Through the results of the research we intend to offer a new contribution to celebrity studies, following a multidisciplinary approach and starting from a reference context that includes both the media landscape (between representations, affordances and literacy), and aspects relating to audiences (relationship with celebrity, perception of celebrity, parasocial relationships). Furthermore, the research intends to show that elderly celebrities can be configured as new reference models, at least for part of the audience, by inserting themselves in a wider context of promoting well-being. Elderly celebrities appear more and more frequently in the most varied media narratives (e.g. in the press, cinema, TV, advertising, pop music, comics, etc.) and they also actively participate in their self-narration on social media. The project aims to contribute to the state of the art of sociological and medialogical research on celebrities at an international level, proposing timely surveys on elderly celebrities in media contexts and in the sports arena. In this way, the project intends to fill a research gap on the subject at national and international level, also through specific comparisons with scholars from foreign universities, experts and other professional figures.
The results we aim to achieve will be communicated and disseminated through various initiatives:
Workshops (in presence and online): the three workshops, which will be held one in presence (University of Salerno) and two online (University of Bologna and University of Salerno), will be addressed not only to the academic community and students, but to the more large local territorial communities (starting from the sites of the two research units).
Inter-university seminars (face-to-face and online), with the involvement of scholars, students and stakeholders (such as professionals from the cinematographic, television, journalism, entrepreneurial, sports, associative sectors): these seminars will be created for 1) the discussion of key points of the research project, in order to obtain feedback and suggestions from the comparison with qualified subjects; 2) the presentation of some progress steps of the project, corresponding with the milestones; 3) the dissemination of the partial results of the ongoing research.
Publication of results in scientific journals and volume: the results of the research will be disseminated through the publication of essays in sector scientific journals and a collective volume.
Informal dissemination events open to the public, carried out in non-academic contexts.
Final conference: the final conference, organized at the University of Bologna, will see the presentation of the completed research and will be organized on several panels, with the involvement of the academic and scientific community.