Anne Jerslev

What is the self in the celebrity selfie? Celebrification, phatic communication and performativity

The aim of this article is to outline celebrity selfies as a photographic genre and means of self-expression within celebrity culture. In the theoretical framework, we approach celebrity selfies on three distinct levels. First, the article elaborates on the concept of celebrification in order to set the cultural context for celebrity selfies. The second section discusses the phatic communicative function performed by celebrity selfies on social network sites to establish presence and keep fans updated and connected through the successive documentation of the everyday lives of celebrities. In the third section, we present the performativity of the image itself, which creates a sense of immediacy by putting on display its own coming into being. The following sections engage in a case study of selfies posted on the Instagram profile of the Danish pop singer and songwriter Medina, which merges intimacy, access and authenticity with promotion and branding. Finally, the conclusion elaborates on this article’s contribution to the understanding of celebrity selfies and discusses the paradox that celebrity selfies narrow the gap between celebrities and their followers, at the same time as they continuously maintain differences across the gap.

Three tasks for mediatization research: contributions to an open agenda:

Based on the interdisciplinary experience of a Swedish research committee, this article discusses critical conceptual issues raised by the current debate on mediatization – a concept that holds great potential to constitute a space for synthesized understandings of media-related social transformations. In contrast to other, more metaphorical constructions, mediatization can be studied empirically in systematic ways through various sub-processes that together provide a complex picture of how culture and everyday life evolve in times of media saturation. The first part of this article argues that mediatization researchers have sometimes formulated too grand claims as to mediatization’s status as a unitary approach, a meta-theory or a paradigm. Such claims have led to problematic confusions around the concept and should be abandoned in favour of a more open agenda. In line with such a call for openness, the second part of the article introduces historicity, specificity and measurability as three transdisciplinary and transparadigmatic tasks for the contemporary mediatization research agenda.

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

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?

Cosmetic surgery and mediated body theatre: the designable body in the makeover programme The Swan

This paper discusses the construction of the body in the American makeover programme The Swan (2004). Using the digital terms morph and morphing and the idea of the sculptural as metaphors, the paper focuses on two body fantasies at work in the programme, the one related to the surgical procedures and the transformation process and the other to the final beauty pageant. Furthermore, the paper discusses how the makeover programme negotiates ideas of female beauty, bodily change, and agency within a narrative development from before to after and, thus, makes an argument for cosmetic surgery. The paper traces the cultural layers upon which the programmes construction of the beautiful female body is written, rewritten, and retrieved in both high culture and popular culture, and assembled and mediated by a contemporary reality TV format.

The elderly female face in beauty and fashion ads: Joan Didion for Céline:

The point of departure for this article is an astonishment at the recent increase in elderly women in fashion and beauty ads, and the question of what value this kind of photography may attribute to the ageing body and face in a visual culture whose association between youth and beauty forms one of the most influential constructions of ageism in Western culture. To attempt to answer this question, the article discusses the relationship between beauty, time and the ageing face, especially in beauty and fashion ads. The 2015 spring ad campaign for the luxury fashion brand Céline, which featured ‘celebrity writer’ Joan Didion, is used as a case study to examine how time and ageing coalesce in the construction of the ageing writer as cool. This article forms part of ‘Media and the Ageing Body’ Special Issue.

The New Model Subject: “Coolness” and the Turn to Older Women Models in Lifestyle and Fashion Advertising

The desirability of youth is a core value long held dear by fashion and lifestyle advertising. Yet numerous recent campaigns by the likes of Lanvin and The Row have been fronted by older women. This chapter examines the implications of this shift for understanding the cultural value that older women can, or cannot, signify at this time in these spheres. Focussing particularly on the 2015 Celine campaign featuring Joan Didion, and the 2017 Pirelli calendar, this chapter argues that crucially the notion of cool is reinscribed across these labels by way of the “edgy” older woman subject, and examines to what extent this challenges (or merely relocates) established norms pertaining to what kinds of bodies warrant our desire and attention.

The post-perspectival: screens and time in David Lynch’s Inland Empire

Taking Anne Friedbergs notion of the post-perspectival as the point of departure for her analysis of David Lynchs digitally shot and edited Inland Empire from 2006, Anne Jerslev argues that the film deconstructs continuous time and coherent space by constructing multiple planes of representation, multiple layerings of screens and, hence, multiple and fractured modes of perception. The article further suggests that the films enigmatic structure might best be understood with reference to a new media genre like the website with its hyperlink structure. Finally, the article discusses how a sense of ubiquitous surveillance coalesces with the screen logic. Author Biography Anne Jerslev (PhD) is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen. Anne Jerslev has published and edited books in Danish and English and published dozens of articles in journals and anthologies in Danish, Scandinavian languages, German and English. Her first book was titled David Lynch i vore øjne (David Lynch in our eyes) (1991); it was published in German in 1995 under the title David Lynch—mentale Landschaften. After the Lynch book she published books about cult movies, youth and media and media and intimacy. She has edited two volumes in English, Realism and Reality in Film and Media (2002), where she contributed a piece about Lars von Triers The Idiots, and Performative Realism (co-edited with Rune Gade (2005)). Her latest edited volume (co-edited with Christa Lykke Christensen) is Hvor går grænsen? Brudflader i den moderne mediekultur [Are there no limits? The crossing of boundaries in contemporary media culture] (Copenhagen 2010). She is currently editing a volume about “Impure Cinema” together with professor Lúcia Nagib from the University of Leeds, which will appear in 2013. Her own contribution to the book is an article about David Lynchs Interview Project.

Introduction: ageing celebrities, ageing fans, and ageing narratives in popular media culture

In 2012, Celebrity Studies published a special issue entitled ‘Back in the Spotlight: Female Celebrity and Ageing’. In her introduction, special issue editor Deborah Jermyn asks when it is that a w...

‘A real show for mature women’ ageing along with ageing stars: Grace and Frankie fandom on Facebook

ABSTRACT Based on a qualitative content analysis of two sets of comments to posts about the Netflix’ series Grace and Frankie on Jane Fonda’s Facebook page, the aim of this article is to discuss older women’s intense appreciation of the series. Primarily on account of the comments from the older female writers in the sample (above the age of 50), the article asks in which ways are the older female characters and the series’ portrayal of ageing appraised by the older female fans? The study concludes that the affective attachment to the characters and the series’ universe is based on recognition and identification, at the same time as the series offers the women a humorous distance from the fact of ageing and being old. Moreover, the article concludes that commenters describe how the show adds value to their everyday lives and how they can hardly wait to binge-watch a new season. Finally, commenters’ ordinary fandom is expressed through paying homage to two extraordinary older actresses whom the older fans have followed for a long time, and who are still going strong and projecting a positive image of ageing.

Sjove film, dem ser man for at have det sjovt - piger og drenge - mediereception og mediepædagogik

Med udgangspunkt i en konkret undersogelse af en gruppe unges medie- forbrug i og udenfor skolen papeger Anne Jerslev eksistensen af en medie- ungdomskultur. Den skabes til lejligheden og oploses, nar filmen er faerdig. Anne Jerslev finder, at selv i skolesituationen skaber eleverne et kulturelt rum, der imiterer fritidens lystfyldte receptionssituation, hvor laerer-elev- hierarkiet til en vis grad er suspenderet. Det er en situation som al medie- undervisning ma tage sit udgangspunkt i. Ud fra disse erfaringer tager hun sidst i artiklen ogsa afstand fra den medie- paedagogik, som betragter produktion som aktiv skaben mens sening er passivt forbrug. Anne Jerslev finder, at det er en falsk modsaetning - pro- duktion og sening er to forskellige slags produktion.