The requirements of cultural changes through fame in cyberspace

Abstract

Managing cultural changes in the virtual space is inevitable since it is a place of conflict between power flows, especially the reputation system. Achieving desirable and sustainable cultural changes requires attention to changeability requirements. It means that ignoring these requirements can affect the process and content of changes. Based on this, the purpose of this article is to investigate and answer the question: What are the requirements of cultural changes through the fame of celebrities in the virtual space? The research is based on Husserl's descriptive phenomenology as well as Colaizzi's method (1978). The research population is those who are active in various fields of science, art, sports, and virtual space activism. Semi-structured and in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 people as a research sample using the criterion-dependent purposeful sampling method until the level of data saturation. The data were validated through external auditors, returning to the interviewees, and in-depth descriptions. The findings showed that the requirements of cultural changes through celebrities in the virtual space can be found at structural and content levels: in the dimensions of optimal networking, control of structural resistance, family changes, and social capital building in the form of structural requirements, and in the dimensions of cultural flow, cultural leadership and attention to social status in the form of content requirements. The results, in addition to showing the role of celebrities in cultural changes, emphasize the factors facilitating the influence of celebrity culture in the Iranian society.

Keywords

• cultural changes
• structural requirements
• content requirements
• cyberspace
• celebrity