ABSTRACT
The growth of celebrity culture is such that almost anyone who turns up regularly on television can be regarded as themselves a celebrity, so it might be thought unnecessary to talk separately about the intersection of presenting and celebrity. The functions that Turner specifies include compensatory para-social ones, but most relate to the way in which celebrity performs a 'crucial ideological function' about what it means to be an individual in contemporary cultures. The extent to which this generic modulation of persona is evident with other presenters requires their operating across several genres, but given that most presenters with any standing sooner or later are required to take part in celebrity interviews. Dyer's 'rhetoric of authenticity' can also be examined through Goffman's study of the performance of self. The genial charming persona requires the existence of the celebrity interviews to be displayed, though most of the documentaries draw on and produce it too.
