Marwick, A. & boyd, d. (2011). To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 17(2), 139–158.
In the article “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter”, authors Alice Marwick and Danah Boyd (2011) argues how famous people make use of the trending social media platform Twitter nowadays. They shows that new media form allows celebrity practitioners to create a space for interaction between themselves and their followers. However, the celebrity practice complicates the movement of the fans and celebrity as it involves public recognition, intimacy, authenticity and sincerity. Marwick and Boyd analyses three examples which are Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus and Perez Hilton in order to examine how celebrities use their Twitter account. The analysis presents the relationship between the audiences and celebrity culture.
Marwick and Boyd’s examples shows that the celebrity account create a sense of false intimacy with the fans. Miley Cyrus let the audiences experiencing the first-hand conversation by chatting with other teen celebrities publicly. but according to the research, most of the celebrities accounts are maintained by the agency who are trying to provide a “performed persona” for the fans. It is doubt to believe the authenticity and sincerity of these relationship. It is unfair to the fans who are trying to interact with their beloved celebrities. The celebrity account are mainly used to maintain celebrity status and sometimes help boosting their business.
I find the author’s argument important and highly relevant in the social media world as many fans do not recognise the power differentials intrinsic between their relationship with the celebrity. For example, Justin Bieber is one of the most Twitter followers accounts. He called his fandom “Beliebers” and it become a powerful supporting on his careers since he make use of the interaction with fans to establish a loving and caring characteristic towards his fans. I found an article which proves that Justin Bieber Twitter account successfully builds a bridge to connect with fans by making use of multimedia platform such as picture, video and conversation. According to the article “What Happens When Justin Bieber Tweets at a Belieber?”, the “Beliebers” turns crazy while get a response from the Justin Bieber account regardless of the authenticity of the account administration. Still, they get extremely excited without challenging the sincerity of the responses.
It is important for the fans to acknowledge the illusion on how the entertainment industry run their business by taking advantage of the social media platform.My question is that, "Why most of the people involve into the false of relationships with the celebrities? Do they aware of their kind of behaviour are practising celebrity?"
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