Circulation of Celebrity Culture on Social Media Studying the Political Reactions of Iranian Celebrities and Their Fans to Covid-19 on Instagram

mahmoud farhadimahalli, IRIB REsearch center
zohreh javadieh, phd candidate
mohammad mojaversheikhan, Phd

Due to some socio-economic changes in recent decades, celebrity culture has emerged in Iran society. There are many facts that show the importance of celebrities and their impact on society. Amir tatalloo an Iranian celebrity break the record of comments on Instagram with more than 18 million comments. Popular media products such as yellow magazines and TV shows transform sports athletes, music, and cinema artists into popular celebrities. Rising online social media is a new opportunity for celebrity culture because in one hand new informal space have been created that government could not control over it, and on the other hand ordinary users have obtained the power to participate in content creating and sharing. In this context, Instagram has a key role in Iranian Celebrity Culture. Instagram is an online mobile photo and video-sharing and social networking service that enables Iranian celebrities to share their photos with their fans. Moreover, Instagram is one of few non-Iranian social networking services that have not been filtered by the Iranian government, so both celebrities and ordinary users can freely access this application. With the covid-19 crisis, both celebrities and their fans reacted to the phenomenon. In this article, we studied Iranian celebrities and the activities of their fans on Instagram during the covid19 crisis. Using qualitative methodology approach, by analyzing celebrity photos and texts on Instagram and fan comments on their posts during this crisis. Results showed that both celebrities and fans use their space for different purposes. The results of these online activities are the circulation of celebrity culture on Iranian Instagram witch is not the same as real actions of citizens in the society. So, Iranian fans are not satisfied with the actions of domestic celebrities by comparing the actions of foreign celebrities with those of Iranian celebrities.

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 Presented in Session 259. Drawing Boundaries