ABSTRACT
In his account of the social and historical conditions which give rise to the ‘phenomena of stars’ Francesco Alberoni (1972: 75) observed that in ‘every society are to be found persons who, in the eyes of other members of the collectivity, are especially remarkable and who attract universal attention’. Typically, according to Alberoni, this applies to those ‘who hold power (political, economic, religious)’ but one also finds others ‘whose institutional power is very limited or non-existent, but whose doings and way of life arouse considerable and sometimes even a maximum degree of interest’. This latter group constitutes what Alberoni describes as a ‘powerless élite’ which includes not just the stars of cinema but ‘idols’, ‘champions’ and ‘divas’. If this formulation is used as a starting point for mapping the contours of this story-type it is clear that a significant number of ‘other news’ stories in the broadcast sample weeks had a very specific focus on the ‘doings and way of life’ of people who could qualify as ‘especially remarkable’. Although there appeared to be a substantial diversity of individuals covered in these news reports, it will be argued that all these cases should be located as part of what Monaco (1978: 10) calls the ‘calculus of celebrityhood’, television journalism, as it were, factoring in its own particular equation, and facilitating, through the use of its own specialized methodology, the broader ‘process by which fame is manufactured’ (Boorstin 1963: 57).
