Category Archives: Celebrities

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/ Annotated Bibliography from Popular Culture /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • June 1, 2015 , , , ,

So here is a post relating to the elective I am doing at the moment (Popular Culture).

I wrote this Annotated Bibliography to submit for the final assessment piece (we had to write 3 bibliographies).

I want to know what people think of the idea between Fan-Celebrity interaction. It was previously discussed in a lecture for Media 1 and I myself am definitely apart of this fan-celebrity culture which is why I am so interested in it.

Here it is below.. enjoy!

Ferris, K 2001, ‘Through a Glass, Darkly: The Dynamics of Fan-Celebrity Encounters’, Symbolic Interaction, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 25-47.

 

In this article, Kerry O Ferris examines the interaction between celebrities and their fans, further suggesting that perhaps there could be a theory developed for fan-celebrity interaction. The article explores the dynamic relationship between fans and celebrities, and the ways in which some “fans make and take advantage of opportunities for prestige encounters at public events” (Ferris 2001, pg. 25). However some fans actively pursue celebrities to create fan-staged encounters often blurring the line of being an, ‘active fan’ and showing similarities to ‘celebrity stalkers’. Whilst Ferris acknowledges the face-to-face contact between celebrities and their fans, she also brings attention to the interaction between fans and celebrities via mass media and the way in which it “can incorporate the fictional and the extraordinary into their real, ordinary, everyday lives” (Ferris 2001, pg. 25).

 

To form a deeper understanding of fan-celebrity relationships, Ferris collected observational and interview data over a two-year period from ‘active’ Star Trek and ABC soap opera fans. She describes active fans as “pursuing beyond interest, consumption and enjoyment of the television show”, whilst also “forming social bonds with other fans and participating in activities” (Ferris 2001, pg. 28). Collected were a series of twenty in-depth interviews with active fans (fifteen women and five males), who discussed their “television viewing habits and practices, personal histories of fan ship and fan-celebrity contact” (Ferris 2001, pg. 29).

 

The article provides a deep insight into the developing theory of fan-celebrity relationships, recognising that not all fans blur the line between ‘active fans’ and ‘celebrity stalkers’. Whilst also having collected subjective data from interviews, Ferris gathered notes whilst attending “conventions, autograph signings, and personal appearances at store openings” (Ferris 2001, pg. 29) in which fans can interact face-to-face with celebrities, providing an ‘in the field’ perspective. This enabled her research to have a multi-faceted approach supporting the theory of fan-celebrity relationships.

 

Whilst the article provides a range of data to suggest that there is a potential for a theory of fan-celebrity relationships, there are some limitations which include the fact that Ferris has used an unbalanced male to female ratio (15 females and 5 males) potentially giving an inaccurate result, as the results could be gender-affected. However, this ratio could perhaps suggest that there are in fact more female ‘active fans’ than there are male ‘active fans’, implying that further research within this area is suggested. Ferris also states that the data is focused primarily on fans, as it is “solely from the fans perspective” (Ferris 2001, pg. 30), giving no other outlook (that of the celebrity/celebrities involved). Nevertheless, this could also be seen as a strength of the data, as it is purely “naturalistic data” (Ferris 2001, pg. 30) which enables for the examination of “indigenous perspectives and meanings” (Ferris 2001, pg. 30) of these active fans.

 

The article is useful for individuals looking into the fan-celebrity interaction as it provides a multi-faceted approach to the developing theory of the contact between these two groups. Potential research into different fan-celebrity groups is however required as this article only looks at Star Trek and ABC soap opera viewers. In addition, it may also be necessary to gain a perspective from the celebrity’s viewpoint.

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/ Hannah Vasanth /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • May 26, 2015 , ,

So I have been following Hannah Vasanth for quite a few years now. She used to play the keyboard as part of Jessie J’s band (an artist who I am absolutely obsessed with).

Born to South Indian parents and raised in Berlin, Vasanth moved to London in 1997 to sutdy at the Royal Academy of Music. She studied Jazz Performance which was definitely a good choice! Since that time, she has made a name for herself. Playing keyboard for big name artists like Anastasia, the Sugarbabes, Rihanna and Jessie J.

