of austerity cuts, arguably draws attention away from austerity as structurally and politically motivated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory and practice supports the use of celebrity marketing, as celebrity endorsements can generate significant publicity and attention. In this way, communication and marketing goals are met for a variety of businesses. In fact, studies investigating celebrity marketing find that in the USA and Great Britain, 20–25% of TV commercials use celebrities. However, there is a dearth of research stemming for some other countries such as Slovakia on this topic. Therefore, this study specifically investigated what the younger range of Generation Y (i.e. Millenniums) could recall about celebrity endorsements, and specifically if they could connect the celebrity endorser to the product line. We found a rather high level of spontaneous recall for celebrity endorsers by the respondents. The dominant representation was found in four categories: Sports (29%), Television Personalities (25%), Actors (19%), and Musicians (18%). Combining the level of recall of celebrity endorsers with the professional background of the celebrity, and the product we were able to quantify the recalled celebrity endorsers on a continuum. We found that generally international celebrities scored higher on recall levels than Slovakian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Terri Senft coined the term 'microcelebrity' a decade ago, it has become a key focus for studies of digital celebrity, describing both the 'bottom up' production practices of potentially billions of 'ordinary' people on social networks sites, and a new category for the famous. Through statistical and qualitative examination of the practices and reach of the top 20 'digital first talents' represented by UK-based agency Gleam Futures and then focused analysis of the Instagram accounts of power couple Zoe Sugg and Alfie Deyes, this article offers three key ways we might 'rethink' microcelebrity. Firstly, that what began as a 'prosumer' activity in the 2000s is now a professionalised and commercialised group production practice and while microcelebrities are portrayed as symbols of individualised emancipation – building fame on their own terms and challenging the cultural hegemony of corporate media – they now work within the mainstream. Secondly, how performances across social media create sophisticated 'repressive ambiences' for audiences, which perpetuate consumerism as liberation through deliberately fostering parasociality with audiences and directives to emulate. Finally, how this follows similar 'networked' displays of other reality-based celebrities and argues for the inclusion of the term 'applied' celebrity as a means to understand their practices, performances and purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endorsement is used by charitable organizations to stimulate public support, including monetary donations. This article reports a field experiment that examined the effect of leader and peer endorsement on student volunteering. The experiment was conducted with over 100,000 students from five UK universities and compared the effect on volunteering rates of email endorsements by politicians, celebrities, and peers, to a control group that received an email but no endorsement. We examined outcomes seven weeks after the original e-mails, including click-throughs to volunteering unit websites, attendance at volunteering training, registration with volunteering units, and actual volunteering. Peer endorsements reduced click-throughs to volunteering unit websites. There were positive treatment effects for endorsement by politicians on subsequent training but no significant effects of any of the endorsements on our other outcome measures. Overall, we found little support for the provision of leader and celebrity endorsement, and confirm negative effects for peer endorsement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the effectiveness and safety of the fluocinolone acetonide (FAc) intravitreal implant between the observational Iluvien Clinical Evidence study in the United Kingdom (ICE-UK) and the Fluocinolone Acetonide in Diabetic Macular Edema (FAME) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in people with diabetic macular edema (DME). Clinical Trials Registration: NCT00344968. Methods: This study selected patients randomized to receive 0.2 µg/day FAc insert (FAc treated eyes) or sham injection (control eyes) from the FAME RCTs, and patients' first FAc treated eye and non-FAc treated fellow (control) eye from the ICE-UK study. Outcomes included change in visual acuity (VA), central foveal thickness (CFT), and intraocular pressure (IOP). Results: After 12 months follow-up, mean change in VA was 5.0 letters improvement (p < .001) and 1.6 letters improvement (p = .003) in FAME FAc treated and control eyes, and 3.8 letters (p = .012) and -2.1 letters (p = .056) in ICE-UK FAc treated and control eyes, respectively. Mean change in CFT was -144 µm (p < .001) vs -72 µm (p < .001) in FAME FAc treated and control eyes and -113 µm (p < .001) vs -13 µm (p < .001) in ICE-UK FAc treated and control eyes. For eyes with a follow-up of 12 months, 77 (22.3%) and 15 (8.6%) FAME FAc treated and control eyes and 25 (18.7%) and six (4.3%) ICE-UK FAc treated and control eyes required emergent IOP-lowering therapy. Conclusions: Statistically significant improvements in VA 12 months after FAc implantation were observed in both the real-world study and in the RCTs. The