The Making of Modern Celebrity: Famous for fifteen minutes, and longer - Professor Christopher Cook
2,583 views · Published 26 August 2011 · 1:00:55 · Indexed 8 November 2026
Channel: Gresham College · 2011 · Education
The historian Daniel Boorstin famously defined a celebrity as "a person who is well-known for his well-knownness." A person who is famous for simply being famous is hardly a modern phenomenon. On the publication of Childe Harold, Byron declared that he went to bed and woke up famous. However, Byron was a poet and subsequent celebrities generally had proven talent as well as the knack of achieving an exalted social status based on fame alone - or even notoriety. While the modern celebrity may possess a talent, that is no longer the sine qua non of achieving celebrity status. Increasingly that status would seem to be dependent on, and indeed to a great extent, manufactured, by the mass media. This lecture will explore the nature of contemporary celebrity, how it is 'manufactured' by the media and what has been called the 'celebrification' of our culture. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-making-of-modern-celebrity-famous-for-fifteen-minutes-and-longer Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. http://www.gresham.ac.uk
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