Her influence comes from jazz artists like Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans. However her music is more urban and pop styled influenced from DJs like Diplo to singers like Lana Del Rey.

Hannah is a down-to-earth girl who always finds time to help those around her (next few quotes and excerpt taken from https://www.academia.co.uk/about-us/case-studies/jessie-j/).

“I believe that it is my duty to help and inspire young people, especially artistic ones at the beginning of their journey. For a lot of the youth I am living ’the dream’ – so it’s great to be able to break down the job to them and explain the blood, sweat and tears it took for me to get here! Doing this keeps me grounded – at the same time inspires me to go even further so I can continue being a role model.”

Currently (however recently left) playing for Jessie J, Hannah gave me an insight into her career path and how she came about pursuing music;

“I always wanted to go into music – I was very involved in school bands/choirs/ensembles, but the pop thing just kind of happened – I fell into it through a good friend and MD [Musical Director] Bob Knight offering me a last minute job. The ball just started rolling from then and here I am.”

Hannah is endorsed by Yamaha, and has been for many years, so she’s always had Yamaha ’boards in her rig;

“My first proper professional set up was a controller keyboard, I think it was a Yamaha CP33 with my laptop, as well as a Yamaha ES6. The set up has changed a lot over the years – always based on a Yamaha twin-rig [Motif  XF 8/6] with specialist boards being added – a Roland VK7, Nord Lead, etc.”

All other gear on top of the Yamaha boards are usually by recommendation, Hannah tells us, including her recent adoption of the Muse Research Receptor. Being around other touring musicians, she’s always being told about the latest gear by her super-geeky, knowledgeable friends…

“I have known about the Receptor for a long time now – I first heard about it from my friend Michael Blustein – he used to play keys for Enrique Iglesius and now plays for Foreigner. Over the years I have followed Muse Research, and spoken to players that use it. I was toying between a MacBook setup and a Receptor setup for a long time. Ultimately, the Receptor won…”

One of the key benefits of the Receptor is that you can take sounds you created in the studio and play them in a live situation without the worry of anything overheating or crashing. No more substituting sounds for built in, factory sounds as a lot of musicians have been forced to do over the years;

“If I am on a more electronic gig, and the producer created a pad/synth sound using a popular plug-in such as [Native Instruments] Massive – I could then take this preset, load it into the Receptor and literally have the exact same sound as on the record. I am also a fan of String plugins such as [ProjectSAM] Symphobia and [AudioBro] LA Scoring Strings – so am looking forward to using these in the future. Lots of plugins I want to try out!”

So have a listen to the above video and let me know what you think! I can’t wait to here more from this talented lady!

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/ Self-Promo (tbh) /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • May 8, 2015 , , ,

I’ve decided to upload this lil cover I did of Sia’s Titanium. Singing is a huuuge passion of mine and I sort of wish I was doing that as my main career but it’s so good to have back-ups right! Plus I don’t think I would get very far.. HAHA.

anyway if you are reading this – give it a listen and tell me what you think xx

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/ The Logies and Raising Awareness /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • May 5, 2015 , , , , , , , ,

So as many Australian’s know, the inaugural ‘Logies’ of 2015 were held on Sunday evening with some fabulous guest stars including the likes of Ricky Martin and Meghan Trainor who performed their hit songs for the wonderful all celebrity audience.

Some of my favourite actors/singers were absolute stars on the red carpet including Nicole Da Silva (Figure 1), Asher Keddie (Figure 2), the Wonderland cast (Figure 3) and Delta Goodrem (Figure 4).

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(Figure 1)

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(Figure 2)

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(Figure 3)

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(Figure 4)

There was your best dressed, worst dressed and the in betweeners. But the reason for this post is to congratulate the wonderful Carrie Bickmore on her first ever Gold Logie after about 4 previous nominations. Not only has she just had a baby (and she looks smashing (see images below)) but her speech was on a whole other level. Bickmore stated in an interview the morning after on Nova 100 that she was going to do the usual “thank-you” but had already done it before. She tossed up whether to end the night on a sad note with a sad story but decided that this was the best thing to do – and so she did rightly so!

