Sunday, April 15, 2012

Gossips....!!!

Gossip is idle talk or rumour about the personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted. The term can also imply that the idle chat or rumour is of personal or trivial nature, as opposed to normal conversation (Dunbar 2007). 


Gossips in 19th century were seen as a way to connect females! It connected the female. Now in 20th century there is human interest to know about gossips. It is also a part of mass production. You can find many tabloids in news agent, Closer, Heat, More, Star or Gossips etc. Newspapers such as, Daily Mail, have their own section in newspapers and all column on their web site: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.htm.  Twenty years ago gossips were just about words, nowadays it is about pictures too (e.g. what does which celebrity wear).

Newspapers about gossips
Why do we need gossips???
Because gossips helps to modify, evaluate the social life without getting personal. It is a safe way how to set what is and/or what is not allow in relationship. Gossips are easy way how to speak about things, what we like or dislike about, what is acceptable and what is not is our relationship, not in love relationship but also friendship (Leigh 2009).

Many celebrity love gossips, even when they say that they do not. Why??? Gossip is a success without work. It is focuse on public (in what movie does the actor play) but also on private life (new affairs, names his/her children, hobbies...) Being famous is a process of social levelling and gossips definitelly helps it. Nowadays public can choose who is gonna be famous and who no. For example: Britain's Got Talent. People can choose who they want in show and who will go home.






With the gossip is interlink the parasocial interaction relationship. This relationship is about not equal, it is just one sided. Parasocial relationship is when one person know everything about the other one or as much as possible, you are worried about him/her, you are thinking about him/her as extra, but the other person does not know that you exist.


Parasocial interaction defined by Hoerner (1999) is a term to describe one-sided, "parasocial" interpersonal relationships in which one party knows a great deal about the other, but the other does not. The most common form of such relationships are one-sided relations between celebrities and audience or fans.


More about important role of gossips here: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Important-Role-of-Gossip&id=4742008

Very interesting movie about the gossips, celebrities and media is cover in documentary: ''Star sucker''



















2 comments:

  1. Nice combination of theory and contemporary examples.

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  2. it is really interesting to see how gossip and fashion are often interlinked in women's magazines. http://58.192.114.227/humanities/sociology/htmledit/uploadfile/system/20100827/20100827131407164.pdf#page=559

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