David Giles
Biographic Data
| ID | 3591803 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Giles |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Giles |
| SIGNATURE | GILES D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Winchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2838-1338 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 140 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Sustainable Healthy Diet Transitions: An Examination of Media Discourse Concerning Beef in the United Kingdom From 2018 to 2022
The role of diet in individual and planetary health is increasingly scrutinised as consumers are encouraged to make food choices that balance health and sustainability, particularly with beef. While prior research has considered reduction from the perspective of alternate product acceptance, the social context of beef is less understood. Media plays a crucial role in shaping narratives concerning beef's future in agri‐food systems, influencing co…
Defining Parasocial Relationship Experiences
The chapter offers a conceptual definition of parasocial relationships as a distinct construct, and it explores its theoretical relationship to other related phenomena. It defines various types of parasocial relationships, and it outlines the scope of these experiences, including their prevalence across different media formats, channels, and platforms and different types of media content. The chapter explicates how parasocial relationships are di…
Understanding Media Psychology
Understanding Media Psychology is the perfect introductory textbook to the growing field of media psychology and its importance in society, summarizing key concepts and theories to provide an overview of topics in the field.Media is present in almost every area of life today, and is an area of study that will only increase in importance as the world becomes ever more interconnected. Written by a team of expert authors, this book will help readers…
Women who remain in relationships with registered sexual offenders: Analysis of forum discussion
Registered sexual offenders (RSOs) are inevitably on the receiving end of much negative evaluation within society. By association, individuals in close relationships with RSOs may experience what Goffman (1963) [ Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity . Simon & Schuster Ltd.] termed ‘courtesy stigma’, through which they are also negatively evaluated. The present study explores this phenomenon in the contemporary context of online dis…
A Typology of Persona as Suggested by Jungian Theory and the Evolving Persona Studies Literature
What is persona? Is there a single definition that all Persona scholars agree on? Are Persona scholars all using it in the same way? These are questions that I set out to answer in this paper, exploring both the contemporary persona studies literature and the Jungian concept of persona that is frequently cited as the intellectual root of the discipline. I begin by looking at the definition of persona in core persona studies texts, move on to Jung…
Performed across Europe and written up in English: The double challenge for qualitative psychologists
When Brendan Gough and I first pitched the idea for Qualitative Research in Psychology (QRP) to publishers back in the early 2000s, we envisaged it as a largely UK-based publication. Our impression
Celebrity status and the attribution of value
The concept of status is in the background of much research on celebrity but rarely made explicit, so in this collection of articles we seek to intervene by drawing attention to the usefulness of the concept in understanding the attribution of value in celebrity culture. We consider that celebrity status derives from an accumulation of social esteem or disparagement based on the countless evaluative judgements, positive or negative, that accumula…
Twenty-First Century Celebrity: Fame in Digital Culture
Instagram and the Rise of the Social Media ‘Influencer’
The Popularity and Appeal of YouTubers: ‘Authenticity’ and ‘Ordinariness’
Stay in Your Own Part of the Bookshop! Legitimation in the Literary Field and the Limited Exchange Value of Celebrity Capital
This paper explores the phenomenon of boundary crossing between cultural fields and the role that different kinds of capital play in determining whether or not the crossing is a successful one. The fields in question here are those of entertainment (specifically, stand-up comedy) and literature, and the particular boundary crossing is represented by the figure of Ben Elton, a British comedian who has published 15 novels since 1989, with mixed cri…
How do fan and celebrity identities become established on Twitter? A study of 'social media natives' and their followers
This study explores the changing relationship in the digital era between celebrities and fans by examining a group of emerging celebrities and their followers on Twitter. Seven crime authors were chosen as a case sample, each of which published their first work after 2010 and might therefore be regarded as ‘social media natives’. The authors’ followers were categorised according to their self-descriptions into various professional and non-profess…
The Microanalysis of Online Data: The next stage
Field migration, cultural mobility and celebrity: The case of Paul McCartney