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Bickmore looks stunning after just having a baby.. not even sure how she does it!

The contents of her speech included a blue beanie and a thank-you to her late Husband who died of Brain Cancer. The blue beanie was worn for the campaign ‘#BeaniesforBrainCancer’. Her emotional speech raised awareness for the deadly disease, something that has had many talking since because of how beautiful it truly was.

On The Project the next day, the whole crew wore beanies to raise awareness for Brain Cancer.

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Personally I believe that this was an amazing thing to do. It is so important that we are all aware of how bad these illnesses are, and raising awareness is exactly what we need to do. Bickmore having had personal experience with the illness of course is more inclined to want to raise awareness, however we must respect those celebrities who use their power and fame to go out of their way to raise awareness for any type of illness/charity/cause. It is so important that celebs are doing this as they are often the most reached people in society and therefore their messages are more likely to get across to more people. It could be said that it in fact is easier for them to raise awareness as they are more popular than you and I so I believe that all celebrities should be doing their bit within society.

I hope that in the future I can follow in the footsteps of Bickmore and be as inspiring as her.

Congratulations Carrie. That Logie was so well deserved 🙂

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/ Media 1 rant and ALSO an Orphan Black chat /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • April 20, 2015 , , , ,

So pretty much today was eventful. I was unable to make the tutorial due to personal reasons and my Project 3 was due this morning. The audio quality when crazy on me which I’m very sad about. I’ve had to keep uploading it and trying to get it working but it ain’t working in my favour #sad.

So in Media news today I have just finished watching the first episode of season 3 Orphan Black (one of the greatest shows of all time). For those of you who have no clue what OB is all about, basically this actor named Tatiana Maslany plays about 7 different characters who are all clones (Urban Dictionary defines it as “a BBC America TV show about clones finding their origin and learning about their past and how their loved ones react and which loved ones are a “spy” or “monitor” to watch these clones”). Dad gave me an article the other morning about the show, which discusses the great acting by Ms. Maslany herself who is able to portray these 7 characters with the inclusion of different mannerisms (even though she looks the same).  As this article states: “the show broods on the nature-nuture debate in human biology and cleverly extends the same question to matters of genre – what does a woman look like when you grow her in a petri dish of Desperate Housewives vs. a horror film set?” It is the same woman, yet with many different stock character traits. AMAZING ACTING I SAY and I believe it is definitely the way forward for unique television programming.

Below is the trailer for Season 1.

Check it out!

 

 

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/ Netflix and what not /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 30, 2015 , , , , , ,

So I wanted to write this because of Netflix finally being made available to Australia (thank god it’s here now).

I used to watch the American one where I filtered my location to Los Angeles or something in order to access the beautiful streaming service.

To give an overview of what it is, thanks to the companies overview page: Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 62 million members in over 50 countries enjoying more than 100 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

Sounds fabulous does it not? WELL IT IS.

I don’t know whether having Netflix will now cause a stir in terms of Foxtel because people potentially will no longer want to pay for Foxtel when they can access things online for a cheaper price. However it’s great because I think we are moving back to paying for watching things online (I never really watched anything illegally that was downloaded but I know many people did) and I believe that now with the introduction of Netflix and then the Australian versions Stan and Presto, people will be more inclined to pay a monthly fee to watch as many things as they like.
Hmmm.. leaves me thinking!

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/ Week 3 – Lectorial Reflection /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 17, 2015 , , ,

wk3  Media is a public practice [that is, an engagement with the world and others requiring a philosophical and practical ‘ethics’]

Media is a public practice [that is, an engagement with the world and others requiring a philosophical and practical ‘ethics’]  (taken from Media One blog lecture notes).

In this lecture, Annie Lennox (not the singer, however I do wish it was) discussed the ethics surrounding copyright and the restrictions.

