Celebrity. Media and Transformation in the Asia Pacific

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Introduction
The celebrity culture has been spreading for the past few decades, and there is no sign that it will stop any time soon. Instead, celebrity elements have become popular in the news media of the 21st century where celebrities feature in mass-market magazines, nightly television programs, and online newspaper editions, among others (Turner 2010, p. 13). Celebrity news has played a significant role in attracting attention of individuals, driving consumption and influencing how people live in society. Unlike in the past where celebrities became popular by featuring into movies and songs which were aired on various television and radio programs, new channels of producing, representing, and consuming celebrity commodities have emerged. Today, individuals are capitalizing on the presence of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, among others, to popularize their works (Turner 2010, p. 13). Nevertheless, traditional media such as television, radio, and magazine have not been fully abandoned. Through these media, an individual can disseminate their works all over the world and become popular overnight, which was not possible in the past where it took several months and even years for a person in a particular art genus to become famous. Celebrity culture has played a key role in shaping social, economic and political status of a particular country or region (Schaefer et al. 2010, p.2). Typically, celebrities’ actions influence a huge number of people compared to ordinary people. For instance, celebrities have huge numbers of followers on the social media platforms and are therefore bound to act as role models to several people following them.
In the academy sector, the concept of celebrity culture is one of the fast-growing industries has been widely debated, particularly in the social and humanity sciences over the past few decades. Social sciences including psychology have intensified talks about the lurking dangers of the rise of celebrity worship syndrome. This syndrome can corrupt the whole society and align it according to the beliefs and principles of a given celebrity or a star. Equally, celebrity aspect can be used to benefit society by promoting various norms and customs which would be difficult to spread using other means (Xu, Reijnders and Kim 2019, p.3). One of the celebrities that has used his position to influence society positively is Jay Chou who has used genre of music to promote Chinese culture all over China and the entire Eastern part of Asia.
Moreover, celebrity can itself be used as a commodity, and just like any other commercial item, it can be manufactured, marketed, and traded through publicity, promotions, and media industries (Schaefer et al. 2010, p.2). Therefore, celebrity as a commodity can repay the investment, strategic planning, development, and product diversification. Logically, the person concerned with a specific celebrity product, they view it as a commercial property that is vital to their profession, which must be strategized and maintained if they are to continue benefiting from it. Regarding what this means for the role played by celebrity to shape the culture of the society, it outlines the need for celebrity research to identify ways of mapping and to understand the increasing structural significance of manufacturing and consumption of celebrity in shaping society (Schaefer et al. 2010, p.2). Just like many other industries influence the norms and customs in society, celebrity need to be studied as an industry with huge potential to impact how society functions. In the following section, the celebrity aspect of one of the renowned artists in the music genre, Jay Chou, will be comprehensively analyzed, revealing how the individual has impacted Chinese society in one way or the other.
Jay Chou
Jay Chou is a Taiwanese artist who mainly specializes in music genre, but has recently crossed over to film industry. In 2003, Jay Chou managed to grace a cover of one of famous magazine called Time Magazine (Drake 2003). He managed to become stardom in a period of less than three years from 2003 to 2006, which earned him the title of “The New King of Asian Pop”. He has been a celebrity for almost two decades now and is the most famous Chinese singer in China and the entire East Asia region as well as other Chinese communities across the world. Jay Chou has won various accolades for being the best Chinese singer, songwriter, actor, producer, and director. As indicated earlier, apart from being in the music genre, Chou has crossed over to film, which means that his overwhelming popularity does not only come from him being a musician but also an actor. He has featured in seven domestic and international films in his career. Undoubtedly, Jay Chou is one of the most popular Chinese celebrities in modern times. He is therefore in a great position to depict the norms and customs of Chinese society (Taipei Times 2010). Richard Dyer has used semiotics, historical and contextual analytic tools to describe film stars as signs, images and social phenomena (Dyer 2013, p. 329). Consequently, it is possible to treat Jay Chou’s stardom as a social function since, in the globalization era, the influence of new media has produced stars in other entertainment sectors such as music. Thus, Dyer’s approach can be used to analyze Jay Chou’s celebrity as a social function.
Unlike most of the modern stars in the music field, Jay Chou has not concentrated much on physical attributes, which is an indication that this aspect of celebrity does not attract much attention in the eastern region of Asia. While there are a significant number of heartthrobs such as Andy Lan, Chou did not choose this route. In 2003, Jay Chou featured on the cover of Times Magazine, and unlike most celebrities who would undertake massive reconstruction of their faces to appear more attractive, Chou decided to remain natural. Consequently, a number of the magazine authors complained about his featuring on such a prestigious magazine with all his naivety. Kate Drake, one of the authors of the Times Magazine questioned the inclusion of Chou on the cover of this magazine. She stated that “How did a kid with an overbite, aquiline nose, and receding chin displace the Nicholases and Andys and Jackys to become Asia's hottest pop star?” (Drake 2003). Dyer indicates that the image of a star is composed of screen roles as well as stage-planned public appearance and in some instances, the images of the company that has manufactured the star’s image (Dyer 2013, p.323). Each component is contradictory and complex, and therefore, star image is usually extensive, intertextual and multimedia. The Dyer’s approach of star image can be expanded into Chou’s case because his star image is composed of the images that are depicted by his songs and music performances as well as the dynamics between his real personality and public persona (Dyer 2013, p. 323).
Thus, what is more appealing about Chou’s star image? Dyer (2013) suggests that as far as Weber's theory is concerned, stars concentrate more on exhibiting charismatic authority. The theory indicates that charisma is “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least superficially exceptional qualities” (329). As Dyer and Weber indicate, it is apparent that the star image of Chou is closely associated with his charisma that establishes his important position in Chinese society (Weber and Eisenstadt, 1968 p.2). The charisma exhibited by Chou is embedded in his understanding of the term “cool”. The use of the term “cool” reveals how Chou’s charismatic image is based on how he epitomizes “coolness” (Dyer 2013, p.330).
The term “cool” is thought to have originated from African-Americans, and it is now widely used in modern culture. The term embodies important elements of emotional control, knowingness, detachment, and defiance from the norm (Moore 2004, p.79). According to Moore (2004), the young Chinese in Urban centers started using the term “cool” in a slang form of “ku” (Moore 2004, p. 82). Although the meaning of the term “cool” seems to change as various aspects of international youth culture emerge in East Asia, the term is mainly linked to the definition of the word individualism. Chou likes using the word “diao” which is a Taiwanese slang expression that is translated as “outrageous” or simply “cool” (Moore 2004, p.79). In the Chou context, the word “cool” or “diao” is used to mean uniquely doing things without following others. Chou says that being “diao” means doing things that will shock people. For instance...