September 13, 2002
Journalism and the Modernization of Fame
A celebrity, in Daniel J. Boorstin's lapidary definition, is someone "known for his well-knownness." There were famous people in earlier periods, of course. But celebrities, in Mr. Boorstin's sense, did not appear until the late 19th century -- a side effect of "human interest" articles about the private lives of public figures. So argues Charles L. Ponce de Leon, an associate professor of history at the State University of New York College at Purchase, in his new book Self-Exposure:
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