Government Affairs Blog

Gossip in the global village

Last weekend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown claimed that celebrity culture was fading.  At the same time the papers were covering a story about a certain Kate Middleton and a member of the Royal Family.  A lot of the political pages of the papers have been full of speculation this week about whether David Miliband will challenge Brown for the leadership of the Labour party.  That story is gossip for the politically obsessed (I have been following it religiously).

The truth is people like to hear about the famous.  There are a variety of explanations for this.  Here is mine.  It isn’t based on anything like a sociological or psychological theory.  It is simply a hunch.

It isn’t that people like to read and talk about the famous as much as they like to gossip.  We are social animals and that means we rely on information about what others are doing.  Their stories are useful to us because they reflect our own story and help us interpret the world. 

The famous are an obvious choice to gossip about for several reasons. 

They are visible.  Easy to photograph and talk about.  In fact, the famous usually court publicity. 

They are distanced from us.  We can sympathise with them, scold them, feel let down by them and rejoice in their fall without any real effect on us.  If a relative is going through a messy divorce and leaves an awful message on his child’s answer phone we are involved in this.  If Alec Baldwin does it, we can stand back and laugh, say how sad or in the case of a parent think that could have been me. 

The famous can be powerful.  We feel we have a right to know what they are up to if they can make decisions that can impact on our lives.

They are rich and glamorous.  We can fantasise that we are them especially if they are an ordinary Joe or Joanne who has become famous because they appeared on a reality TV show. 

The key thing though is that it isn’t really about them being famous.  It is about the lives they lead and the need for gossip and stories.  And if evidence for this is required all one has to do is say two words: You Tube – www.youtube.com 

On You Tube the non-famous reveal their lives to us and many people log on and watch transfixed.  We want information about people and it doesn’t matter who those people are. 

So in one sense the almost certain to be next Prime Minister is right.  Celebrity culture is fading because now we can discover lots about ordinary people. 

A common myth is that because we are obsessed with celebrity and fame our culture is dumber than previous generations.  Yet we have always been fascinated by fame.  No doubt we always will be.  That doesn’t mean we can’t also be concerned with politics.  The choice for the politicians and those around them is whether they encourage our celebrity culture or talk about the big issues.  From everything we know about Brown he will choose the latter.

And just in case the reader isn’t convinced about the need for gossip let’s take this story.  A young and an exceptional beautiful woman leaves her husband for a handsome soldier who happens to have royal connections.  The battle becomes not just one between these families but within the families where people have to make very personal sacrifices, quite literally, and the blood vengeance continues even when the adultery is resolved.  Is this the latest example of the tabloids digging the dirt?  No, it is the plot to Homer’s Iliad

Simon Goldie is Head of Communication at The Chartered Institute of Taxation – www.tax.org.uk - and a member of the CIPR GAG committee