This "Transcriptions" Topic page will look at the question of the impact of celebrities--figures we only see in mediated discourses like TV, films, books, the Internet--on our everyday lives. We will argue that these distant others are an important part of our lives--that the "fantasy" world of entertainment produces effects upon us similar to the impact of our immediate "concrete" surroundings. And consequently, that media representations such as Notting Hill (a poster for which graces the top of this page), far from being the solipsistic productions of a media world which has turned its lens in upon itself, are in fact a new kind of realism--a reaction to the impact of entertainment discourses on our supposedly "natural" lives.

Are you ready to enter a world where fantasy and reality collide, where space and time cease following the everyday rules? Then click here (Hint: You might as well - you're already there)