Abstract
As the first of its kind, the direct vote for the Czech presidency in 2013 was an exceptional event. In terms of political campaigning, an interesting aspect of the election was in the unprecedentedly high involvement of celebrities. Based on data from focus group research, the aim of this article is to analyse audiences’ perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the presence of celebrities in the campaign. Using Bourdieu’s field theory, two different attitudes of the respondents towards the blending of the field of politics with the field of popular culture are identified – the strict rejection of this blending and its acceptance as part of the contemporary conditions of political communication. Furthermore, differences in audience’s perception between the inhabitants of different localities are explored with attention to their possible impacts on people’s trust in celebrities’ political behaviour and in the functioning of politics as such.
Introduction
The first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic, held in January 2013, were not just a milestone in the political development of the country but also an important moment for the field of political communication. Although the intensive use of political marketing, including the involvement of celebrities’ endorsements in the campaigns (McCracken, 1989; Pease and Brewer, 2008; Wood and Herbst, 2007), is an established practice in North America and Western Europe, its full use in the Czech context is due to historical and cultural reasons more recent in origin (Matušková, 2010). The new format of the presidential elections, in contrast to their parliamentary equivalent, focused more on individual candidates (rather than political parties) and contributed to an intensification in a trend towards professionalized campaigning (Louw, 2005; Negrine, 2008; Negrine et al., 2007). Besides this high degree of personalization and the employment of social networking sites like Facebook (Štětka et al., 2014) and (although less popular) Twitter (Karaščáková, 2013), the campaign was new due to an unprecedentedly high prominence of celebrities.
The aim of this article is to analyse how the presence of celebrities in the campaign was perceived by audiences of political messages. Using data from focus group research, we are interested in whether our respondents identified any political topics from the campaign which were elicited by celebrities. We also analyse the opinions on, and emotions related to, the presence of celebrities in political campaigning. Finally, since the difference between cities and rural areas played an important role in voters’ decisions, we investigate whether there was also any variation in the perception of celebrities between peoples from different localities.
Celebrities in political campaigning
When speaking about celebrities and political campaigning, one always gets to the crucial question: can the presence of celebrities in political communication increase political participation and democratization or not? The decline of public engagement in democratic processes has provoked the interest of media researchers who have tried to articulate recent changes in political communication (Blumler and Kavanagh, 1999; Louw, 2005; Negrine, 2008; Scullion et al., 2013; Stanyer, 2007; see also Dahlgren, 2009). One feature of these changes is the application of principles found in celebrity culture to political communication, especially with regard to a heightening of the personalization and entertainization of politics (Marshall, 1997; Street, 2004).
On one hand, celebrities can be seen as a natural part of political performance (Alexander, 2011) or even as intermediaries who help to attract the attention of citizens to politics (Van Zoonen, 2003, 2005). On the contrary, sceptics of this position argue that celebrities are only fuzzy elements in political communication and that as the markers of show business they underline an ideology of individualism in political communication. David Marshall (1997) has described this as ‘a spectacle of individuality’ (p. 246; see also Kellner, 2010) and refers to Guy Debord’s notion of the ‘society of spectacle’, in which the spectacle is alienated from its original content and meaning (Debord, 2012).
The results of available audience research show that audience investment in celebrity culture would not significantly help with democratization and participation in political communication (Couldry and Markham, 2007). Attitudes towards the celebritization of political communication at the beginning of 2000s have been mainly normative, although, and thus, there remains the need of empirical research focused especially on audiences and their relation to celebrities present in politics.
Politics and show business: Two separate fields?
The question of how celebrities relate to the field of politics in political communication is not new, and many scholars have argued that the fields of politics, popular culture and media have, in various ways, converged (Becker, 2012; Marshall, 1997; Van Zoonen, 2005). The notion of the ‘field’ characterized as a network of relations between positions or as a game (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 97–98) represents an alternative theoretical perspective in political communication. The theoretical background to this notion, originally conceptualized by Pierre Bourdieu (1998), comprises concepts of the field, habitus and capital, and it is important to be aware of the whole system if we want to apply the term in empirical research (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 96).