improvement in VA and CFT in the RCTs was marginally greater than in the real-world study; however, recruits in the real-world study had more severe visual morbidity at baseline. Whilst there were many changes in the care of people with DME over this time, these data all support the value of treatment with FAc intravitreal implant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1884–1885, George Frederic Watts, Britain’s most famous painter, became the first living artist to stage a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The show attracted one million visitors and by the end of 1885, Watts was internationally recognised as ‘the greatest painter since the old masters’. Yet the process of organising the exhibition forced Watts to confront both the cultural and the physical distance separating Britain from America. Watts’s letters to the Metropolitan Museum as well as to the exhibition’s young curator, Mary Gertrude Mead reveal the merits, responsibilities and trials of transatlantic celebrity in the nineteenth century. This essay, the first in-depth discussion of Watts’s Metropolitan Museum exhibition, addresses how the Victorian era’s most prominent artist managed his reputation, envisioned his relationship to America and, through the legacy of his art, attempted to secure lasting fame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on 24 group interviews on celebrity with 148 students aged 14–17 across six schools, we show that ‘hard work’ is valued by young people in England. We argue that we should not simply celebrate this investment in hard work. While it opens up successful subjectivities to previously excluded groups, it reproduces neoliberal meritocratic discourses and class and gender distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Frederick Porter Wensley was one of Scotland Yard's ‘Big Four’ detectives, head of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department and responsible for establishing the Flying Squad. On his retirement in 1929, he used the two bound scrapbooks of press clippings and photographs he had collated to document his personal life and career to inform his 1931 autobiographyDetective Daysand serialized press articles. Through examining the interaction of material between scrapbooks and autobiographical writings, this article explores how Wensley constructed his post-retirement persona as ‘celebrity detective’ from a canny understanding of what had made him a commercial subject for the press. It argues that Wensley recast his life to promote his own successes at the expense of a narrative of police unity, providing a vehicle for him to suggest further changes to the structure of the police force without official sanction. By juxtaposing this against tightening legislation on police communication with journalists during the inter-war period under the Official Secrets Acts, this article demonstrates how the ‘celebrity’ that Wensley sought to occupy was increasingly regarded as irreconcilable with police ability to effect ‘impartial’ regulation, anticipating the concerns raised by the 2012 Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press. The article thus charts a turning point in defining the relationship between police and press. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The husband and wife acting duo, Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray, achieved popular acclaim in British cinema during the 1940s, Gray in They Were Sisters (1945) and Denison in My Brother Jonathan (1948). Following the success of My Brother Jonathan (in which Gray also appeared), the couple's star status was soon cemented by roles together on screen, including notably The Glass Mountain (1949), The Franchise Affair (1951), Angels One Five (1952) and There Was a Young Lady (1953). As a result of these roles in popular films and images of the couple in extra-cinematic culture, a picture of cosy, domestic consensus became irrevocably associated with Denison and Gray's status as British film stars, much to Denison's later chagrin. Rachael Low's History of the British Film suggests that British actors and actresses have not been deemed worthy of the glamorous connotations of star status because they are 'somewhat homely in comparison with legendary international figures' (1971: 263). In this period, the Denisons' star image was characterised by the 'homely': by a vision of their domestic life together as at once aspirational, ordinary and English. However, this article argues that their stardom can be resituated as a postwar reformulation of modes linking British stars with ideas surrounding domestic modernity in the middlebrow culture of the interwar years. Therefore, Low's label of homeliness can be redefined as a key characteristic of the distinction, promotion and reception of popular British stardom in the immediate postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Danny Dyer is one of Britain's most prolific stars, with a career spanning both critically acclaimed and critically derided material, the latter exemplified by his work in exploitation movies. This article investigates Dyer's film stardom, considering some of the central debates surrounding his status as an actor. Central to the discussion is the significance of Dyer within the contemporary cultural landscapes of gender and class, and the various complexities and contradictions that circulate around his persona. The article analyses Dyer's stardom in the wake of his role in the cult exploitation movie that consolidated his