This paper discusses the phenomenon of celebrity migration, whereby figures established in one cultural field attempt to cross over into a neighbouring field, a long-standing practice in the arts more generally, but one which is fraught with risk for the individual. I illustrate this with a case study of the popular musician Paul McCartney, who has spent the last two decades attempting to take up residence in the field of classical music, with co…
Microanalysis Of Online Data: The methodological development of “digital CA”
DSM-V is taking away our identity: The reaction of the online community to the proposed changes in the diagnosis of Asperger's disorder
This article considers the fate of Asperger's disorder in the light of proposals for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) to collapse Asperger's disorder along with other pervasive developmental disorders into a general spectrum of autism. It is argued that a powerful lay and scientific culture has evolved around the concept of Asperger's disorder, which has found a particularly compelling voice over the last decade…
The Extended Self Strikes Back: Morrissey Fans' Reaction to Public Rejection by Their Idol
This article discusses the fractious relationship between the British recording artist Morrissey and his online fan community. Following increasing criticism of the artist and his material during 2011, and growing impatience with his controversial public pronouncements, Morrissey has publicly disowned his biggest and longest-running fan site and banned its owner from attending his concerts. I draw on psychological theories of group identity and r…
Is this normal?’ The role of category predicates in constructing mental illness online
One of their functions of online mental health communities is the construction of coherent identities for their members based on the various characteristics of different mental health conditions. This paper contains microanalyses of 2 message threads on mental health discussion forums—one concerning depression and the other ‘emetophobia’ (fear of being sick)—which illustrate some of the discursive functions of such forums. Conversation analytic t…
Animal celebrities
Academic study of celebrity has hitherto been mostly based on the assumption that celebrities are human, and even semiotic theories of celebrity have been built around the notion that a ‘real person’ exists at its centre. In this paper I problematise this notion by discussing the case of animal celebrities, who lack many of the characteristics associated with celebrity and yet are discursively constituted as such by media and their audiences. I p…
Self- and Other-Diagnosis in User-Led Mental Health Online Communities
This article consists of a qualitative analysis of discussion forums in online mental health communities whose members routinely write about diagnosis. The analysis concerns the function of diagnosis from the perspective of personal identity, with particular focus on the status of official diagnosis, as well as community members' discussions of symptoms and psychiatric syndromes that amount to informal diagnosis or consultation. Self-diagnosis so…
‘Crack down on the celebrity junkies’: Does media coverage of celebrity drug use pose a risk to young people
This study analysed news media content to examine the role played by celebrity drug use in young people's perceptions of drug use. We know that young people have access to discourses of drug use through music and other media which may emphasise short term gains (of pleasure or sexual success) over longer term health and social problems. This study goes beyond a simple modelling approach by using Media Framing Analysis (MFA) to take an in-depth lo…
Developing pathic sensibilities: A critical priority for teacher education programmes
Managing Crises: Responses to Large-Scale Emergencies
From floods to fires, tornadoes to terrorist attacks, governments must respond to a variety of crises and meet reasonable standards of performance. What accounts for governments effective responses to unfolding disasters? How should they organize and plan for significant emergencies? With fifteen adapted Kennedy School cases, students experience first-hand a series of large-scale emergencies and come away with a clear sense of the different types…
Implicit theories of a desire for fame
The aim of the present studies was to generate implicit theories of a desire for fame among the general population. In Study 1, we were able to develop a nine-factor analytic model of conceptions of the desire to be famous that initially comprised nine separate factors; ambition, meaning derived through comparison with others, psychologically vulnerable, attention seeking, conceitedness, social access, altruistic, positive affect, and glamour. An…
The psychological meaning of personal record collections and the impact of changing technological forms
Microanalysis Of Online Data: The methodological development of “digital CA”
Keeping the public in their place: Audience Participation in Lifestyle Television Programming
The participation of members of the public in the mass media has been studied discursively at the level of live broadcasting, notably in talk radio and talk shows on television. In this article I examine the construction of public identities in `lifestyle' television programming, specifically property shows, in which members of the public appear either as potential home buyers (`house-hunters') or as home owners looking to maximize the value of t…
