Creation The field of "celebrity studies" emerged in academia in the 2000s coinciding with a wave of celebrity in
popular culture. Due to the recent proliferation of research on celebrity across academic disciplines, a
scholarly consensus has emerged about its importance. The journal was started by Sean Redmond (
University of Victoria) and Su Holmes (
University of East Anglia) in 2010 and is published by
Routledge. Redmond and Holmes are both media studies academics
Celebrity Studies is the first scholarly journal dedicated to the subject of celebrity. It was initially published three times per year. Additionally, they wanted to remind readers that engaging with celebrity requires individuals "to defamiliarise the everyday" and thereby "make apparent the
cultural politics and power relations which sit at the center of 'the taken for granted.'" Such a task of "uncovering and analyzing the systems and structures" of celebrity lies at the foundation of media,
television, and
cultural studies, according to the inaugural issue. One article in the inaugural issue authored by Redmond was titled "Avatar Obama in the Age of Liquid Celebrity". Redmond argued that US President
Barack Obama is the "epitome of runniness" in an "era of disembedding without re-embedding." Another article explored actor
Jackie Chan in relation to "ageing, race and masculinity in transnational action." where he explained why such a journal was needed and criticized the over-reliance of
textual analysis in the field. Additionally, Turner issued a challenge to other academics that celebrity studies scholars do more than contribute to the "discursive regime surrounding celebrity" and instead "focus on its industrial production and audience consumption." The aim of the journal is to address the "production, circulation and consumption of fame" in contemporary and historical contexts and provide a forum for debate. The first few issues of the journal concentrated almost entirely on current people and events. The journal draws upon a range of
interdisciplinary approaches and explores the relevance of celebrity studies to other disciplines like
sociology and
political science. The journal's initial
editorial board totaled 15 editors from British universities and universities abroad. Each journal issue features a
book review section and a forum section dedicated to shorter essays, observations, and debates. By August 2018, the journal had published thirty issues. Holmes stepped down as co-editor in 2019 and was replaced by Erin A. Meyers, who is an
associate professor of communication at
Oakland University.
Reception While the announcement of the journal was met with negative media and academic reception,
Celebrity Studies has since given the field institutional legitimacy and has helped raise the prestige of the field. The journal's debut reflects a growing scholarly interest in the discipline and the
socio-political uses of fame. Sociologist
Robert van Krieken has referred to the journal as a "
treasure trove of innovative analyses of celebrity."
Marc Abrahams, editor of the
Annals of Improbable Research, wrote that the journal "has come to epitomise, if not utterly dominate, the entire academic field with which it shares a name." journal in its field. In 2011, the journal was
shortlisted by the
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) for the Best New Journal award.
Bioethicist Andy Miah, who founded the first
celebrity culture conference in 2005, was not surprised of the launch of the journal because "celebrities have become a focal point of our value system which warrant our attention." Others were more dismissive of the journal during its launch. Australian public intellectual
Germaine Greer opined that the journal would not survive three issues. British author and historian
Graham McCann criticized the journal, saying that "academic findings of this sort are at best banal and at worst misleading." The conference and the journal draw in a network of international media,
film, and television scholars. The biennial conference began in 2012 and took place at
Deakin University in
Melbourne. In 2014, the conference was held at
Royal Holloway, University of London. The conference debated the role of celebrities in society and discussed the impact of
Hollywood, celebrity animals, and the influence of
celebrity chefs. The 2014 conference was criticized by journalist
Cathy Newman of
Channel 4 News, who considered the argument that celebrities can make information more accessible was "bizarre, if not downright depressing," and opined that "
Katy Perry can't our children anything about politics." The third international conference occurred at the
University of Amsterdam in June 2016. The subtitle of the conference was "Authenticating Celebrity." Over 200 experts were in attendance, most of whom were from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The conference addressed matters such as digital technology,
celebrity politics, and "What makes a celebrity authentic?" At the conference, literary historian
Lorraine York et al. presented their work on the
Kardashian family. In 2018, the fourth international conference was held in Rome at
La Sapienza University. The conference was entitled "Desecrating Celebrity." The fifth international conference was scheduled to take place at the
University of Winchester but was cancelled as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic. == Notable studies ==