Young audiences and fans of celebrities in Portugal

While young people are not the exclusive audience of celebrity culture, they certainly take up a special place within this commercial media culture and are often evoked as a justification for media producers pursuing more commercial strategies, some of which involve the use of celebrity material. However, that is precisely what often drives young people away from the media (Buckingham 2000). We propose to analyse the relationship between young people and celebrity culture in Portugal to throw into the spotlight the interaction between global and local cultures while simultaneously, through reaching out beyond the most visible fans, we seek to assess the complex, ambiguous and varying attitudes young audiences display towards celebrity.