An important, natural characteristic of the field lies in a continuous fluctuation in its power relations. For Bourdieu, the journalistic field is, in a way, part of the political field, as it has a very strong impact on it. These two fields are very directly and very tightly in the grip of the market and the audiences (Bourdieu, 1999). On the other hand, the field of media can produce powerful capital (Couldry, 2012). Acquisition of media capital, a desirable quality in the media field, is one of the main interests of celebrities in this field (Bourdieu, 1999; Marliere, 1998). Media capital and the symbolic capital of celebrities do play an important role in the symbolic struggle which is, in the case of politics, a theatrical representation of the social world and social struggle (Bourdieu, 2005). The mediatization of politics and the acquisition and use of media capital can be seen as the only and ultimate way of getting any capital in the political field (Couldry, 2012).
Contrary to Bourdieu’s critical view on the theatrical, de-realized form of social struggles in political communication, John Street does not consider celebrity politics as an exaggerated or exceptional form of political representation. For him, it is instead characteristic of the nature of political representation generally (Street, 2004). Street draws our attention to the role of ‘style’ and the ‘aesthetics’ of political communication and claims that this aspect of political representation needs to be analysed carefully.
With regard to celebrities in Czech political communication, preliminary research has shown that their position has altered considerably over time (Křeček and Štechová, 2011). During the era of the ‘Velvet Revolution’, many public personalities from the field of popular culture appeared in the context of political communication, with some going on to become politicians. Although later celebrities appeared as public supporters or marketing tools (Marshall, 2010), the most significant aspect of their involvement in politics remains in their rejection of certain political ideas, a far more common occurrence than any support for politicians. The specificity of the fields of popular culture, media and politics in the Czech post-communist milieu has been manifest mainly within the discourse of (superficial) anti-communism (Štechová, in press) and can be seen as more-or-less occurring across the findings of our research.
The study focuses on local celebrities who intervened in the field of politics during the elections. General theoretical observations about global celebrities and their reception by audiences (Turner, 2004), therefore, were revisited sensitively and with regard to the post-communist context. The presidential elections, as the first direct elections of individual candidates, thus offer a highly appropriate case for further examination.
The context of the 2013 presidential elections
The first round of the election took place on 10–11 January 2013. From nine candidates, the two most successful advanced to the second round – the former Prime Minister Miloš Zeman and the then minister of foreign affairs, Karel Schwarzenberg (ct24.cz, 2013). In the two weeks which followed, the campaign intensified, while the presence of celebrities in the campaign also increased significantly. Famous personalities from a wide range of areas – including pop stars, actors, as well as doctors and scientists – posed on billboards, commented on the elections in the media, accompanied ‘their’ candidates to press conferences and some were even cast in short video spots distributed online. Each candidate – and this was noticeable especially before the second round of the elections when only two candidates remained – had a ‘camp’ of supporting celebrities, and these camps sometimes even vied with each other, libelling those from the opposite camp for their political opinions (lidovky.cz, 2013).
These controversies and the negative campaigning which were present especially in Zeman’s campaign (Červinková and Kulhavá, 2013) contributed to a split in the electorate. The media coverage of the candidates was also quite oppositional: while Schwarzenberg was described as a noble, distinguished man, Zeman was labelled a populist famous for his inappropriate behaviour (Jeřábek et al., 2013).
The second round was held on 25–26 January, which Miloš Zeman won achieving 54.8% of votes. The results confirmed that the electorate was strongly divided along the cleavage of urban versus rural areas; while Karel Schwarzenberg won in larger cities and in richer regions of the country, Miloš Zeman reached his voters in small municipalities with worse socio-economic conditions (idnes.cz, 2013).
