Idols%20and%20Celebrity%20in%20Japanese%20Media%20Culture

Introduction: The Mirror of Idols and Celebrity 13
“in the entertainment economy, celebrity is the only currency.” Celebrities
are the nexus between producers and consumers that facilitates the
circulation of media discourse. In Japan, the mass media have since
around the 1980s turned towards the production of media spectacles
centered on idols and celebrities to generate self-referential or autopoietic
systems of media text reproduction or commentary. This system
of self-referentiality in Japan has resulted in voluminous mass-media
discourse about idols and celebrity.
The self-referentiality of the Japanese mass media operates within
a closed circular system without origin (Figure I.2). As spectacle, the
people, products, and events that are the focus of media attention
are important only because they are the focus of media attention.
In this definition of self-referentiality, the media refer to themselves
or aspects of themselves as a way of reproducing greater media discourse.
19 On Japanese wide shows, the hosts will often display and read
the headlines and relevant sections of articles about celebrities that have
appeared in that day’s newspapers. Displaying the pages of newsprint
directly on the screen, Japanese television literally reads you the newspaper.
When it is not referring to itself, it is circulating gossip and
trivia about idols and celebrities. However, these performers are manufactured
and promoted by the media, attaining their celebrity only as
a consequence of their appearance in the media. Celebrity begets media
spectacle in a self-generating system of media promotion.
For example, corporate press releases announcing new products or services
in Japan often involve formal, staged press events that, in order
to attract the media, employ idols and celebrities as “image characters”
(imēji kyarakutā) or spokespersons. Typically, the image character will
pose for photographers, who then print the celebrity’s photos (along
Figure I.2 The wa of Japanese mass media self-referentiality.