Do Celebrities Make Policy?

Do celebrities exercise power over policy making? It can seem that they do, at least in the way the media reports their political activities. We need to think only of the coverage of the footballer Marcus Rashford's seemingly successful campaign to get the Johnson administration to change its p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Political quarterly (London. 1930) 2024-10, Vol.95 (4), p.672-678
Main Author: Street, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bono
Celebrities
celebrity politics
Democracy
Free school meals
Meals
mediatisation
Policy making
Popular culture
post‐democracy
School meals
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Summary:Do celebrities exercise power over policy making? It can seem that they do, at least in the way the media reports their political activities. We need to think only of the coverage of the footballer Marcus Rashford's seemingly successful campaign to get the Johnson administration to change its policy on free school meals. But are such accounts to be trusted? This is a question whose answer has implications for how we understand and judge contemporary democracy. Celebrities, after all, are unelected and unaccountable. This article asks, therefore, whether it is plausible to claim that stars of popular culture are to be counted amongst the politically powerful.
ISSN:0032-3179
1467-923X
DOI:10.1111/1467-923X.13446