Methodology
Most work in the field of political communication is focused on the macro-level, describing general trends and aimed mostly towards the media content or production side of political messages. Studies of elections tend to prefer quantitative data and thus often miss out the analysis of people’s emotions, experiences, attitudes and perceptions (Bartels, 2001; Coleman, 2013: vii), although audiences of political communication in the current hybrid media system play an increasingly important role (Chadwick, 2013). The main objective of this study is to explore exactly this level of lived experience with attention to the ways that people deal with the involvement of celebrities in ‘the political field’ (Bourdieu, 1998, 1999; Davis, 2010; Wacquant, 2004).
The data emerged from six focus groups conducted with people from different localities across the whole of the Czech Republic. As we were interested in the effects of the diversity in size of the localities and in their socio-economic conditions on the possibility of (inter alia) an urban versus rural divide, the focus groups took place in two large cities (the capital of Prague with 1.2 million inhabitants and the second largest city Brno with 400,000 inhabitants), two middle-sized cities (Nové Strašecí with 5500 inhabitants and Klatovy with 22,500 inhabitants) and two small municipalities, Hořice na Šumavě (800 inhabitants) and Bludov (3000 inhabitants). 1
In the composition of each focus group, we sought the largest possible variability of respondents (see Krueger and Casey, 2009). The groups thus consisted of 5–8 people of different ages, gender and social background to represent a variety of opinions from the particular locality. 2 Overall, the sample included 39 people: 22 women and 17 men. The largest group (20 respondents) consisted of economically active people from 28 to 59 years of age, balanced almost evenly across the ‘lower middle’ and the ‘upper middle’ classes; a third of the sample (13 respondents) comprised high school or university students; and, finally, the smallest group comprised elderly retirees (6 respondents). There was a common outline to each focus group: before focusing more on the role of celebrities, the discussion always started with some general questions about the elections itself and the way its media coverage was perceived.
The relatively large temporal distance between the elections (end of January 2013) and the research (May–August 2013) meant that we had to deal with the possible role of selective memory (Gardner et al., 2000), as well as with the influence of subsequent political developments. Among these were high-profile controversies surrounding the winning candidate Miloš Zeman, including questions over the funding of his campaign as well as the alleged probity of his behaviour during the election period. 3 In order to aid the respondents’ recall the election period, we also played a short video to the respondents, originally circulated before the second round of the election, in which a well-known Czech actor explicitly denounced Miloš Zeman’s candidature; this helped us to elaborate deeper on the debate about the role of celebrities in the campaign. The following analysis drew on the principles of qualitative analysis, using open and axial coding to group the data into interrelated categories (Saldaña, 2009).
Findings
Following our twofold aim – on one hand, to analyse people’s perception of celebrities and, on the other hand, to delineate differences between urban and rural areas – we divide the categories (generated by open coding) into two groups. The first includes those that were, to a greater or lesser extent, common for all the chosen localities, while the second consists of those where some contrasts occurred between focus groups conducted in cities and those conducted in rural areas.
