ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the emergence and evolution of humanitarian celebrity advocacy as well as its institutionalization among NGOs. It then examines how NGOs help celebrities transform into credible humanitarian advocates and harness their 'star power'. Two fundamental trends in the late 1960s and 1970s helped drive the rise of celebrity humanitarian advocacy. The first was the evolution of the public sphere. The second critical trend was the explosive growth in the human rights arena, which led to the establishment of hundreds of new NGOs around the world and the rapid expansion of existing NGOs such as Amnesty International and Oxfam. The chapter reviews research on the impact of celebrity advocacy. Work to date suggests that celebrity advocacy likely has its greatest impact elsewhere in the evolving global public sphere such as social media, partisan media, entertainment media and commercial media. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the vigorous debate over the consequences of celebrity advocacy for democratic politics.
