DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL: PERCEPTION OF CONTEMPORARY CELEBRITY BY ADOLESCENTS

The transformation of the celebrity concept has become an important topic of sociology and media studies in recent years. The most important factors intervening in this process are a change of communication behavior of the young age cohorts and an effort of "fame seekers" to use the new communication channels. In our study, we analyze the state of celebrities' perception by the age cohort of adolescents in the Slovak Republic. The study is based on the original exploratory research composed of two phases. In the initial part we define the group of celebrities who are potentially well recognizable by the research group that we then test for the quality of knowledge. We apply a polarity profile method, including three investigated dimensions: attractiveness, credibility and likeability of examined celebrities. The analytical part compares the acquired knowledge in terms of three types of celebrity status. Our research indicates challenge to the popular theses, according to which the concept of current celebrity for adolescents clearly transformed in favor of digital celebrities (YouTubers, Bloggers, etc.).