Miley 2.0 (extended)

The concepts of globalisation and the media are heavily influenced by celebrity culture. Social media is creating a specular economy that emphasises the idea of persona and perception, forcing people to create a fake persona; often to make people like them, but sometimes just to grab people’s attention. The media is essentially a giant fishbowl. The lives of celebrities are inevitably magnified, and the pressure can lead people to crack. An example of someone the media has recently had a huge effect on is Miley Cyrus.

According to Robertson, “Globalisation as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of the world as a whole (cited in Rantanen 2005, p. 7). Media certainly serves as an intensifier—whether it is of fame, popularity or, in Miley’s case, infamy. Are Robertson’s terms ‘compression’ and ‘intensification’ necessarily good things? Do we really want a world where everyone is compressed into a tiny box of what is considered cool or normal? To do this is to sacrifice diversity, creativity and national identity. National identity is intrinsically linked to the concept of hegemony, which Nederveen (2004, p. 20) discusses as an “attempt to capture all the world’s variations under a single heading . . . featuring U.S. capitalism as the end of history.” Hegemony is when one set of ideals becomes integrated as normal, the homogenising of different cultures in a process called Americanisation. Certain ideology is accepted without anyone realising they can question it; it is ingrained in thought processes as children, and reinforced consistently all the way into adult life. The western world certainly has their eyes trained on the United States, being as up to date on Hollywood’s celebrities as we are with our own friends—sometimes more so—therefore, their ideology has to have some effect on us in Australia. To what extent it is hard to quantify, but it is obviously present.

To look at another perspective, Albrow would say that globalisation “refers to all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society, global society” (cited in Rantanen 2005 p. 7). The term global village, similar to this term Albrow uses, ‘global society’, is quoted so often, without people really thinking about its meaning. Is the idea of a global village really a good thing? It essentially requires the breakdown and dilution of cultures and the result is denationalisation.

David Marshall (2010, p. 499) describes the specular economy as the “new reconstruction of how the self is reconstituted through the screens of engagement and interactivity that serve to organize and shape our lives.” While words like ‘organise’ and ‘shape’ automatically have positive connotations in our minds, are we really considering what it is that is organising and shaping us? According to Marshall, it is not ourselves, our parents, or even our education, but a driving force called the specular economy that does not necessarily have our best interests at heart. Should we really trust it as blindly as we do?

The specular economy is ruthless enough when tearing apart adults, let alone people who have been in the limelight since they were children, like Miley Cyrus. The pressure can get to be too much to handle, such as the pressure on Miley to be the role model type figure that her alter ego, Hannah Montana, embodies. The fact that I’m even writing this blog post about her, talking about her personal life as a simple matter of course, when I would never dream of doing that to someone who wasn’t famous, is proof of the specular economy’s considerable influence. Marshall (2013, p. 2) supports this, saying that “celebrity news has become normalized.” We don’t even think twice now about posting things on Facebook or Twitter about the romantic relationships of people half way across the world from us.

We have moved from representational media, where things were shown more or less as they were, to presentational media, where individuals (celebrities and everyday people alike) now construct the image that they want to present to the world. This is all largely done through social media—profile pictures, ‘information’ about ourselves, who is on our friends list . . . Marshall (2010, p. 499) says, “Instead of television or magazines organising a sophisticated panoply of idealized representations of ourselves through famed and celebrated people, we now have an incredibly complex presentation of the self through the screens of social media via the Internet and mobile communication.” This identifies both representational media (first) and presentational media (second). In effect, we produce our image and sell it to the world.

Today we are basically forced to participate in the specular economy. Without being members of the major social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, you can easily find yourself cut off from the rest of the world or, in a word, excluded. For example, there are several Apps, such as Instagram and My Fitness Pal, that you can’t use unless you have a Facebook account. On sites like these, you create a profile, which could also be referred to as a persona. Marshall (2013, p. 11) says, “The individual—through interpersonal forms of communication . . . and through the exchange of images and mediated forms—is constituting a persona, where there is a continuous interplay between the self and a micropublic.” This means that you tell the world what you what them to know, show them what you want them to see.

Profiles are made to be an expression of someone’s individual personality, but has resulted in hyperindividuality. Harvey says, “Expressing individuality became not only a dominant . . . trope of advertising . . . it became elemental to the serialised and customised forms of production (cited in Marshall 2013, p. 5) 

What is even more disturbing is that “the public self is expanding and proliferating as an increasingly normal activity for a larger and larger percentage of the population” (Marshall 2013, p. 2). It is not just celebrities now who are broadcasting themselves, it is the majority of the population, including myself.

The specular economy is crossing more and more boundaries and Marshall (2013, p. 4) describes it as “an expansion and normalisation of the legitimate territory of the public sphere to include the private and the intimate of our most visible public figures.” Our society has a hunger for information and intimate details that it shouldn’t really ever be privy to. Why do we feel that we must know the exact details of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ break-up, or all of the several stupid mistakes that Shane Warne made at a party years ago? Is it really our business? Because of this normalisation process, we seem to think it is. Celebrities are essentially a commodity, and can, in a sense, be sold to the highest bidder. A very effective ingredient in the making of a blockbuster film is employing a big name celebrity to star in it, in order to ensure high box office ratings and massive profits. An example of this is Joe Wright’s 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Deborah Cartmell (2010, p. 12) states how this “major film uses celebrity status in the form of Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, and, to a lesser extent, Judi Dench as Lady Catherine, to draw in the crowds.”

Miley Cyrus has recently done a series of shocking publicity stunts in an effort to prove to people that she’s no longer the Hannah Montana role model—apparently still holding to the adage “any publicity is good publicity”. First there was the music video to her single ‘We Can’t Stop’ (shown above), and then the teddy bears from the video reappeared at the VMAs where Miley delivered her now incredibly famous performance with Robin Thicke and the notorious foam finger.

Is all this just an effort to say to the world, “I’m not a little girl anymore”? Where is the line? Interestingly, now with the media door swinging both ways, considerable backlash has surfaced on social media fronts.

David Marshall (2010, p. 499) says, “The use of social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, and MiniHompy, along with parallel media-specific sharing websites such as YouTube and Flickr, means that we are inhabiting spaces where we are not only on display but we think about our mediated construction of ourselves sometimes continuously.” Has this self-obsession with our public image or ‘persona’ been the cause of stunts like Miley’s? We tend to blame the individual person, like Miley, but is it the whole of society that’s actually to blame?

Some suggest that globalisation is “driven by technological change” (Nederveen, P 2004, p. 10) but Nederveen (2004, p. 10) says, “What matters is not technology per se but the way it is harnessed by economic, political, and social forces.” When looking to point the finger we tend to blame ‘technology’, an abstract concept that everyone is comfortable dissing because in their mind it does not have any real connection to real life or a certain person. What is meant by ‘social forces’ is actually a mass group of people thinking, dressing, speaking and behaving in a particular way. Technology is developed by people—humans. We cannot blame our computers or phones for plotting against us, or our video games for teen violence. We need to lay the blame where it really lies; not with ‘technology’ as an ‘airy fairy’ idea that means very little to the majority of people, but with us.

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