Mediatizing the “super-rich,” normalizing privilege

The argument we make here is a straightforward one: constant news-media coverage of the excessive lifestyles and consumption patterns of the so called “super-rich” normalize their extreme privilege, while obfuscating the privilege of many others. We examine a series of typical news stories (“print” and “broadcast”) together with examples of popular books to show how the mediatization of the “super-rich” is ambivalently organized through a mixture of celebratory and derisive stances. In tandem with the logics of capital and the tenets of consumer culture, these lurid spectacles fuel a complex mix of anxiety and desire among target readers–viewers, while absolving us from responsibility for our own relatively and seemingly modest excesses. We are invited also to defend ourselves on the grounds of superior judgement and taste.