subsequent 'hard man' typecasting, The Football Factory (2004), and considers how the marketing of the majority of his subsequent films has been instrumental in perpetuating a particular construction of his stardom which, in turn, informs his reception by the critics. The article traces connections between Dyer's popularity and recurrent critical derision aimed at him as an actor lacking artistic integrity and genuine talent. It contends that the politics of both Dyer's star construction and his critical reception are linked to the renewed legitimacy of class hatred in British society, represented by media discourses surrounding the 'chav', which appositely reflects his 'low' cultural status as a 'straight-to-DVD' actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little doubt that Germaine Greer is the West's, and especially Britain's, most well-known feminist. This article, looking at her more recent public appearances, argues that Germaine Greer has proven adept at adapting her feminist celebrity, especially through various (and often comedic) performances on quiz and lifestyle programmes on British television. In particular, she exemplifies what has been called an “unruly woman”; that is, she is a transgressive figure who uses the space provided by these new entertainment formats not simply to reinforce her celebrity but to circulate (and perform) a particular feminism. Her celebrity, and her relationship to the mainstream media in Britain especially, has shifted and evolved over time and therefore provides an important case study into the complicated operations of celebrity as well as the feminism–media nexus itself. As an instance of gendered celebrity—and that of a feminist especially—that comes to at once trouble and buttress certain celebrity logics, Greer illuminates the political importance of this ground for feminism and helps to underscore that feminist celebrity is a distinct, and developing, mode of public subjectivity which celebrity studies and feminist media studies have thus far failed to significantly address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the celebrity image of the English author Charlotte Smith and English poet Mary Robinson within the newspaper the "Morning Post" during the 1780s and 1790s. An overview of the the "Morning Post's" publishing of Smith's poetry, including the poem "Song from the French of Cardinal Bernis," from her book "Elegiac Sonnets," is provided.

In the interwar period, women formed an ever-growing share of the press market. They were an increasingly important target for advertisers, and newspapers were intent on securing the maximum number of women readers. The press turned its spotlight on female politicians in an attempt to attract women readers. Some politicians, such as the Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson, collaborated with the press to increase their media exposure and promote an image of themselves as political 'celebrities'. In so doing, they simultaneously perpetuated and destabilized assumptions about women as frivolous, superficial and uninterested in serious political debate. Wilkinson was ultimately able to turn her celebrity to political advantage, using the press as a pulpit to expound her progressive political agenda. However, her successful manipulation of her public platform should not obscure the gendered assumptions behind the press coverage that helped to propel her to political stardom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the insights of material culture studies to explore the role of objects in the development of a politics of personality in the first half of the nineteenth century. Political objects were part of a broader material culture of fame and recognition in this period, encompassing a wide range of public figures such as royalty, military heroes and authors. These artefacts acquired agency, playing an important role in the construction of their subjects as recognizable public figures: an asset for popular politicians whose primary constituencies lay beyond the ranks of the enfranchised. By representing key moments in the public narrative of a politician's career, objects and other representations helped to cement the connection between individuals and the causes with which they were chiefly associated. Some objects, including jugs, teapots and other practical items, may have been used in the public performance of rituals of loyalty to a particular figure. Others, including the famous Staffordshire figurines, were designed for display in the home, becoming vehicles for the domestic re-enactment of public narratives and the performance or construction of personal loyalties and identities. The article concludes by considering the way in which objects associated with famous political figures, including autograph letters, signed prints or even more intimate objects such as locks of hair, could be used to forge real or imagined relationships between politicians and individual members of their wider public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its centrality in the production, circulation and consumption of contemporary celebrity culture, the detailed study of television fame has occupied a relatively marginal place in star/celebrity studies. Early work on television fame originated from film studies, or was generally defined 'against' the concept of film stardom. This meant that it was often characterised negatively: the apparent specificities or qualities of TV fame were defined in pejorative terms, and it was imagined in terms