Self- and Other-Diagnosis in User-Led Mental Health Online Communities
This article consists of a qualitative analysis of discussion forums in online mental health communities whose members routinely write about diagnosis. The analysis concerns the function of diagnosis from the perspective of personal identity, with particular focus on the status of official diagnosis, as well as community members' discussions of symptoms and psychiatric syndromes that amount to informal diagnosis or consultation. Self-diagnosis so…
The Microanalysis of Online Data: The next stage
Animal celebrities
Academic study of celebrity has hitherto been mostly based on the assumption that celebrities are human, and even semiotic theories of celebrity have been built around the notion that a ‘real person’ exists at its centre. In this paper I problematise this notion by discussing the case of animal celebrities, who lack many of the characteristics associated with celebrity and yet are discursively constituted as such by media and their audiences. I p…
Celebrity status and the attribution of value
The concept of status is in the background of much research on celebrity but rarely made explicit, so in this collection of articles we seek to intervene by drawing attention to the usefulness of the concept in understanding the attribution of value in celebrity culture. We consider that celebrity status derives from an accumulation of social esteem or disparagement based on the countless evaluative judgements, positive or negative, that accumula…
Field migration, cultural mobility and celebrity: The case of Paul McCartney
This paper discusses the phenomenon of celebrity migration, whereby figures established in one cultural field attempt to cross over into a neighbouring field, a long-standing practice in the arts more generally, but one which is fraught with risk for the individual. I illustrate this with a case study of the popular musician Paul McCartney, who has spent the last two decades attempting to take up residence in the field of classical music, with co…
Is this normal?’ The role of category predicates in constructing mental illness online
One of their functions of online mental health communities is the construction of coherent identities for their members based on the various characteristics of different mental health conditions. This paper contains microanalyses of 2 message threads on mental health discussion forums—one concerning depression and the other ‘emetophobia’ (fear of being sick)—which illustrate some of the discursive functions of such forums. Conversation analytic t…
Narratives of Obesity as Presented in the Context of a Television Talk Show
Media representations of health and illness have come under scrutiny for their ability to mislead and misinform the public about health issues. However, the media also provide a public forum in which talk about health and illness may be circulated in a more positive fashion. This article consists of a narrative analysis of an episode of the BBC talk show Kilroy, in which the topic of obesity is discussed by the show's host and a group of lay gues…
How do fan and celebrity identities become established on Twitter? A study of 'social media natives' and their followers
This study explores the changing relationship in the digital era between celebrities and fans by examining a group of emerging celebrities and their followers on Twitter. Seven crime authors were chosen as a case sample, each of which published their first work after 2010 and might therefore be regarded as ‘social media natives’. The authors’ followers were categorised according to their self-descriptions into various professional and non-profess…
DSM-V is taking away our identity: The reaction of the online community to the proposed changes in the diagnosis of Asperger's disorder
This article considers the fate of Asperger's disorder in the light of proposals for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) to collapse Asperger's disorder along with other pervasive developmental disorders into a general spectrum of autism. It is argued that a powerful lay and scientific culture has evolved around the concept of Asperger's disorder, which has found a particularly compelling voice over the last decade…
Women who remain in relationships with registered sexual offenders: Analysis of forum discussion
Registered sexual offenders (RSOs) are inevitably on the receiving end of much negative evaluation within society. By association, individuals in close relationships with RSOs may experience what Goffman (1963) [ Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity . Simon & Schuster Ltd.] termed ‘courtesy stigma’, through which they are also negatively evaluated. The present study explores this phenomenon in the contemporary context of online dis…
The Extended Self Strikes Back: Morrissey Fans' Reaction to Public Rejection by Their Idol
This article discusses the fractious relationship between the British recording artist Morrissey and his online fan community. Following increasing criticism of the artist and his material during 2011, and growing impatience with his controversial public pronouncements, Morrissey has publicly disowned his biggest and longest-running fan site and banned its owner from attending his concerts. I draw on psychological theories of group identity and r…
