research propsal 1

A Research proposal about “How Celebrities use Twitter to Redefine the Fan-

Celebrity Relationship” presented by:

Christina M. Cecil 000398519

Jason T. Smith 0000169988

DeAndre J. Ballard 000082485

To: Dr. Andy Alali

Comm. 490: Senior Seminar

Nov. 13th

, 2013

Academic Pledge of Honesty:

"I did not use unauthorized or unattributed sources to complete this paper. All

documentations and citations are in compliance with CSUB's academic honesty policy."

Introduction:

The controversy pertaining to the communication that fans have or may not be having

with their favorite celebrity is unjust. Recently, there has been much to say about the lack of

interaction being made between celebrities and fans through the use of social media. This study

is an attempt to uncover how celebrities have bridged the gap and developed a hypothesis to why

two-way communication is vital to refine ones image socially. Through intensive study we will

reveal research about celebrity and fan interaction; as well as answer the question How

Celebrities use Twitter to Redefine the Fan-Celebrity Relationship.

Significance of Study:

After doing research on Twitter and Celebrity usage we have found that more research is

still needed on how Celebrities use Twitter to redefine the fan-celebrity relationship. The goal of

this study is to show how fans are now able to have interpersonal relationships with celebrities

since most celebrities now manage their own online Twitter accounts. This contributes to new

theories regarding the role of mass media and how it plays into our interpersonal lives. The

implications of this study will hopefully back new theory regarding the uses for gratification and

its role with social media.

For the purpose of this study we are using the definition of celebrity as defined by

Graeme Turners who states that: “Celebrity is a genre of representation and a discursive effect; it

is a commodity traded by the promotions, publicity and media industries that produce these

representations and their effects, and it is a cultural formation that has a social function we can

better understand (Turner, 2004: p. 9). “Turner outlines three primary scholarly definitions: (1)

celebrity as a way that people are represented and talked about; (2) a process by which a person

is turned into a commodity; and (3) an aspect of culture which is constantly being reinscribed

and reformulated.” (Marwick and Boyd, 2011: p. 140).

Related Studies:

In the article “Making Monsters: Lady Gaga, Fan Identification, and Social Media” by:

Melissa A. Click, Hyunji Lee & Holly Willson Holladay they did a study about Lady Gaga’s

relationship to her fans. The Article starts off with a brief bio of her Twitter account followed by

a one-on-one interview with an international sample of 45 self-described Little Monsters [fans].

In particular, examining how “fans articulate their identification with the label “Little Monsters”

characterizing their own monstrosities and relation to Lady Gaga as Mother Monster” (Click et

al. 2013: p. 367).

Previous research conducted by Marwick and Boyd states that with the rise of social

media fans now demand more interaction with celebrities and more research is still needed on

the fan-celebrity interaction and relationship. By using such social media sites as Twitter fans get

a sense of closeness with the celebrities that they follow. “Celebrities’ reciprocity gives the

illusion of two-way communication, which deepens fan-celebrity relationships in ways not

possible though traditional media forms (Corrigan 2011: p. 366).

The research was done though the site administration that allowed the group to post their

interview request directly on Twitter. Participates where then able to follow the link were they

were asked about demographics and to provide contact information if they would like to

participate in the study. “The interviews lasted between 15 to 90 minutes, and were conducted by

phone or with software such as Skype, Goggle Chat, and Microsoft Messenger” (Click, p. 367).

Each was conducted in real time between January and March 2012, 45 people participated in the

interviews three of interviews were done in Korean and later on translated into English. The

other interviews were all done in English. The purpose of the interviews was meant to view the

self-identification as “Little Monsters” as well as the relationship they view as having with Lady

Gaga.

The results of the interviews showed how Twitter plays an important role in the fan-

celebrity relationship. “Unlike the “Imaginary relationships” Caughey describes, the Little

Monsters we interviewed described a relationship in which they felt they received direct and

regular feedback from their fan object, Lady Gaga, and consider its effects on the fan/fan-object

relationship generally” (Click et al., p. 373). They way that Lady Gaga uses Twitter to talk to her

fans giving them a sense of having a real interpersonal relationship with her as a person. As she

not only replies to fans tweets but shares average everyday glimpses into her life.

While this study only show how one Celebrity uses Twitter to create an interpersonal

relationship with her fans more celebrities are starting to try to form the same things because of

this more research is needed to understand this new form of interpersonal relationships.

In the article “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter” by Alice Marwick and

Danah Boyd they did a study about how celebrities use Twitter as a way to show glimpses into

“backstage” access. This study reviews the top 300 most-followed Twitter accounts (as measured

by Twitterholic.com during May and June 2009), including actors, musicians, technologists,

politicians, reality television stars, and so forth for a total of 237 individuals, the remaining 63

accounts were media, companies, and organizations (Marwick and Boyd, 2011: p. 142). They

closely observed and captured all tweets from the most recent 2-3 month period of the study.

