Real Lives, Celebrity Stories: Narratives of Ordinary and Extraordinary People Across Media

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Description

From reality television to celebrity gossip magazines, today's technologies have enabled a vast number of personal narratives that document our existence and that of others. Multiple academic disciplines now define the self as fluid and entirely changeable: little more than a performance that is chosen according to the situation. While news journalists still pursue the authentic narrative, advertising and politics might be accused of exploiting the narrative tendency, and across media the personal and public become increasingly merged. Real Lives, Celebrity Stories collects research from published and experienced professionals, practitioners and scholars who discuss narratives of real people across cultures and history and in multiple media. It uses narrative theory to interrogate the processes by which we create, promote and consume these stories of real people, and the ways in which we construct our own stories of self. By bringing together different disciplines it offers a theory of the production(s) of self in public spaces such as television, cinema, comics, fan cultures, music, news media, politics and cyberspace.

Reviews

Today the lives of the famous, the infamous, and the ordinary citizen are told and shown across a plethora of forms and platforms. Julia Round and Bronwen Thomas should be congratulated on putting together a collection of road maps for this new life-telling that are consistently critical and compelling. -- Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK
Thomas and Round do a brilliant job of bringing together two hot areas of study celebrity culture and real lives and figuring them in terms of narrative. This collection of innovative and highly original articles will be of immense interest across a number of disciplines. The contribution on 9/11 families by Lambrou is, on its own, worth the price of the entry ticket. -- Paul Cobley, Professor in Language and Media, Middlesex University, UK
Here is a collection which is timely, thought-provoking and innovative. Its strategic deployment of narrative, linguistic and media theory puts it at the vanguard of current academic work. I strongly recommend this book to scholars and students who want to understand the stories we live by and the ways in which we narrativise our own lives and the lives of others. -- Anita Biressi, Reader in Media Cultures, Roehampton University, UK and author of Class and Contemporary British Culture

Author Bio

Bronwen Thomas is Associate Professor in the Media School at Bournemouth University, UK. Julia Round is Senior Lecturer in the Media School at Bournemouth University, UK.