Celebrities in the campaign
Celebrities as candidates’ attributes only
In general, the findings suggest that people regard celebrities in campaigns as accentuating the form of campaigning at the expense of its content. In other words, celebrities embody part of the candidate’s media image or, as we will discuss later, can even be seen as part of a political performance, with its own screenplay written in advance. Celebrities are in this sense seen as one tool among a variety of other components of political public relations (PR) and campaign performance which are deliberately used to define the position and character of a particular candidate and help to distinguish one candidate from another – and it is not a coincidence that certain celebrities support certain candidates: The celebrities served as other guidelines [for a voting decision]. That was probably a good manoeuvre from them [the candidates]. (RF1)
Although the respondents remember barely any specific political topic elicited by the celebrities during the campaign, it does not mean that the celebrities had only a passive role in the campaign. On the contrary, their presence seems to be crucial for emphasizing the personal qualities of the candidates. Favourable personal qualities are very strongly related to the affirmation of voting preferences and can thus be very important when communicated by celebrities. This becomes evident, at least, when considering that even after several months, many respondents were still able to enumerate some of the qualities (at least, of the two final candidates) highlighted by various celebrities: It was more on the general level, for instance in the case of Schwarzenberg I remember one of the spots where various celebrities said that he is honest, fine and all this. (RF6) Do you remember [the pop singer] Lucie Bílá how she said that she wanted someone strong? […] And how she compared Zeman to a king, since he is strong, tough and so on? (RF2)
On the rare occasions in which topics related to celebrities were mentioned, they were generally described as negative topics. They were also usually connected in some way to Czech history – mainly with the attitudes of the candidates towards the past Communist regime as well as towards the current politics of the Communist party of Bohemia and Moravia. 4
The negativity of celebrities, intensified by defamation claims and verbal exchanges between some of them, is an important factor in the disaffection of the respondents towards the presidential elections and politics generally, as described in detail below. This negativity is also described as having been stronger than usual, together with the increased presence of celebrities in the campaign: For my taste it was whirled up too much and not only were celebrities involved but also family members of the candidates. […] When the previous 20th century periods like Nazism or Communism are brought to light, then all the fun ends. (RM6)
The clash of the fields – Ambivalent perceptions of celebrities
The relationship between celebrities and the question of credibility and trust can be seen as one of the most important points in the interviews. The attitudes of respondents are thus ambivalent. On one hand, celebrities are not regarded as having certain necessary competencies to justify commenting on politics and the power they wield is seen as leading away from voters’ interests and decisions. On the other hand, respondents admit that celebrities as public personas should feel able to comment on politics. Furthermore, their engagement can sometimes have some positive effects. The uncertainty and displeasure expressed by respondents while talking about celebrities who ‘don’t understand politics more than we do’ (RF12) reflects, although, the extent to which the fields of politics, popular culture and media have converged as a result of celebrities’ attempts to accumulate media capital (Davis, 2010). The political field refers primarily to the institutional and professional aspects of politics but gains more and more credit using all types of capital – symbolic capital included.
The first group of respondents, critical to the appearance of celebrities in political communication, were particularly sensitive towards recognizing celebrities’ symbolic capital in the field of politics. Their statements are based on the conviction that the two fields of politics and popular culture must be considered as sharply divided. In its most radical form, this perspective does not concede any justification for the presence of celebrities in the campaign other than as a question of money, as illustrated by the following quote: When I realized that professor Pirk [a famous cardiac surgeon] was the face of Mr Fischer’s campaign, I was surprised that he – as a person absolutely out of the field – agreed with that. […] Therefore it seemed to me a marketing trick. (RF12)
Slightly less fundamental advocates of this approach do not pay much attention to the motives of celebrities’ presence in campaigns. Their criticism is more focused on particular moments of the campaign in which celebrities’ behaviour in the field of politics denotes the use of symbolic capital, a feature not inherent to the field of politics. Celebrities are seen as those who try to accumulate media capital at any price, and their behaviour can be seen as accumulating media capital for the sake of accumulation itself (Davis, 2010: 90; Couldry, 2012). Respondents were thus suspicious of the motives of such celebrities, and they evaluated their behaviour as inappropriate for the media field. This behaviour was mostly manifest in the transfer of the political debate, including its insults, into the sphere of pop culture:
5
It annoys me that some of the celebrities were slandered by the others because of their support for a particular candidate. (RF13)
On the contrary, some of the respondents expressed their conciliation with the fact that celebrities are simply a part of the modern campaign, and therefore, the convergence of the fields of politics, popular culture and media is natural. This position was manifested in two main ways.