“While some accounts are clearly identified as written by a team- tweets from the ‘Britney

Spears’ account are attributed to Britney, her manager, and her website--- others are written by

‘ghost twitterers’ in the voice of the celebrity (Cohen, 2009: p. 142-143). Most of the accounts

related to this study were managed by the celebrity the account belonged to.

The theory related the study done in this article refers to the symbolic interactionism, a

sociological perspective maintains the meaning though language, interaction, and interpretation

(Blumer, 1962; Strauss, 1993: p. 144). This theory claims that identity and self are constituted

though constant interactions with others ---primarily, talk. With the advancement of social media

this theory will soon be redefined to include Twitter and other forms of social media. Twitter is

used for Affiliation, Intimacy, and Authenticity this allows the fan-celebrity relationship to

change into more of an interpersonal relationship maintained though social media avenues.

This article mainly follows the interactions of three case studies following Mariah Carey,

Miley Cyrus, and Perez Hilton. The significance of this study shows how the internet has an

enormous impact on celebrity culture. “Twitter does, to some extent, bring famous people and

fans ‘closer’ together, but it does not equalize their status” (Marwick and Boyd, p. 155-156).

In the article “The tweet smell of celebrity success: Explaining variation in Twitter

adoption among a diverse group of young adults” by Eszter Hargittai and Eden Litt they did a

study about what type of young adults use Twitter and the reasons behind their Twitter usage.

While this article does not dive into the fan-celebrity relationship it does provide needed

background information as to demographical information about what kinds of people use

Twitter. “Drawing on unique longitudinal data surveying 505 diverse young American adults

about internet uses at two points in time (Hargittai and Litt, 2009 & 2010: p. 824), this article

looks at what explains the uptake of Twitter during the year when the site saw considerable

increase in use. We find that African Americans are more likely to use the service as are those

with higher internet skills. Results suggest that interest in celebrity and entertainment news is a

significant predictor of Twitter use mediating the effect of race among a diverse group of young

adults” (Hargittai and Litt, p. 824).

While Twitter does have a section based on trending topics is it unclear as to how this list

is compiled on the site. Kwak and colleagues (2010: p. 828) crawled more than 40 million user

profiles in 2009 identifying only 40 accounts that had more than a million followers, all of which

were either celebrities or media outlets. This information is useful in identifying why people use

Twitter.

The data for the original study conducted by Hargittai and Litt was done at the University

of Illinois, Chicago in spring of 2009 and a follow-up was done with the same respondents the

following year. This college was chosen because of the diversity and the sample was

representative. The students in the First-Writing Program took a pencil-paper survey in class

with detailed questions about their internet usage. The follow up survey was conducted by mail

with respondent who agreed to participate in the follow-up a year later. The data in 2009

consisted of 1115 first-year students while the 2010 data only consisted of 505 of the initial

participants from the 2009 study. The article continues with details of the survey and issues

encountered with the follow up data. The article is sure to state that non-Twitter uses were not a

part of the study and the difference in the data collected in the year 2010 may have something to

do with how the data came out since only a small percentage of the original participants were a

part of the second survey.

The information from this study is just used to reiterate the need for more research to be

done on the fan-celebrity relationship. Having demographical knowledge is important to the

study of the relationships formed on social media site Twitter.

In the article “Not So Imaginary Interpersonal Contact With Public Figures on Social

Network Sites: How Affiliative Tendency Moderates Its Effects” by Eun-Ju Lee and Jeong-woo

Jang they did two studies in regards to the topic of their article for the purpose of evidence to

back up my research proposal I will only be using the information from their first study.

“In study 1, participants viewed either a famous actor’s Twitter page or a news article

merely relaying his Tweets. Exposure to the Twitter page (vs. news article) induced stronger

feelings of actual conversation (i.e. social presence) among less affiliative individuals, whereas

the reverse was true for more socially proactive ones” (Lee and Jang, 2013: p.27).

People like or follow celebrities on Twitter to get a feeling of closeness to people that

they like or admire. While “celebrities’ viewpoint, by creating a profile on SNSs [Twitter and

other social media sites] and exchanging messages with their followers…they may present

themselves as an approachable, down-to-earth person. Likewise, politicians have also realized

the potential of SNSs [Social Network Sites] as an effective means of soft campaign (Utz, 2009:

p. 28).

The first study conducted in this article reflects upon the fact that Twitter as a form of

communication with celebrities is often seen as authentic information being posted on the

celebrities page. This leads to people claiming to have an authentic interpersonal relationship

with these celebrities. Because of Twitter’s lack of an official gatekeeper monitoring the

information people might “fail to perceive or acknowledge the existence of a medium” and

“respond as they would if the medium were not there” (Lombard et al., 2000: p. 77).

