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The common responses to celebrity deaths demonstrate important realities about how people build relationships with the media they consume, according to a Kansas State University cognitive psychologist. Richard Harris, professor of psychology, has studied a number of aspects of the psychology of mass communication. His focus has been on how people acquire knowledge from media. Among his studies has been an examination of how watching certain media with different people influences the experience. He has also studied how people remember certain media experiences.
Harris says many people develop relationships with media characters in a similar manner to how they do so in real life. This phenomenon is referred to as parasocial interaction. The one-sided relationship is most commonly observed between celebrities and their fans…
Spontaneous displays of grieving after the death of a famous person or celebrity are not new. For example, impromptu memorials appeared for Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and John Lennon following their deaths.
Harris said these losses have a distinct difference from the loss of a family member. “We don’t have the social structures and support for grieving the loss of a media character or, in particular, a fictional character,” Harris said. “Somebody’s real upset that their favorite soap opera character was killed off yesterday and they tell someone about that and they laugh. It’s a very different reaction than if their grandmother had died.” -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story about the death of a celebrity and the world’s reaction to it. Put in a surprise twist.
Journaling Prompt: Write about how you react to the death of celebrities.
Art Prompt: Celebrity Death
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the obsession with celebrity and how it affects culture.
Photo Credit: Cain and Todd Benson on Flickr
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The Streisand Effect: A phenomenon in which attempting to suppress an item of information attracts even more unwanted attention, thus furthering its dissemination. Coined in 2005, after a 2003 incident in which singer Barbra Streisand attempted to have a picture of her house removed from a public collection of 12,000 images documenting coastal erosion in California. -Wikipedia
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story about a celebrity who is trying to keep something private but encounters the Streisand Effect.
Journaling Prompt: Would you ever want to be famous? How much of your privacy would you be willing to give up in the process?
Art Prompt: The price of fame
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about our culture’s obsession with celebrities.
Photo Credit: JCT(Loves)Streisand* on Flickr
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That nice looking black car in the front is an Enzo Ferrari. It will run you a cool mil (American $) to walk off the lot with one. Take two; they’re small. Oh, and don’t forget to order a yacht while you’re here.
…you can’t outearn dumb spending. Just ask all the millionaire celebrities, professional athletes, and lottery winners who end up broke. Let me repeat for emphasis: You can’t outearn dumb spending. -Gregory Karp, The 1-2-3 Money Plan: The Three Most Important Steps to Saving and Spending Smart
Writing Prompt: Create a character sketch for your protagonist showing how he or she makes financial decisions.
Journaling Prompt: How do your emotions affect your spending habits?
Art Prompt: Luxury
Photo Credit: Damian Morys Foto on Flickr
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Children are becoming more sophisticated about image at younger and younger ages.
…even very young children have a great deal of knowledge about the clothing retail sector and they know exactly which shops will sell the kind of clothing they want.
[Researchers] also found a strong association between family culture and the value children placed on brands and logos, citing two cases, ‘Robert’ and ‘Hayley’ (not their real names).
Robert came from a family where brands and designer fashions were valued, and he ‘name-dropped’ constantly about the brands of his clothes. Hayley, on the other hand, came from a family with little disposable income, where brands and logos were of so little importance that she had difficulty in understanding what the terms meant.
Parents, however, do not have it all their own way. Dr Pilcher commented: “There are a variety of fashion influences on children and you can’t ignore the pressures from their peer groups, especially friends of the same sex, and their ideas of what is cool.”
A further influence on young children is the celebrity culture, which they may wish to copy or they may reject. The skimpy clothing of singers Beyoncé and Kylie were not always admired by girls, who thought it was rude to show so much bare skin…
Children who do not participate in that culture, however, can be isolated from their peers in a form of social exclusion. This, Dr Pilcher says, is something to be borne in mind by teachers when considering school uniform policies and by parents doing battle with their children on the shop floor. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about a young child shopping for clothes.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a shopping trip for clothing from your own childhood. If you have children, compare it to a shopping trip with them.
Art Prompt: Children’s fashion
Photo Credit: Jason Hargrove on Flickr
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