Implicit theories of a desire for fame
The aim of the present studies was to generate implicit theories of a desire for fame among the general population. In Study 1, we were able to develop a nine-factor analytic model of conceptions of the desire to be famous that initially comprised nine separate factors; ambition, meaning derived through comparison with others, psychologically vulnerable, attention seeking, conceitedness, social access, altruistic, positive affect, and glamour. An…
The psychological meaning of personal record collections and the impact of changing technological forms
Retrospective Accounts of Drunken Behaviour: Implications for Theories of Self, Memory and the Discursive Construction of Identity
This article examines the retrospective accounts of drunken behaviour by groups of students who drink together regularly. The literature on `collective remembering' has demonstrated how shared memories are constructed discursively, and this is likely to be even more true of memories for events when participants were drunk. Close reading of the extracts from one particular interview reveals the way participants construct `drunken identities' for o…
Illusions of Immortality
What drives people to crave fame and celebrity? How does fame affect people psychologically? These issues are frequently discussed by the media but up till now psychologists have shied away from an academic away from an academic investigation of the phenomenon of fame. In this lively, eclectic book David Giles examines fame and celebrity from a variety of perspectives. He argues that fame should be seen as a process rather than a state of being, …
Parasocial Interaction: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research
This paper considers the phenomenon of parasocial interaction (PSI) used by media researchers to describe the relationship between media users and media figures (from celebrities to fictional characters). Although the concept has been used consistently across the past two decades in media research, it is argued here that it has not been sufficiently developed at a theoretical level to be taken up by psychologists. A number of key issues have not …
Keeping the public in their place: Audience Participation in Lifestyle Television Programming
The participation of members of the public in the mass media has been studied discursively at the level of live broadcasting, notably in talk radio and talk shows on television. In this article I examine the construction of public identities in `lifestyle' television programming, specifically property shows, in which members of the public appear either as potential home buyers (`house-hunters') or as home owners looking to maximize the value of t…
Narratives of Obesity as Presented in the Context of a Television Talk Show
Media representations of health and illness have come under scrutiny for their ability to mislead and misinform the public about health issues. However, the media also provide a public forum in which talk about health and illness may be circulated in a more positive fashion. This article consists of a narrative analysis of an episode of the BBC talk show Kilroy, in which the topic of obesity is discussed by the show's host and a group of lay gues…
Media psychology
Media Psychology has been written to examine the many influences of 21st century media on people who encounter an ever-increasing variety of forms of mass communication: news, sports, soap operas, reality TV with audience participation, and the influence of the internet. The author investigates the various genres in the media that raise the issues of sex, violence, advertising, and audience activity and asks what light psychology can shed on the …
The role of media figures in adolescent development: Relations between autonomy, attachment, and interest in celebrities
The psychological meaning of personal record collections and the impact of changing technological forms
Implicit theories of a desire for fame
The aim of the present studies was to generate implicit theories of a desire for fame among the general population. In Study 1, we were able to develop a nine-factor analytic model of conceptions of the desire to be famous that initially comprised nine separate factors; ambition, meaning derived through comparison with others, psychologically vulnerable, attention seeking, conceitedness, social access, altruistic, positive affect, and glamour. An…
Managing Crises: Responses to Large-Scale Emergencies
From floods to fires, tornadoes to terrorist attacks, governments must respond to a variety of crises and meet reasonable standards of performance. What accounts for governments effective responses to unfolding disasters? How should they organize and plan for significant emergencies? With fifteen adapted Kennedy School cases, students experience first-hand a series of large-scale emergencies and come away with a clear sense of the different types…
‘Crack down on the celebrity junkies’: Does media coverage of celebrity drug use pose a risk to young people
