FAIRCLOUGH, Kirsty

Watching the Throne: Beyonce and Jay-Z: Managing celebrity authenticity in the blogosphere.

 

This paper will consider the phenomenon of the ‘power couple’ by examining the case of Beyonce and Jay-Z .It will explore how they have created and managed an image where authenticity is both the overriding trope and a fundamental component of their success. It will examine Beyonce’s first step into social networking with the recently released personal Tumblr account and that of their daughter, as a mechanism through which the couple display a tightly defined brand through their conspicuous consumption and the ‘intimacy’ of their marriage through a carefully controlled set of images.

The hyper-management of the images released on this account speaks to both the need and indeed requirement, to re-invigorate the image of a ‘power couple’ within the blogosphere in contemporary popular culture. Both Beyonce and Jay-Z have been perceived as rather ‘traditional’ celebrities up until this point, with little direct involvement in the blogosphere as a mechanism through which they maintain control of their brand.

The use of the Tumblr site, rather than documenting their marriage, leisure and family life through other mechanisms such as Twitter, allows the audience a highly visual glimpse into their world, constructed as both aspirational and candid and yet which demonstrates a careful management of an image in a digital environment where this is both unusual and potentially problematic. An analysis of the dual power of Beyonce and Jay-Z in this context demonstrates both the labour involved in maintaining such a discretely controlled brand and the need to maintain relevance in a digital era.

 

 

Dr. Kirsty Fairclough is Lecturer in Media and Performance in the School of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford. Her recent research is concerned with ageing and female celebrity and is published in Celebrity Studies. Other research on reality television and celebrity appears in Feminist Media Studies, Genders.org, and flowtv. Forthcoming is an edited collection on The Music Documentary for Routledge and a chapter on Spielberg as celebrity in the forthcoming A Companion to Steven Spielberg (Wiley-Blackwell)