The “Exchange Rate” of Celebrity Capital: Zelensky’s Political Crossover and the Dynamic Construction of Persona
Abstract
In the context of the mediatization society, the cross-field of celebrity capital has become increasingly prominent. The transformation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from a comedian to a political leader provides a typical case for this phenomenon. This study focuses on Zelensky as the research subject and employs the case analysis method, combined with Bourdieu’s field theory and Marshall’s persona theory, to explore the conversion mechanism of celebrity capital in the political field and its influencing factors. The study finds that the “civilization president” persona constructed by Zelensky through the TV series “Servant of the people” significantly enhanced the “exchange rate” of his celebrity capital in the political field. The strategic use of persona naturalized this image and successfully transformed celebrity capital into symbolic capital. At the same time, the intervention of media meta-capital changed the evaluation standards in the political field, making persona a new source of power, and this transformation process exhibits obvious dynamic characteristics, requiring continuous adjustment of the persona as the domain boundaries change. This study not only reveals the key role of persona in capital conversion, confirms the disruptive influence of media logic on traditional domain rules, but also expands the dynamic perspective of celebrity capital research, providing new ideas for understanding image politics in contemporary political communication. At the same time, it also points out that this capital transformation may bring about domain rule alienation, which deserves further exploration.
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