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Nuances in Danish celebrity journalism
Offentliggjort 10/31/2001, senest redigeret 11/25/2004
Approach and methodology for a research project
ANALYSE:
| Celebrity journalism is a phenomenon which is discussed regularly by journalism professionals in Denmark. More often than not, however, the debate is driven by values, opinions and myths rather than careful examination of the media products and the journalistic processes involved in making them. There has been little research which aim to shed light on questions such as: Can celebrity journalism be called real journalism or is it excluded from such a description by virtue of the fact that its aim is to entertain and celebrity journalists feel no obligation towards upholding public debate on important |  | David Beckham and Victoria Adams - celebrities XL and constantly in the media. (Picture source: www.celebritycd.com) |
Celebrity journalism in 11 media
For the past two years these questions have informed a research project on celebrity journalism at the Centre for Journalism and Further Education in Denmark.
Celebrity journalism is not the preserve of magazines specifically devoted to celebrity news. It exists and thrives in other types of news media too. The project has therefore looked at celebrity journalism through three case studies of the output from
- four Danish weekly celebrity magazines Billed-Bladet, Se og Hør, Her og Nu, and Kig Ind
- two popular newspapers Ekstra Bladet and B.T.
- three broadsheet papers Berlingske Tidende, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, and Politiken
- the main news casts of the two public service television stations DR 1 and TV 2
- the main Danish news agency Ritzau’s Bureau.
The three cases
One case covered the period from the birth of the first child to the Danish prince Joachim and princess Alexandra on 28 August 1999 to his christening on 6 November 1999. During that period the magazines and news papers printed 648 articles about the new prince whilst DR 1 showed a total of 5,3 hours and TV 2 7,4 hours of prince-related television including news, special news bulletins, and direct transmissions of his release from hospital and the christening ceremony.
Another case followed the coverage of the second series of the reality-tv programme, The Robinson Expedition, from 6 September to 29 November 1999. The series where 16 ordinary Danes spent 13 weeks on a deserted island surviving on little food and voting betweenst themselves at regular intervals about who should be sent home, was covered in 641 articles in magazines and newspapers but did not attract attention from the television news broadcasts.
A third case was a study of all celebrity news in all editions of the selected media during the week from 15 to 21 November 1999. This case was supplemented by an intensive analysis of all pictures used in two of the weekly celebrity magazines during that week.
Three criteria
To be included in the latter case study, a celebrity news story should fulfill three main criteria:
- it should be a story about a person who is known by broad sections of society;
- the story should focus on personal aspects of that person’s life;
- the main aim of the story should be to satisfy a reader or viewer’s curiosity about the person rather than give them information they could use as citizens or consumers.
However, personal aspects had a wide definition and could include information about a celebrity’s professional affairs such as brief mentions of a person’s inclusion in a picture calendar, the way a tv-presenter’s office is decorated, or a weathergirl’s personal experience of being between jobs.
Stories which included evaluations of celebrities’ professional conduct, such as reviews, or previews of upcoming events such as concerts were excluded.
Is it journalism?
A common valuedriven critique of celebrity news is that it does not qualify as journalism because of its underlying commercial motivation. Real journalism, this critique argues, is driven by the wish to further the public interest through independent and critical news production which enables people to act as citizens.
It is obvious that such a critique works within a very narrow definition of journalism that is out of step with the many different kinds of journalism practiced today.
However, it is not possible to define journalism either as anything or everything which is the result of working efforts by people trained in journalism and/or with a membership of professional journalist bodies.
The celebrity news in our study qualified as journalism because it fulfilled a number of professional criteria such as
- a high degree of topicality
- being events-based
- relying on journalistic genres such as news, interviews, features and voxpops
- being based on identified sources and observations of actual events
- exercising a certain degree of criticism of sources
Project findings
Findings from the project has been published in the book ”Den glade journalistik” (Feelgood journalism) and in articles on CFJE online where it is also possible to consult many of the data supporting the conclusions.
This material is in Danish but we also present some of the main findings of the project in three articles in English (accessible from the grey bar on the right hand side).
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