Celebrification and Blogosphere. A Narrative of Social Media Portrayal of Celebrities

Nzekwe, George Nnamdi and Ngonso, Blessed F and Oyewole, Priscilla O. Celebrification and Blogosphere. A Narrative of Social Media Portrayal of Celebrities. Public Relations Journal. pp. 1-17.

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Abstract

This study is on Nigerian audience perception of social media portrayal of celebrities using Funke Akindele as a case study. A concurrent mixed research methods were used to execute the work. Survey and textual analysis were used under these methods. Questionnaire was designed to obtain quantitative data from the survey and thematic code sheet was used to obtain data for textual analysis. The study population stood at 9,113,605 with 340 as sample size obtained through stratified sampling method for the survey and 50 articles were analyzed for the textual analysis, out of 135 articles posted on the blog from April 2009 to April 2017. Findings showed that the representation of celebrity on gossip blog affect the perception of Nigerian audience about them in this case, Funke Akindele. Again, the representation of Funke Akindele’s persona on gossip blog was mostly positive and 58% of the audience perceive Funke Akindele in a positive light based on her portrayal on the media. 38.8% of the audience perception of Funke Akindele is influenced majorly by their religion amidst other factors when creating meaning to articles written about her on blogs. Also, there is a strong relationship between media portrayal of Funke Akindele and the perception of the Nigerian audience about her. From the findings of this research work and the review done, the researchers concluded that there is a significant positive relationship between social media portrayal of celebrities and audience perception and recommended that social media users (bloggers) should be objective in their posts about celebrities so that they would not mislead the audience on who a celebrity really is or is not and also suggested that, future researches should look at how celebrification is coded in Nigerian mainstream media.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Divisions: Faculty of Management and Social Sciences
Depositing User: mrs chioma hannah
Date Deposited: 02 May 2019 07:29
Last Modified: 02 May 2019 07:29
URI: http://eprints.gouni.edu.ng/id/eprint/1406

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