of what it was not ('film' stardom proper). The subsequent expansion of celebrity studies has arguably placed less emphasis on the specificity of media forms and boundaries - in part reflecting the fluid and pervasive circulation of contemporary media fame. We suggest here that this has created a conceptual context in which the real complexities of TV fame have fallen between the analytical cracks. This article thus seeks to explore the ways in which television fame has been positioned within star/celebrity studies, while also examining how a range of historical and contemporary studies can illuminate the possibilities and challenges for the future study of TV fame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the shifting cultural politics of development as expressed in the changing narratives and discursive transparencies of fair trade marketing tactics in the UK. Pursued through what I call ‘developmental consumption’ and the increasing celebritization of development, it is now through the global media mega-star that the subaltern speaks. After a more general discussion of the implications of the celebritization of development, specific analysis focuses on two parallel processes complicit in the ‘mainstreaming’ of fair trade markets and the desire to develop fair trade as a product of ‘quality’. The first involves improving the taste of fair trade commodities through alterations in their material supply chains while the second involves novel marketing narratives designed to invoke these conventions of quality through highly meaningful discursive and visual means. The later process is conceptualized through the theoretical device of the shifting ‘embodiments’ of fair trade which have moved from small farmers’ livelihoods, to landscapes of ‘quality’, to increasing congeries of celebrities such as Chris Martin from the UK band Coldplay. These shifts encapsulate what is referred to here as fair trade’s Faustian Bargain and its ambiguous results: the creation of increasing economic returns and, thus, more development through the movement of fair trade goods into mainstream retail markets at the same time there is a de-centering of the historical discursive transparency at the core of fair trade’s moral economy. Here, then, the celebritization of fair trade has the potential to create ‘the mirror of consumption’, whereby, our gaze is reflected back upon ourselves in the form of ‘the rich and famous’ Northern celebrity muddling the ethics of care developed by connecting consumers to fair trade farmers and their livelihoods. The paper concludes with a consideration of development and fair trade politics in the context of their growing aestheticization and celebritization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present study examined the association between acceptance of cosmetic surgery and celebrity worship in a sample of British female undergraduates. A total of 401 women completed the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale (ACSS; ), the Celebrity Attitude Scale (), and provided their demographic details. Results showed that there were highly significant correlations between all subscales of the ACSS and CAS, as well as with participant age, and body mass index (BMI). A series of multiple regressions showed that celebrity worship and participant demographics explained about half of the variance in acceptance of cosmetic surgery, with Intense-personal celebrity worship emerging as the strongest predictor. Limitations of the current study are discussed in conclusion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest in both history and stardom within popular music studies. Yet one of the major sites for the production of commercial popular muisc since the 1960s—the UK—still lacks a comprehensive social history of its contribution to this artform. In particular the history of early UK rock and roll and its attendant stardom has been somewhat neglected. This article uses Richard Peterson's production of culture thesis as a means by which to explore both early UK rock and roll stardom and the thesis itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study analyses the mid-nineteenth-century theatre's response to one noteworthy event and in doing so highlights contemporary celebrity culture: a bare-knuckle prize fight between Tom Sayers and John Carmel Heenan, otherwise known as the Benicia Boy. The theatrical response to the Sayers–Heenan fight reveals much about the nature of nineteenth-century celebrity culture. In the immediate aftermath dramatists exploited the event itself for its topical resonance. Thereafter the body of Sayers became the prime product. Audiences, eager to see their hero in the flesh, did not seem to mind the fact that he was not a gifted performer outside of the prize ring. His legend somehow outlived the pitiable figure he cut on stage. Further testimony to this is provided by the presence of massive crowds at his funeral in 1865, which has led to comparisons with the spectacle of that of the Duke of Wellington in 1852. Both men were celebrated as representatives of England, but Sayers's life was also appropriated as an example of working-class heroism. The minor theatres and entertainment venues had been instrumental in creating and sustaining Sayers's unique place in the mythology of the prize ring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the emergence of the obituary in British eighteenth-century print journalism, at a moment when the verse epitaph was in irrevocable decline. The new form of death