This study analysed news media content to examine the role played by celebrity drug use in young people's perceptions of drug use. We know that young people have access to discourses of drug use through music and other media which may emphasise short term gains (of pleasure or sexual success) over longer term health and social problems. This study goes beyond a simple modelling approach by using Media Framing Analysis (MFA) to take an in-depth lo…
Developing pathic sensibilities: A critical priority for teacher education programmes
Self- and Other-Diagnosis in User-Led Mental Health Online Communities
This article consists of a qualitative analysis of discussion forums in online mental health communities whose members routinely write about diagnosis. The analysis concerns the function of diagnosis from the perspective of personal identity, with particular focus on the status of official diagnosis, as well as community members' discussions of symptoms and psychiatric syndromes that amount to informal diagnosis or consultation. Self-diagnosis so…
The Extended Self Strikes Back: Morrissey Fans' Reaction to Public Rejection by Their Idol
This article discusses the fractious relationship between the British recording artist Morrissey and his online fan community. Following increasing criticism of the artist and his material during 2011, and growing impatience with his controversial public pronouncements, Morrissey has publicly disowned his biggest and longest-running fan site and banned its owner from attending his concerts. I draw on psychological theories of group identity and r…
Is this normal?’ The role of category predicates in constructing mental illness online
One of their functions of online mental health communities is the construction of coherent identities for their members based on the various characteristics of different mental health conditions. This paper contains microanalyses of 2 message threads on mental health discussion forums—one concerning depression and the other ‘emetophobia’ (fear of being sick)—which illustrate some of the discursive functions of such forums. Conversation analytic t…
Animal celebrities
Academic study of celebrity has hitherto been mostly based on the assumption that celebrities are human, and even semiotic theories of celebrity have been built around the notion that a ‘real person’ exists at its centre. In this paper I problematise this notion by discussing the case of animal celebrities, who lack many of the characteristics associated with celebrity and yet are discursively constituted as such by media and their audiences. I p…
Microanalysis Of Online Data: The methodological development of “digital CA”
DSM-V is taking away our identity: The reaction of the online community to the proposed changes in the diagnosis of Asperger's disorder
This article considers the fate of Asperger's disorder in the light of proposals for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) to collapse Asperger's disorder along with other pervasive developmental disorders into a general spectrum of autism. It is argued that a powerful lay and scientific culture has evolved around the concept of Asperger's disorder, which has found a particularly compelling voice over the last decade…
Field migration, cultural mobility and celebrity: The case of Paul McCartney
This paper discusses the phenomenon of celebrity migration, whereby figures established in one cultural field attempt to cross over into a neighbouring field, a long-standing practice in the arts more generally, but one which is fraught with risk for the individual. I illustrate this with a case study of the popular musician Paul McCartney, who has spent the last two decades attempting to take up residence in the field of classical music, with co…
How do fan and celebrity identities become established on Twitter? A study of 'social media natives' and their followers
This study explores the changing relationship in the digital era between celebrities and fans by examining a group of emerging celebrities and their followers on Twitter. Seven crime authors were chosen as a case sample, each of which published their first work after 2010 and might therefore be regarded as ‘social media natives’. The authors’ followers were categorised according to their self-descriptions into various professional and non-profess…
The Microanalysis of Online Data: The next stage
Twenty-First Century Celebrity: Fame in Digital Culture
Instagram and the Rise of the Social Media ‘Influencer’
The Popularity and Appeal of YouTubers: ‘Authenticity’ and ‘Ordinariness’
Stay in Your Own Part of the Bookshop! Legitimation in the Literary Field and the Limited Exchange Value of Celebrity Capital
This paper explores the phenomenon of boundary crossing between cultural fields and the role that different kinds of capital play in determining whether or not the crossing is a successful one. The fields in question here are those of entertainment (specifically, stand-up comedy) and literature, and the particular boundary crossing is represented by the figure of Ben Elton, a British comedian who has published 15 novels since 1989, with mixed cri…
Sociology (23 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Political science (14 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Media studies (10 works) · Media, Gender, and Advertising (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Media Influence and Health (9 works) · Art (8 works)