We discussed rights of ownership – the rules of ownership – creator/author first owner and the exceptions i.e. employer ownership/contract assignment/licence.

Duration of copyright is for 70 years however this can differ throughout the world.

In this lecture I learnt that it is incredibly important to create your own work but if you are wanting to copy/reproduce/publish/adapt something you must respect the rights of the original works and gather licenses where necessary.

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What’s the difference between a selfie and a self-portrait?

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 3, 2015 , ,

A selfie and a self-portrait are both expressions of oneself created by a person. They both can be completely valid and true to the person but can also be false as it is very simple for one to change an aspect of themselves to please others/make themselves look better.

Having read the article about the rise of selfie-taking – BBC: News Magazine article on ‘Selfies’, it has come to my attention that our generation is becoming more self-confident and perhaps at times, a little narcissistic. But who doesn’t love a bit of self-confidence? After all, isn’t that what we seek? To be proud of the way we look/who we are?

I have always had self-confidence issues. Haven’t we all? It’s hard living in a society where there are many images projected in the media of ‘perfect’ women with ‘perfect’ bodies/hair/personalities… you name it. So I wouldn’t say that selfie-taking is a bad thing. I’m glad people are beginning to appreciate the way they look and have the confidence to take a photo of themselves. Everyone should be happy in their own skin!

Now ever since I found out about what a selfie was, I have been taking them nearly every day. The article mentions that the likes of Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Justin Bieber take selfies proving that it has become a world-wide phenomenon where even the most popular people within a society are following the trend. and  I don’t particularly see myself as very self-confident. I take selfies because I like to share information with my family and friends on apps like ‘Instagram’ of where I am at/who I’m with etc. They “invite us to photograph on the spur of the moment, regardless of location or company” thus proving that they are an easy way of sharing information to friends and family without having to write any text. It is also an incredibly unique way of sharing information as there does not have to be any text involved for others to understand the image “a picture paints a thousand words”.

The article mentions that selfies “tells other people how we want to be seen” however I believe that is completely up to the ‘poster’ of the selfie. I will post any (appropriate) image whether I am smiling or making a funny face. I do not try to differ my ‘online identity’ from my ‘real identity’ as I believe that it is important and healthy to be who you are always as creating false identities can create issues.

The article also mentions ‘sexting’ and how selfies are related to this. Again it depends on the type of selfie that is taken. Obviously if there is nudity then that will create issues, however if an individual takes a ‘selfie’ of oneself smiling (fully clothed) and sends it to a friend, that can be hardly classified as sexting as there is no form of ‘nudity’ within the image.

For me it is perhaps not the photo but the captions/comments that come with the selfie. But that takes me off the topic of the photo itself.

To conclude, I believe that both self-portraits and selfies are the same thing as it is completely up to the individual as to how they wish to be seen in both cases.

Thanks for reading!

Peace xoxo

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Follow my yellow brick road

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 3, 2015 , , ,

So hello,

My name is Samantha Beniac-Brooks however I prefer to be called Sammy. It’s my first year in BComm Media and I’m feeling very excited to be starting my dream course. I hope to become a Media Presenter!

This blog has been created so that I can submit work on a public forum so feel free to leave any comments on posts or send me a message! I hope I can be teach you some things about the media as I go on my journey to learn more about the media also. I’m so incredibly excited to have a place where I can share my work to the public! I have always wanted a blog but have never had the time to keep up with it. However RMIT shall keep me in line!

Here is a link to a website run by a few of my favourite celebrities. It’s (I quote credit to the website) “a positive online community for women (although men are always welcome!) covering DIY and crafting projects, beauty, friendship, sex & relationships, pop culture, pets, television & movies, nostalgia, fandom, tips on savvy and stylish living meant to inspire a smile – founded by Zooey Deschanel, Molly McAleer and Sophia Rossi.”

Take a peek and let me know what you think. I’m sure you’ll become just as obsessed as I am!

http://hellogiggles.com/

I hope you enjoy my blog as much as I will enjoy creating it and posting!

Happy reading!

Peace xoxo