First, the respondents regarded it as the right of the celebrity to support any candidate under the assumption that celebrities would intervene in the political communication in any case, as it has become the current, ‘natural’ form of campaigning (Street, 2004). This was often related to the possible positive effect of celebrity activity due to an affinity with the celebrity. Such an attitude can be expressed as ‘she can say or do similar things as me because she also doesn’t understand politics; she is the same as me so I understand her’. In that sense, celebrities can prompt questions that are otherwise left out of the debate. Sometimes, they are even perceived as the ‘press officers’ of the politicians: From my point of view, the celebrities can have a positive role in political campaigns when they ask questions that are otherwise not replied to. (RM8) I think that for the public celebrities are, basically, a great help because […] ninety per cent of people do not understand politics […] so they help us to formulate opinions, they are important. (RF9)
Second, some of the respondents accepted the fact that celebrities are a part of the campaign simply by referring to other media experiences with personalized political campaigns, mainly in the United States, such as with American presidential elections. In the Czech context, such references are related to the media discourse of anti-communism mentioned above. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Czech media elaborated the anti-communist discourse mostly not only by positioning the Communist party in a particular way but also by applying a similar attitude towards other left-wing parties, such as the Social Democrats (Křeček and Vochocová, 2009). This discourse leads to the simplifying dichotomy Communist/old/bad versus Western/new/good. From the perspective of the respondents, such a dichotomy is supported by the evolution of political campaigning described as Americanization (Negrine, 2008), which is usually understood as a part of broader processes of professionalization in political communication (Lilleker, 2006): Of course we cannot compare it [the campaign] with US elections, but, on the contrary, it seemed to me that it was mostly under control and the output was of a better taste. (RF3) It seemed to me that this campaign was in fact copying the presidential elections in USA. […] It was not that common that they [celebrities] were present, when it was parliamentary elections. (RM6)
Ambivalence towards the legitimacy of celebrities in political communication is clearly present in quotations about the influence of celebrities. From these personal perspectives, respondents almost never admit being influenced by the opinions of celebrities, but they suppose celebrities can influence others and that they surely do. Very often, the hidden presumption about these other people is that they are even less oriented in politics and sometimes even that they are less intelligent: They [celebrities] may have influenced me, perhaps unconsciously, this can influence people. Therefore I say that it is quite manipulative of the public. (RF12) When a doctor expresses her opinion, people perceive it differently than if the opinion comes from a singer. But, perhaps, a different group lets itself be influenced by a singer. (RF7)
This sense of ‘manipulation’ leads to respondents’ not believing what they hear or see and their trust in celebrities (a very important factor in the audience–celebrity relationship in general) is strongly connected to their trust in politics as a result. The notions of trust, persuasion and credibility seem to be crucial to the relationship, and any eventual disruption may cast doubts over the authenticity and integrity of political communication professionals and of the political performance at large.
Credibility of celebrities
Moving from general attitudes towards celebrity endorsements of presidential candidates to a more detailed level, we can recognize differences between the types of judgements made about particular celebrities. Not all celebrities are assessed in the same way which, as the respondents’ comments indicate, depends mainly on the character of their previous emotional relationship with the celebrity and, at the same time, with the candidate who is supported by this celebrity. An important general characteristic of the audience–celebrity relationship is that it allows the recipient of the message to accept more openly and non-critically what she is being told (Taylor and Harris, 2008). As Graeme Turner argues, one of the cultural functions of celebrities (and television personas in general) is their ability to develop para-social relationships with audiences through the media. This para-social relationship can be seen as a substitute for a real relationship, but Turner (2004) points out that it can also assume a more fundamental social, cultural or even religious function (p. 94).
Judgements of celebrities’ involvement in the campaign, especially during the second round of the elections, were strongly related to the quality of para-social relationships of our respondents with both the celebrities and the candidates, based mostly on emotional affection towards them. Thus, celebrities and the character of the campaign influence each other. Consequently, we can recognize two basic situations which determine the ways celebrities were perceived in the campaign, with strong emphasis on their credibility and the level of possible trust in their political recommendations.
