which is uneven in its broader social expressions. Whilst, as a general
rule, the production of visibility is the foundation of audience communi-
ties, the genre and content of a media product can produce differing
affects, divisions and identifications that stratify audience communities.
As argued, broadcast may be a form of reciprocity without interac-
tion, where the many speak to the many, but they do so by way of agents
of communication, media presenters, hosts, celebrities and ‘personalities’
who become intermediaries enabling such reciprocity to occur. This is
expressed in a very weak level of reciprocity versus a strong degree of
identification with those celebrities. These persons become ‘media
friends’ (Meyrowitz, 1994). Such a world of virtual friendship is usually
totally separate from the kind of friendships we might have in face-to-face
or CMC forms. Only rarely do these worlds meet, as when we actually
meet a celebrity, and there is a very dramatic collapsing of these worlds
into each other. But the places that become famous in broadcast media can
also become physically sacred, to the point where fans and audiences go
on pilgrimage to them (see Couldry, 2003: Ch. 5). Alternatively, there are
cases of those who already live in a location made famous by a television
series wanting to redefine the name of their place to match the fictional
name featured in the programme.^29
In a demonstration of the power that such agents have in social inte-
gration, Nick Couldry (2003) provides a list that is well suited to under-
standing this symbolic inequality:- people calling out as their presence ‘on air’ is acknowledged (the
studio chat show host turns to them and asks them to clap, ‘show what
they feel’) - people either holding back, or rushing for ward, at the sight of a celebrity
- people holding back before they enter a place connected with the
media, so as to emphasise the boundar y they cross by entering it - per formances of media people that acknowledge their own specialness
before a crowd of non-media people - per formances by non-media people in certain types of formalised media
context, such as a talk show. (52)
These kinds of events indicate the extreme symbolic differentials between
celebrities and so-called ‘ordinary’ individuals. Here the relationship
between a ‘larger-than-life’ Big Subject and the infinity of small subjects is
easily expressed in the idea that a person could become a ‘household name’.
But equally, it might be expressed in the practice of ‘name-dropping’, of an
‘ordinary’ person claiming to know a celebrity in some way. By finding a
way to share in the persona of persons in whom mass recognition is con-
centrated, an ordinary person can claim some of this recognition by way of
the celebrity as agent.
For the celebrity, on the other hand, name-dropping is impossible. To
name-drop would be to place oneself lower on the hierarchy of recognition.Telecommunity 211Holmes-06.qxd 2/15/2005 1:03 PM Page 211