Television Personalities

Dr. James Bennett is Head of Area for Media, Information and Communications at London Metropolitan University, UK. His work focuses upon digital, interactive television and TV fame in the United Kingdom. He has published articles in Screen, Cinema Journal, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Convergence and Celebrity Studies Journal. He is co-editor of Film and Television after DVDs (with Tom Brown, 2008) and Television as Digital Media (with Niki Strange, forthcoming, 2011).

• List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Permissions Introduction Chapter 1. The television personality system Part 1: ‘TV must train its own stars’: The invention of the television personality Chapter 2. An ‘irreconcilable opposition’: Music hall, radio and the emergence of televisual skill Chapter 3. ‘Too much glamour?’: Glamour, gender and ‘in-vision’ announcers Part 2: ‘‘Oooh, I’m an entertainer ... it’s what I do’: Political economy, performance and pleasure Chapter 4. ‘You don’t know anyone ... ’: The political economy of television fame Chapter 5. The art of ‘being yourself’: Pleasure, meaning and achievement in performance Part 3: The television personality system revisited: Ideology, multiplatform and DIY fame Chapter 6. Just ‘an ordinary bloke’: National identity and ideology Chapter 7. Get Internet famous! (Even if you’re nobody)’: Multiplatform fame and the television personality system in the digital era Conclusion Bibliography Index

"Television Personalities is going to be one of the defining texts in the fields of television, and celebrity studies. It is an outstanding piece of scholarship that is beautifully, accessibly written." - Sean Redmond, Celebrity Studies"In this useful, thoughtful book, Bennett investigates a crucial element that has gone missing from our current understanding of television: precisely how it participates in the production and consumption of celebrity. He explores the longstanding assumptions about how television stardom works, making the book essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary television." - Graeme Turner, University of Queensland, Australia