First, the cases when a favoured celebrity supported a favoured candidate, or an unfavoured celebrity supported an unfavoured candidate, led the respondents to a feeling of consonance. Especially when the support of the candidate fitted in with the long-term political profiling of the celebrity (e.g. the anti-Communist profiling of the actor Tomáš Hanák), a high degree of conviction was attributed to the celebrity, and their involvement in the campaign was usually described as sincerely motivated: I believe that they [the celebrities] had their sympathies and that not all were paid and a lot of things were sincere, though somebody wrote it for them. […] It was simply part of the campaign, of the marketing, but not all were absolutely corruptible to that extent that they would have supported a candidate from the opposite camp simply because they paid them more money. (RM1) It seems to me that some celebrities have a clearly defined political opinion, that they are engaged [in politics], that they are more on the left or on the right – and I don’t mind in these cases. (RM5)
On the contrary, dissonance occurred when a favoured celebrity supported an unfavoured candidate (we found no evidence of a case in which an unfavoured celebrity supported a favoured candidate). These situations mostly resulted in surprise – but sometimes also in disenchantment or even in contempt. According to the respondents, a disruption in the image they had had about these ‘traitor’ celebrities was accompanied by strong feelings of anger and other negative emotions at the time and, therefore, also by a low level of perceived credibility: Some [celebrities] disappointed me, or not disappointed but surprised me, negatively, in that sense that I didn’t expect that they would join the side of the opposite candidate. (RF2) I remember Filip Renč [Czech film and advertising director], he had some interesting expression but I am not able to repeat it. I was just surprised which side he had chosen. (RF3)
Regardless of previous (un)favourability, there was a group of celebrities who were negatively perceived by almost all participants in our research, regardless of their political sympathies. This group, which we might label ‘coat-changers’, included celebrities who had been involved in some of the previous parliamentary elections but in this case changed the side that they supported. The behaviour of these celebrities was described as disgusting and annoying; they were labelled money-grubbers, spineless and corruptible people and, therefore, one of the negative results of political marketing: I think that some actors, as I figuratively say, would adapt even if the Chinese took over the government, so that they will support the Chinese. […] There were so many elections, I don’t think presidential but various others, and the artists have already changed so many sides […] that it is not about whom they vote but about something else. (RF7) It annoys me when it is a celebrity which is once for the left and next time supports the right. (RM5)
Some respondents also expressed scepticism towards the idea that it was even worth engaging in the campaign for the celebrities. This resonates with Turner’s (2004) claim that celebrities can be seen by the audience as commodities in the gears of political communication (p. 34).
Urban versus rural localities
The last quote aptly summarizes the previous category, stressing differences in the authenticity of celebrities’ pre-election behaviour, which can be related closely to the level of citizens’ trust in politics. In this sense, celebrities-who-change-sides are one of the factors in the distrust of political campaigning and politics as a whole. Thus, they contribute to feelings of distance between everyday life and the world of politics, which brings us to another group of categories between which there were some important differences: between urban and rural localities. First, we elaborate the influence of celebrities in strengthening the feeling of disconnection of politics from everyday reality which we recognized much more in rural areas. Second, the people in rural areas also tended to relate the presence of celebrities in the campaign with the notion of politics as a performance.
Distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’
Focusing on one of the major differences between respondents in the two cities (Prague and Brno) and the others, we see a relation between the sense of trust in and credibility of celebrities and other campaign agents and trust in politics generally. This sense is strongly diverse and regionally dependent. The key notion has its source in frustrations which have arisen from a perception that politics has become disconnected from the ‘real problems’ that need to be solved. This frustration is evident mainly in the groups of respondents from the villages and leads to a separation of ‘us’ from ‘them’.
