The Nobel celebrity-scientist : genius and personality

• Scientists are a poorly covered area of research in the field of celebrity studies. This article attempts to rectify this issue by discussing representations of science and scientists in a televised Nobel Banquet on Swedish public-service television, SVT. The televised Nobel Banquet is a genre hybrid that consists of two genres; namely, science communication and award show. Drawing on cultural, media, and gender studies, this article examines the mediated persona of the scientist in the televised Nobel Banquet via contextualised textual analysis. The main questions of this article are as follows: in what ways do the media, the genre, and the idea of geniality affect the representation of the scientist? The article suggests that the increasing celebrification' of scientists is characteristic of the past several decades, and that, among other factors, this has been due to the entry of aspects of entertainment into banquet broadcasts. Through such processes, the celebrity-scientist' has emerged within the high-status sphere of science. However, a very specific type of celebrity is represented in the Nobel context: the celebrity-scientist is commonly a white man of high education whose fame has been reached through hard work in competition with others of the same kind. This representation of a scientist and its associated quality of genius will here be examined from a gender perspective.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

celebrity

science

television

Nobel Prize

gender

genusvetenskap

Gender Studies

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)