The study done in this article included a total of 143 adults that were recruited through an

online survey company in South Korea; participants were randomly assigned to either the SNS or

the news condition. Parasocial interaction was measured using a scale system and results found

that exposure to the actual Twitter page brought about a stronger sense of presence than the news

article.

Research Questions:

Is the interpersonal relationship between Celebrities and their fans a real relationship

managed through social media? Is the interpersonal relationship between celebrities and fan just

an imaginary relationship? How do we know that celebrities are managing their own twitter

accounts and using it to form real interpersonal relationships with fans?

Methods:

For the purpose of this study we would recommend using is a simple survey to celebrities

and twitter users, only conducting the research on the top celebrity Twitter accounts and the fans

on those accounts being a part of the research. Also, over the course of 3-6 months we would

recommend following celebrity interaction on twitter to determine how often celebrities generate

two-way communication with their fans to develop that celebrity-fan relationship dynamic.

Findings:

As a result of our findings from previous articles we can draw ideas as to how much

research is still needed on the fan-celebrity relationship. We believe that the best method of

conducting this research would be through using the top celebrity Twitter pages to survey fans

about their relationship to the celebrity based off their interactions on Twitters. Then use

telephone survey to get in-depth information much like the article about Lady Gaga has done but

on a much larger scale and including the top celebrity accounts on Twitter.

We would expect this research would yield more information on how people respond to

the new interpersonal relationships that they can now have with celebrities. This this is still a

fairly new development we are unsure of how the fan-celebrity relationship with play out with

the use of Twitter or if this interpersonal relationship is even genuine even though it is managed

through social media.

Conclusions:

Issues that we might find while doing this study is the willingness of fans of to participate

in the survey may be limited. Demographically data would be hard to figure out and there is also

the implication of the interactions with the celebrities. The other issue could be the number of

celebrity account needing to be monitored as well as the authenticity of the Twitter accounts

actually being managed by the celebrity themselves could be hard to decipher.

Recommendations for Future Research:

For future research this study would have to be repeated conducted as well as the

information on the fan-celebrity relationship closely monitored. Any changes in the management

of the Twitter accounts ran by the celebrities would also need to be monitored.

Dissemination:

There are many ways to disseminate the completed research. Twitter and the influence

that it has in mass media will always be talked about. With the current advances in technology;

the subject of how celebrities use twitter to redefine the fan-celebrity relationship will remain

relevant and we must work to keep the subject alive.

There are several referred journals that are likely to publish this study. The journals that

we have found to be most linked to the topic of How Celebrities use Twitter to Redefine the Fan-

Celebrity Relationship include: Communications Research, Journalism & Mass Communications

Quarterly and New Media Society. These journals all deal greatly with the impressionable

mindsets of society along with the development of theories which reveal how ones warrants

indirectly construct two-way communication.

References

Blumer H (1962) Society as symbolic interaction. In: Rose AM (ed.) Human Behavior

and Social Processes. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 179-192.

Click, Melissa A., Hyunji Lee & Holly Willson Holladay.(2013). Making Monsters: Lady

Gaga, Fan Identification, and Social Media. Popular Music and Society, 36(3), 360-377.

Retrieved from: Inter-Library Loan Number: 109341860.

Cohen N (2009). When stars Twitter, a ghost may be lurking. The New York Times, 26

March. URL (consulted December 2009):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/technology/27twitter.html

Corrigan, James. Twitter Gave Fans and Stars Chance to Interact…Then the Nutters

Logged On: The Way I See It. The Independent 23 May 2011: n. pag. Web. 15 June 2012.

Eszter Hargittai and Eden Litt. The Tweet Smell of Celebrity Success: Explaining

Variations in Twitter Adoption Among a Diverse Group of Young Adults. New Media Society

2011 13: 824 originally published online 10 May 2011. Retrieved from

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/13/5/824.

Eun-Ju Lee and Jeong-woo Jang. Not So Imaginary Interpersonal Contact With Public

Figures on Social Network Sites: How Affiliative Tendency Moderates Its Effects.

Communication Research 2013 40:27 originally published online 21 December 2011. Retrieved

from http://crx.sagepub.com/content/40/1/27.

Kwak H, Lee C, Park H and Moon S (2010) What is Twitter, a social network or a news

media? Proceedings of the WWW 2010: Raleigh, NC: 26-30 April.

Lombard, M., Reich, R., Grabe, M., Braken, C., & Dittion, T. (2000). Presence and

television: The role of screen size. Human Communication Research, 26, 75-98. Doi:

10.1111/j.1468-2958.2000.tb00750.x

Marwick, Alice and Danah Boyd. To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter.

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17.2 (2011):

139-158. Retrieved from http://www.con.sagepub.com/content/17/2/139.

Strauss AL (1993) Continual Permutations of Action. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

Utz, S. (2009). The potential benefits of campaigning via social network sites. Journal of

Computer-Mediated Communication, 14, 221-243. Doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01438.x

research propsal 1

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