Humanitarian Aid and the Impoverished Rhetoric of Celebrity Advocacy

Providing a comparative study on celebrity advocacy – from the work of Bono, George Clooney, Madonna, Greg Mortenson, and Kim Kardashian West – this book provides scholars and readers with a better understanding of some of the short-term and long-term impacts of various forms of celebrity activism.
Each chapter illustrates how the impoverished rhetoric of celebrities often privileges the voices of those in the Global North over the efforts of local NGOs who have been working for years at addressing the same humanitarian crises. Whether we are talking about the building of schools for young women in Afghanistan or the satellite surveillance of potential genocidal acts carried out in the Sudan, various forms of celebrity advocacy resonate with scholars and members of the public who want to be seen «doing something.»
The author argues that more often than not, celebrity advocacy enhances a celebrity's reputation – but hinders the efforts of those who ask us to pay attention to the historical, structural, and material causes of these humanitarian crises.

Marouf A. Hasian, Jr. (PhD, University of Georgia) is Professor of Communication at the University of Utah. He is the author of 11 books including In the Name of Necessity: Military Tribunals and the Loss of American Civil Liberties (2005) and Colonial Legacies in Postcolonial Contexts: A Critical Rhetorical Examination of Legal Histories (Peter Lang, 2002).