A Case Study of Media Influence on Public Attitudes Towards Celebrities

How the Sex Scandal of Kris Wu Influences His Public Recognition and Celebrity Endorsement

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.220110.013How to use a DOI?

Keywords

mass media; public attitudes; the drench hypothesis; celebrity endorsement; fan economy

Abstract

In the new media era, media reports can highly influence public attitudes, and events involving celebrities usually draw great attention from the public. Besides, celebrities usually enjoy a high level of public recognition and endorse products, which is known as celebrity endorsement. Also, fandom economy, the operational income generating behavior relationship between fans and their idols, has grown stronger in recent decades[1]. A recent social event calls public attention in China. Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu was detained by Beijing police for alleged rape and there is extensive media coverage of this event[2]. The author intends to test the drench hypothesis on the extent to which public attitudes toward Kris Wu and the whole idol community are affected by conducting an online survey of it. The change of idol community’s influence as celebrity endorsers is also investigated in the author’s survey. According to the data and results of this survey, it can be concluded that public attitudes toward Kris Wu and idol community and idol community’s influence as celebrity endorsers are both declined after the public was exposed to this scandal. What’s more, future research can be done on similar cases where celebrities are involved in well-known scandals, focusing more on the change difference between public attitudes toward a specific celebrity and public attitudes toward the community to which the celebrity belongs to.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Che Yang
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/01/28
TI  - A Case Study of Media Influence on Public Attitudes Towards Celebrities
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Public Art and Human Development ( ICPAHD 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 62
EP  - 66
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220110.013
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220110.013
ID  - Yang2022
ER  -