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On television and in films, in magazines and books, on the Internet and in the realm of politics, celebrities of all sorts seem to dominate our attention. Celebrity Society: The Struggle for Attention brings new perspectives to our understanding of how the figure of 'the celebrity' is bound up with the structure and dynamics of society, economics, and politics. It outlines how the 'celebrification of society' is not just the twentieth-century product of Hollywood and television, but a long-term historical process, beginning with Christian saints, the printing press, theatre, and art. Drawing on the ideas of Norbert Elias, the book explains how contemporary celebrity society is the heir (or heiress) of 'court society', taking on but also transforming many of the functions of the aristocracy. As well as examining celebrity in all the familiar arenas – film, television, music, fashion, and sport – Celebrity Society also includes the analysis of celebrity in business and management, politics, humanitarianism, and philanthropy. A key feature of the book is its development of the idea that celebrity is driven by the 'economy of attention', since attention has become a form of capital – attention capital – in the Information and Internet age. In this second edition the author has updated and significantly revised this path-breaking book to include a more detailed discussion of attention capital, the question of gender and celebrity, populism, fans, fandom, and self-formation, micro-celebrity, and personal or self-branding, the 'worker celebrity', and the impact of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Celebrity is an exciting and rapidly expanding field of social science, making this engaging book a valuable resource for students and scholars in sociology, politics, history, celebrity studies, cultural studies, the sociology of media, and cultural theory.

On television and in films, in magazines and books, on the Internet and in the realm of politics, celebrities of all sorts seem to dominate our attention. Celebrity Society: The Struggle for Attention brings new perspectives to our understanding of how the figure of 'the celebrity' is bound up with the structure and dynamics of society, economics, and politics. It outlines how the 'celebrification of society' is not just the twentieth-century product of Hollywood and television, but a long-term historical process, beginning with Christian saints, the printing press, theatre, and art. Drawing on the ideas of Norbert Elias, the book explains how contemporary celebrity society is the heir (or heiress) of 'court society', taking on but also transforming many of the functions of the aristocracy. As well as examining celebrity in all the familiar arenas - film, television, music, fashion, and sport - Celebrity Society also includes the analysis of celebrity in business and management, politics, humanitarianism, and philanthropy. A key feature of the book is its development of the idea that celebrity is driven by the 'economy of attention', since attention has become a form of capital - attention capital -in the Information and Internet age. In this second edition the author has updated and significantly revised this path-breaking book to include a more detailed discussion of attention capital, the question of gender and celebrity, populism, fans, fandom, and self-formation, micro-celebrity, and personal or self-branding, the 'worker celebrity', and the impact of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Celebrity is an exciting and rapidly expanding field of social science, making this engaging book a valuable resource for students and scholars in sociology, politics, history, celebrity studies, cultural studies, the sociology of media, and cultural theory.

From fame to celebrity: the celebritization of society -- Producing celebrity and the economics of attention -- Celebrity as a social form: status, charisma and power -- Imagined community and long-distance intimacy -- Celebrity in politics, diplomacy and development -- Business and management celebrity -- Celebrity's futures: 15 minutes of fame, or fame in 15 minutes

The 'Robodebt' scheme was an initiative pursued by the Australian Department of Human Services between 2016 and 2019 to increase the amount of money recovered from supposed 'overpayments' to recipients of welfare benefits. Drawing on the rich body of empirical material generated by the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme as well as journalists and academic observers, this paper develops an understanding of the affair from the perspective of the sociology of organizations. Particular use is made of a growing body of research in the organizational sociology of ignorance. Following an outline of the main features of Robodebt, the paper explains the significance of the conception of ignorance as more complex than the mere absence of knowledge in organizational life. It then examines the specifics of the way in which Robodebt casts light on the role played by systemic, wilful ignorance in the relationship between law, bureaucracy and politics. The paper concludes with some reflections on the senses in which Robodebt was a manifestation not only of a crisis, fiasco or scandal, but also of the normal operation of the 'will to ignorance' (Nietzsche) in organizational life.

This paper will examine the ways in which the prevailing representation of the legal practices and institutions related to the management and control of Indigenous families and children in Australia shifted over time from "welfare" to "cultural genocide," and how that shift can be better understood by drawing on Norbert Elias's understanding of civilizing and decivilizing processes. Policies and practices which were understood from the 19th century onwards to be aimed at promoting the welfare of Indigenous children in the interests of increasing civilization came to be regarded from the 1980s onwards as essentially violent and indeed barbaric. This was due to them being a social engineering project for the gradual and systematic annihilation of Aboriginal cultural identity, to the point of being consistent with the definition of genocide in the UN Genocide Convention, albeit as "cultural genocide." However, the term remains heavily contested, with views divided between those who think genocide should be restricted to deliberate physical killing, and those arguing for a more expansive conception of what constitutes the destruction of human life. I will argue that a turn to Elias's conception of civilizing and decivilizing processes helps to clarify what underpins the opposition between these two approaches. After examining the concepts underpinning the legal mechanisms used first to intervene into Australian Indigenous family life and then to pursue holding the responsible authorities to account through "Stolen Generations" litigation, the paper argues for a more nuanced conception of the ways in which civilizing and decivilizing processes interweave with each other in changing ways over time, generating a need to engage with the concept of a "meta-civilizing process."