Journal Articles

Celebrity capital in the political field: Russell Brand’s migration from stand-up comedy to Newsnight

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Our case study of charismatic celebrity comedian Russell Brand’s turn to political activism uses Bourdieu’s field theory to understand the process of celebrity migration across social fields. We investigate how Brand’s capital as a celebrity performer, storyteller and self-publicist translated from comedy to politics. To judge how this worked in practice, we analysed the comedic strategies used in his stand-up show Messiah Complex and undertook a conversational analysis of his notorious interview with Jeremy Paxman on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. We argue that Brand was able to secure political legitimacy by creatively constituting himself as an authentic anti-austerity spokesperson for the disenfranchised left in United Kingdom. In order to do so, he repurposed his celebrity capital to political ends and successfully deployed the cultural and social capitals he had developed as a celebrity comedian to secure widespread engagement with his media performances.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Media, Culture & Society

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications., 2016

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0163-4437

Classification

NONE

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 38, Issue 8, November 2016; pp. 1136–1152

Subject(s)

Political activism
Cultural Capital
celebrity capital
conversational analysis

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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