memorial that the obituary represents reflected a changing attitude to death, and a new phase in its relationship with fame. Many of the features of the present-day phenomenon of celebrity can be identified as emerging in the eighteenth century, and we recognize all too well today the explosion of commerce and the new forms of deregulated media that produced this phenomenon. Death became 'news' in the context of the new transience and mobility of printed text, and the dead gained renown not only for historically momentous acts, or lasting works of art or intellect, but also for ephemeral skills and talents such as acting, singing, sports and eccentric feats of memory or agility. Celebrity - short-lived fame - became a feature of British society, and the untimely or dramatic death began to create as well as test this new kind of fame. The obituary plays a key role in this process, this article argues, and represents an important mechanism for introducing modern notions of fame and celebrity into British society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monopoly enjoyed by the BBC Television Service in the UK prior to the introduction of ITV in 1955 led to accusations that the BBC was unprepared for competition and was reluctant to provide popular programming of the kind transmitted by its commercial rival. Using an archival case study of one popular entertainer, the comedian Norman Wisdom, this paper argues that sections of the BBC Television Service, notably Variety and Light Entertainment, worked hard from 1947 onwards to provide programming that relied on notions of 'celebrity' and 'stardom' in ways which anticipated the later success of ITV. Though hampered by financial constraints, entrenched institutional values and technical limitations, as well as competition from live variety, the film industry and radio, key personnel within the BBC Television Service did much to establish television as a popular medium even before the introduction of commercial broadcasting in 1955. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses intertextuality in the film "Bridget Jones Diary", which is inspired by Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones novels. The film exhibits cross-referencing through its stars, TV shows, and other forms of publicity that encourages audiences. Intertextuality becomes a factor that contributes to the film's success. The persona or star image of the casts which includes Colin Firth as Mark Darcy , Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones and Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver were emphasized which contributes much to the film's impact to the public.

This article argues that the career of the actor Edward Alleyn initiated the rise of theatrical celebrity in England in the 1590s. Alleyn's success as Tamburlaine shaped the repertory of the Rose theater and his company of the Admiral's Men. It was in this period of rising stability of capitalist playhouses that actors themselves became a commodity.

The article discusses English poet Alexander Pope, focusing on his efforts to maintain his popularity and celebrity status by running advertisements in the newspapers "The London Gazette" and the "Daily Courant," owned and edited by Samuel Buckley. Topics include portraits of Pope, eighteenth-century advertising, and publisher and bookseller Bernard Lintot.

Examines the personal and professional reputation of the American poet and author, Edgar Allan Poe, in the literary circles of both, Great Britain and the U.S., during the period from the year 1850 to 1909. Acknowledgement of Poe's literary and intellectual genius even by his rivals; Deficiencies of character and convictions charged against Poe; Similarities in the views on Poe held in Great Britain and the U.S.; Universal praise for the tales and poems of Poe; Arguments presented in defense of Poe's character;

An essay titled Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits, discussed at National Portrait Gallery (NPC) in London, England, from July 7-October 23, 2011, is presented. It mentions that Glamour of the Gods are comprised of some 70 -mostly vintage-prints from film historian John Kobal's the Kobal Collection of images from the so-called golden age of the Hollywood studio system. It informs that the gallery was aimed at exhibiting portraits of those persons who have commemorated in British history.

In this article, the author explores the importance of the contestants' construction for the fans of the television program "Big Brother" in Great Britain. The author emphasizes that audiences of the show demand the contestants to have authenticity and to avoid being desirous of fame. The author argues that the major ideologies of the television show include selfhood, individualism, and the importance of not overtly playing the celebrity game.

This article discusses how an appearance by singer Susan Boyle on the reality television program "Britain's Got Talent" illustrates the significance of average people in celebrity culture. The author discusses how reality television programs reflect mythic concepts of ordinary people achieving fame through talent and hard work as well as perceptions regarding the relationship of fame to manufactured public images and marketing. She discusses how Boyle's mental problems following her appearances on the program led to debates regarding the ethical aspects of reality television programs and how Boyle's image illustrates concepts of gender bias regarding physical appearance in mass media.