Generally, celebrities are considered one of ‘them’, emphasizing issues not considered important in the everyday lives of the respondents or expressing disdain towards the voters of other candidates. Sometimes they could not be taken as one of ‘us’, simply because they supported the ‘wrong’ candidate and the respondents felt surprised or did not agree. This ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy leads to cynicism and rejection of current modes of campaigning and, sometimes, even to feelings of resignation. The distancing effects and frustrations which arise from this misunderstanding are also accompanied by passivity in the reception of media content: I think the media massage was present there, several times I read the articles just to reflect: ‘All right, they want us to go this way, those are neglected’. It was possible to feel it in any sentence in all the media. (RF9) It seems to me that they [celebrities] did it again for money, not for free. For the nation, or for the people, nobody will do anything for free. […] I don’t care about politics because they do almost nothing for the people. Nor have I cared about the famous people involved in it. (RF15)
On the other hand, in Prague and Brno, respondents were less likely to express feelings of distance from the campaign, feeling instead as though part of the campaigning process. If there was an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ dichotomy, it was not with regard to the agents of political communication but with regard to other voters (deemed less intelligent and more suggestible to the use of celebrities and other tools of campaigning). In these cities, contrary to other regions, activity more than passivity characterized discussion, as we see in the following quote from Prague: I was surprised that people participated, if I compare it to parliamentary or senatorial elections, they were sending text messages saying ‘vote for that one’, I got a few text messages like that, from people I know […] That is also maybe the difference from parliamentary elections. (RM4)
Political communication as (theatre) performance
When focusing on the dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’, we found another important category within which there was a significant difference between urban and rural localities. Another major difference between the expressed attitudes of respondents living in the cities and in other regions lays in a dissimilar evaluation of the credibility of celebrities and political communication agents generally. In rural localities, feelings of antipathy towards politics are strengthened by a suspicion of celebrities, and therefore, the distancing effect seems bigger. On the other hand, in Prague and Brno, a disapproval of celebrities’ public statements led to confirmations of the respondents’ opinions.
The image of political campaigning in other regions is, however, very interesting. All the aforementioned aspects very often led to a vision of politics as a performance which has its actors, directors, scriptwriters, make-up artists and wardrobe masters: I don’t believe these celebrity actors and their characters. They may be nice for their personal approach and so on, but I still have a feeling that it is just something played. (RM6) I was surprised that it was almost similar as in SuperStar [the Czech version of the programme Pop Idol]. […] That it was a show. And this dissuaded me a little. (RF1)
A stress on form at the expense of content is evident here, although it is not necessarily clear what is cause and what is effect. It might well be both: audiences may regard form to be stressed over content because campaigners seem to focus so heavily on it, but vice versa, the audience might well respond favourably enough to the form of campaigning that it leads to this particular shape of campaigning. Anyway, the ‘game’, that is seen to be played by ‘them’ (Bourdieu, 2005), and is up to ‘us’ to watch passively, leads to a lesser sensibility of the differences between celebrities, their appearance and the political issues they ultimately evoke. In short, trust in politics (celebrities in political communication included) is very low, the form of the campaigning is deemed unsatisfactory, and there a perception that there is no chance for change.
Emotions which evaporate
The passage of several months between the presidential elections and our research brings another dimension to our findings. When describing their attitudes towards celebrity engagement in political campaigning, respondents spontaneously reflected upon the influence of time passing. While celebrities’ political activities during the election period were, for them, associated with strong emotions, at the time of the research they, often to their own surprise, admitted that this emotional storm, which escalated before the second round of the elections, had not affected their long-term opinions towards the celebrities, nor towards the candidates. They proved a remarkable ability to reassess the whole campaign from a different perspective, emphasizing the importance of calming stormy waters and the ability to overcome what happened around the elections.
