Taking the extra out of the extraordinary: Paparazzi photography as an online celebrity news genre

Abstract

Paparazzi photography presently constitutes the largest genre of visual celebrity news on the internet along with red carpet photography. With the emergence of digital media, this genre has moved towards the centre of mainstream news and entertainment culture, and the content has undergone a significant transformation. Trademark paparazzi photographs used to be depictions of celebrities deviating from prevailing norms of proper conduct by exhibiting bodily excess and/or transgressing social or moral codes. By contrast, a content analysis conducted for this article shows that snapshots of famous people engaged in insignificant everyday activities hold by far the largest share of today’s insatiable digital, globalized and commercialized market for news pictures of celebrities off-duty. Re-examining the well-known theorization of the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary in celebrity culture studies, this article thus investigates the following research question: How is the ordinary represented in paparazzi photographs as a genre of visual celebrity news in the current, digital media landscape?

Keywords

celebrity culture the everyday middle region private-ness online celebrity news the ordinary and the extraordinary paparazzi photography

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