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                      Olivier Driessens 
                      The celebritization of society and culture: 
                      understanding the structural dynamics of 
                      celebrity culture 
                       
                      Article (Accepted version) 
                      (Refereed) 
                       
                       
                        Original citation: 
                        Driessens, Olivier (2013) The celebritization of society and culture: understanding the structural 
                       
                        dynamics of celebrity culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16 (6). pp. 641-657. ISSN 
                        1367-8779  
                         
                        DOI: 10.1177/1367877912459140  
                         
                        © 2013 SAGE Publications 
                         
                        This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55742/ 
                         
                        Available in LSE Research Online: May 2014 
                         
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                        This  document  is  the  author’s  final  accepted  version  of  the  journal  article.  There  may  be 
                        differences between this version and the published version.  You are advised to consult the 
                        publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. 
                         
                         
                         
             Essential information: 
             This is a post-review version of the article published as ‘The Celebritization of 
             Society  and  Culture:  Understanding  the  Structural  Dynamics  of  Celebrity 
             Culture’           which            you           can            find          at: 
             http://ics.sagepub.com/content/16/6/641.abstract?etoc  
             DOI: 10.1177/1367877912459140 
             Full reference: Driessens, O. (2013). The Celebritization of Society and Culture: 
             Understanding  the  Structural  Dynamics  of  Celebrity  Culture. International 
             Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(6), 641-657. 
              
             Please do not refer to or quote from this version as it is still slightly different 
             from the proofread and later published version. 
             More information on the copyright: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1367-
             8779/ 
              
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
                                                       
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             The Celebritization of Society and Culture:  
        Understanding the Structural Dynamics of Celebrity Culture 
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
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      Abstract 
      In recent debates about the ever-growing prominence of celebrity in society and culture, a 
      number  of  scholars  have  started  to  use  the  often  intermingled  terms  celebrification  and 
      celebritization.  This  article  contributes  to  these  debates  first  by  distinguishing  and  clearly 
      defining both terms and especially by presenting a multidimensional conceptual model of 
      celebritization to remedy the current one-sided approaches that obscure its theoretical and 
      empirical complexity. Here celebrification captures the transformation of ordinary people and 
      public figures into celebrities, whereas celebritization is conceptualized as a meta-process that 
      grasps the changing nature, as well as the societal and cultural embedding of celebrity, which 
      can be observed through its democratization, diversification and migration. It is argued that 
      these manifestations of celebritization are driven by three separate but interacting moulding 
      forces: mediatization, personalization and commodification.  
       
      Keywords    celebrity,  celebrification,  celebritization,  democratization,  diversification, 
      migration, mediatization, personalization, commodification, neoliberalism 
       
       
      Celebrity has become a defining characteristic of our mediatized societies. It is ever-present in 
      news and entertainment media—boosted by formats such as reality TV—in  advertising and 
      activism, and it has deeply affected several social fields, especially the political, but also the 
      gastronomic and even the religious fields, for celebrity has become a valued resource to be 
      used in power struggles. Celebrity status, it is argued, renders one discursive power or a voice 
      unable to be neglected (Marshall, 1997: x), and it is supposed to function as a general token of 
      success (Bell, 2010: 49). Such is the proliferation of celebrity culture that several authors have 
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