Questions: 1.

Think of some of the artists, musicians, and celebrities of whom you are a fan:
what kinds of ideas and values do you associate with them?
Celebrities can have a positive influence on youth. In fact, they can serve as role models. But famous
singers, actors, and other celebrities can also provide unhealthy examples. In particular, celebrity
influence on body image and substance use is often detrimental to teen mental health.

Move to next question To what extent do you think fan worship can be practiced like a
religion? How do obsessive fans relate to the people they admire?
I think that if people keep up with celebrities as a hobby (much like I keep up with technology trends),
it’s fine and there’s nothing wrong with it. But when people look at celebrities as actual role models, or
people whom they would like to model their lives after, that’s when I think it’s taking things a little bit
too far.

people with the most extreme celebrity worship engage in an attributional style that believes the cause
of most events in the person’s life are external, that is, they are outside the control of the person
experiencing the event. People who have stable, global attributions share such an attribution style with
people who are depressed. So people who have the most extreme celebrity worship look to the outside
world for explanations, and believe celebrities might hold a piece of that cure.

Next question Think about how this might fit into the debate about secularization: is the cult of
celebrity a replacement for religion or just a new form of it ?

secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and
institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The secularization thesis expresses the
idea that as societies progress, particularly through modernization and rationalization, religious
authority diminishes in all aspects of social life and governance. As a second meaning, the term
"secularization" may also occur in the context of the lifting of monastic restrictions from a member of
the clergy.

But it prompts a conversation about celebrity culture and our global obsession with Michael Jackson.
Perhaps one of the reasons why so many people are building "shrines" at locations related to Michael
Jackson's story is that celebrity culture has taken the place that religion once had in our society.
Celebrities are secular saints. Their deaths become moments of pseudo-religious intensity. People make
pilgrimages to celebrity sites where once they travelled to Canterbury.

Celebrity is also a replacement for family and for a sense of community. Postmodern people live
postmodern lives. Often separated, often isolated, they crave community through virtual connections.
The common experience of a media-generated narrative becomes a unifying feature of their lives. Is that
why we're all talking about Michael Jackson so much?

Next question If a Durkheimian sociologist were to suggest that the idols we admire are really
collective representations of society, would you agree?

I’m not agree

Because, Collective Representation is a term introduced by Emile Durkheim to refer to a symbol having a
common intellectual and emotional meaning to the members of a group. ... Collective representations
express collective sentiments and ideas which give the group its unity and unique character. Therefore I
would not agree

Next question What does the wide range of idols and figureheads we have in contemporary
society suggest about religious pluralism?
Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing
in society. It can indicate one or more of the following:

As the name of the worldview according to which one's own religion is not held to be the sole and
exclusive source of truth, and thus the acknowledgement that at least some truths and true values exist
in other religions. As acceptance of the concept that two or more religions with mutually exclusive truth
claims are equally valid, this may be considered a form of either toleration or moral relativism. As a term
for the condition of harmonious co-existence between adherents of different religions or religious
denominations. As a social norm and not merely a synonym for religious diversity.