Celebrity gossip websites

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Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people - Eleanor Roosevelt. What are the reasons for the popularity of celebrity gossip websites?

To just what extent are people interested in private lives of celebrities? The size of the business of celebrity gossip news is best described by the numbers standing behind it. According to New York Times over $3 billion in revenue is annually generated in United States only (Rutenberg, 2011) and 28% of Americans treat the Internet as their main source of celebrity gossip news (Statista 2014). Websites such as TMZ, Radar Online or The Hollywood Gossip generate traffic in hundreds of thousands every week, making them one of the busiest news sources available online. They employ an army of journalists, photographers and reporters to trace and follow celebrities and provide the public in detail with information about their everyday life. That is why, nearly 150 reporters surrounded Los Angeles courthouse, when a couple of years ago Lindsay Lohan had to attend a hearing in regards to theft charges. So what is the reason behind this enormous effort to deliver the news, especially since they usually have zero impact on anybody’s life?

The answer to the question is quite simple: demand. The force shaping the final product delivered to us, customers. In 2005, Arianna Huffington, an American author and a columnist, co-launched a project called The Huffington Post, which was initially supposed to be an online news aggregator alternative to current mass media, focusing on politics, business and local news. The site quickly gained popularity by employing an algorithm of selecting the front page content according to the current interest of the readers. Although this ...

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Works Cited

NY Times (2011) The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash [Online] NY Times. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22gossip.html?pagewanted=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
American Psychological Association (2006) Have you heard the latest? [Online]. APA. Available from: http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/latest.aspx
The Huffington Post (2011) Gossip: Evolutionary Necessity? New Study Suggests Yes [Online]. Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/gossip-evolutionary-necessity_n_1020050.html
American Psychological Association (2006) Bonding over others' business [Online]. Available from: http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/bonding.aspx
The Week (2011) The $3 billion celebrity gossip industry: By the numbers [Online]. Available from: http://theweek.com/article/index/215572/the-3-billion-celebrity-gossip-industry-by-the-numbers

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