Television Personalities

`Television Personalities is going to be one of the defining texts in the fields of television, and celebrity studies. It is an outstanding piece of scholarship that is beautifully, accessibly written.' Sean Redmond, Editor of Celebrity Studies Journal

`In this useful, thoughtful book, Bennett investigates a crucial element that has gone missing from our current understanding of television: precisely how it participates in the production and consumption of celebrity. He explores the longstanding assumptions about how television stardom works, making the book essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary television.' Graeme Turner, Professor of Critical and Cultural Studies, University of `Queensland, Australia

Celebrities have come to increasingly dominate the media and its study in contemporary culture. Although acknowledged as part of this general rise in the importance of celebrity culture, television's specific forms of stardom have until now remained largely under-theorised. Television Personalities examines how television personalities function as commodities, and also function ideologically, thus relating them to issues of class, national identity, sexuality, gender and social history.

Television Personalities sets out a new way of considering televisual fame, arguing that it must be understood on its own terms, and thus establishing the television personality as a particular set of performers whose celebrity is constructed through discourses of ordinariness, authenticity and intimacy. The book is divided into three sections that trace the historical development of televisual fame from the 1950s through to the emergence of `DIY' celebrity in the digital era.

Television Personalities is an original, indispensable guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media, television and celebrity studies, as well as those interested more widely in digital culture.