There is an interesting tendency to look at celebrities’ political engagement with indulgence, but election campaigns are unusual periods of time in which the performance of individual participants must be appraised with caution. To some, there is even more of an obvious underlying tendency to separate the irrational pre-election period from the calmer rhythm of ordinary, everyday life. However, although they are no longer denounced, the pre-election behaviour of some celebrities is not easily forgotten. This happens particularly with regard to ‘coat-changers’ and those celebrities who had chosen a different side than the respondents expected. Despite respondents’ claims that they do not care about the celebrities performances in past elections anymore, both these groups have evidently left a bad taste in their mouths: I then realized – horse sense, I told myself. It has escalated now but when the water calms down, all will get back to normal. (RM6) Many actors made me angry but I will go to see them in the theatre, I will forget. If anybody asks me after a year if I know, who voted whom, I won’t know. (RF2)
Conclusion
As we have shown, no single approach towards the involvement of celebrities in political campaigning by respondents appears in our research. In general, celebrities were perceived as one of many campaign tools, no more important than any other. Although they are almost never related to any particular political topics, the main role of celebrities seems to be in their ability to stress and communicate messages, especially about candidates’ personal qualities. From the respondents’ perspective, the articulation of their relationship with celebrities is dependent on the relationship with the corresponding candidate. Emotions or affections in relation to the celebrity thus support the preference in one way or another: it confirms a prior decision or it leads to a rejection of the celebrity’s position in deference to the original preference of the voter. Decisions have already been made in most cases, and the relationship with the candidate is always superior to the relationship with the celebrity. This only supports the argument that celebrities represent an aspect of certain candidates, strengthening the superiority of the form in relation to content.
The role of celebrities in campaigning is viewed ambivalently by respondents. Some of them express strong criticisms towards the mixture of different intentions of political agents (politicians and celebrities), and they seem to react sensitively to the convergence of the fields of popular culture, media and politics (Bourdieu, 1999, 2005; Davis, 2010, 2013). This displeasure may be partly caused by processes of dealignment and alienation from politics generally, but it is, as the research shows, definitely related to the concept of trust in – and the credibility of – various agents of political communication, celebrities included (Luhmann, 1979; Möllering, 2005). Celebrities are considered one of the factors that may or may not make politics accessible to audiences. Certain standards of behaviour are, therefore, expected of celebrities, resulting in the denouncement of those celebrities who change the side they support (‘coat-changers’). This denouncement may be related to the historical conditions of the 1970s and 1980s when the popularity of then ‘celebrities’ was misused by the ruling Communist party for political purposes, specifically in order to create consent for the distribution of power (Bednařík and Reifová, 2008). In that period, many celebrities changed their political attitudes (or were forced to change them by the ruling authority), sometimes completely disrupting their previous image. At least for those who remember this period, this may lend a certain suspicion towards celebrities and their political engagement. But again, the image of celebrity is subordinated to attitudes towards politics in general, so any resultant negative emotions towards celebrities do not last forever. The period of campaigning is generally considered to be exceptionally stormy in comparison to everyday life before and after.
Celebrities’ credibility is a key general category in which the main differences between urban and rural localities can be found within the research. There is a much stronger distinction made between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in other regions compared with the cities. ‘They’ are regarded as a group of people who do not relate to the problems of real life and who do not understand ‘us’ (Bourdieu, 2005). On the other hand, the distinction is not as clear in Prague and Brno, the two largest Czech cities. On the contrary, the presidential campaign attracted the attention of a lot of ‘common people’ and provoked their engagement. A similar difference appears in the view that the campaign is nothing more than just a theatre performance, with a screenplay that has been written and with actors who know what to say to manipulate ‘us’ (often for money).
For the respondents, then, the tradition of celebrities intervening in the political field within the post-communist context seems specifically related to tendencies of personalization, professionalization and Americanization in campaigning. And yet these processes, adapted mainly from Western political environments, are stigmatized due to the particularities of post-communist developments, and therefore, the convergence of the various fields and its perception by audiences should be noted carefully in the future.
Footnotes
Funding
This article was created as a part of Specifický výzkum IKSŽ UK FSV 260 110. The research was supported by Interní grant IKSŽ UK FSV.