Popular Culture and Contemporary Communication Essay

Popular Culture and Contemporary Communication - Essay Example It also brings the idea of culture development among fans as a result of their beliefs and views of their celebrities. The question is whether these artists and designers or rather celebrities afford not to understand the productive nature fan culture in their societies and careers or not. This essay will look into the lucid analysis of the essay question with reference to various available literary sources. To begin with, the term celebrity comes from the French word, ‘celebre’ with a meaning of well known in the public arena. In English terms, it is a synonym or related to words such as being thronged or fame. Fandom, which refers to a collection of fans, plays a significant role in the link between celebrity and the public. There are reasons behind the connection between celebrities and their fans. Duchesne Scott interprets the convergence of celebrity and fan at fantasy and fiction conventions in various ways. He interprets it as a 21st century spiritual pilgrimage, nerd tourism in its unique form, or simply an amalgam or, a combination of the three. He goes ahead to state that synergy is the fundamental or the basis of the relationship between fans and celebrities at events like that. Synergy originates from the Greek word, â€Å"Sunergia† meaning cooperation or â€Å"Sunergos† meaning working together1. ... In addition, the convention also represents corporate synergy. This happens when celebrity and fans interact as sellers and buyers negotiating revenues and costs to attain a mutually satisfactory economic profit. Henry Jenkins’ book â€Å"Convergence Culture†, tells more about fan culture. Henry argues that the current mass media and technology has taken a step and moved to a more practical and participatory convergence culture where the traditional or the default flow from producer to consumer has been interfered with. He argues that currently the consumer has become the producer and created the media which he or she wants and likes most. Convergence culture gives small communities around the world opportunities to gather concentrate on particular topics and as well as ensure the production of media and information among several things on this particular topic. Fans do take primary objects and texts and resources to develop on, build and have fun with. They do not simp ly consume the texts. They instead reread them as well as produce new culture from them. Typical popular examples of fan culture are Dr. Who and Star Trek. Henry goes ahead to state that fan culture has some five common and definite features: first, an individual who does appropriate a particular work, texts and practice related to fan objects2. Usually, these fan objects are reinterpreted in the lives of these individuals. The second characteristic is participation. There is always an openness of different people to participate at certain levels within the community. Normally, they get seriously inspired by it, thus they create events and write music about it. The third feature that Henry illustrate in the book is that of emotional