For Celebrity Communication about Development to do Good

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an uptick in the practice of celebrities engaging in global development efforts at the political level. This chapter discusses the mass media appearances of two celebrities – Angelina Jolie and George Clooney – and what said appearances might suggest to media audiences about the state of distant sufferers and of global development in general. A critical discourse analysis of Jolie’s and Clooney’s television interviews between 2001 and 2017 reveals that their speech reinforces particular stereotypes that place the US, and by extension the Global North, as the unquestionable “heroes” of development work, and development beneficiaries as the less capable and less comprehensible civilisations forever in need of rescuing. The analysis serves as the basis for developing a framework for more ethical celebrity communication about development. The key principle of this proposed framework emphasizes treating both media audiences and distant sufferers as citizens capable of political thought and action, rather than simply regarding media audiences as emotional fans, or distant sufferers as eternally dependent upon the Global North.