ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses treatment of celebrity coming-of-age stories in online celebrity gossip media and audience reactions to these stories, taking into account, the target audiences of media by including adult- and youth-oriented gossip websites. Celebrity gossip often features young celebrities or celebrity offspring such as Suri Cruise or Miley Cyrus and celebrity gossip websites focus specifically on young celebrities. Evaluations of young celebrities, especially with regards to sexuality, often had social-class dimension. Some frames equated growing up with leaving behind childish, 'trashy' lower-class behaviour. The study of children's media is often solely motivated by concerns regarding inappropriate content corrupting children. The chapter considers children's media to be just as layered, stimulating and thought-provoking as adult media and children, like adults, to be not just passive media consumers but creators of culture and meaning. JustJared is in Yahoo's top ten Bloggers Roll, with monthly reach of 3.3 million unique visitors, surpassing other prominent celebrity gossip websites such as PerezHilton and Jezebel.
