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Beschreibung

Since the late 1960s a ubiquitous feature of popular culture in Japan has been the "idol," an attractive young actor, male or female, packaged and promoted as an adolescent role model and exploited by the entertainment, fashion, cosmetic, and publishing industries to market trendy products. This book offers ethnographic case studies regarding the symbolic qualities of idols and how these qualities relate to the conceptualization of selfhood among adolescents in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia. The author explores how the idol-manufacturing industry absorbs young people into its system of production, molds them into marketable personalities, commercializes their images, and contributes to the construction of ideal images of the adolescent self.

Since the relationship between the idols and their consumers is dynamic, the study focuses on the fans of idols as well. Ultimately, Aoyagi argues, idol performances substantiate capitalist values in the urban consumer society of contemporary Japan and East Asia. Regardless of how crude their performances may appear in the eyes of critics, the idols have helped establish the entertainment industry as an agent of public socialization by driving public desires toward the consumption of commoditized fantasies.

Since the late 1960s a ubiquitous feature of popular culture in Japan has been the "idol," an attractive young actor, male or female, packaged and promoted as an adolescent role model and exploited by the entertainment, fashion, cosmetic, and publishing industries to market trendy products. This book offers ethnographic case studies regarding the symbolic qualities of idols and how these qualities relate to the conceptualization of selfhood among adolescents in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia. The author explores how the idol-manufacturing industry absorbs young people into its system of production, molds them into marketable personalities, commercializes their images, and contributes to the construction of ideal images of the adolescent self.

Since the relationship between the idols and their consumers is dynamic, the study focuses on the fans of idols as well. Ultimately, Aoyagi argues, idol performances substantiate capitalist values in the urban consumer society of contemporary Japan and East Asia. Regardless of how crude their performances may appear in the eyes of critics, the idols have helped establish the entertainment industry as an agent of public socialization by driving public desires toward the consumption of commoditized fantasies.

Über den Autor
Hiroshi Aoyagi is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Asia-Japan Research Center, Kokushikan University, Tokyo.
Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2005
Fachbereich: Allgemeines
Genre: Importe
Rubrik: Sozialwissenschaften
Medium: Buch
Reihe: Harvard East Asian Monographs
Inhalt: Einband - fest (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780674017733
ISBN-10: 0674017730
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Gebunden
Autor: Aoyagi, Hiroshi
Hersteller: Harvard University, Asia Center
Harvard East Asian Monographs
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, D-36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr@libri.de
Maße: 235 x 162 x 27 mm
Von/Mit: Hiroshi Aoyagi
Erscheinungsdatum: 15.07.2005
Gewicht: 0,572 kg
Artikel-ID: 133552523

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