Elon Musk as a Celebrity Businessman: Analysis of (Self) Representations in American and Russian Media

This study examines the nature and extent of the presence of Elon Musk as a CEO-celebrity in mass media, and also includes topics such as creating your personal brand, principles and methods of (self) representation in the media, and the impact of fame on companies owned. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to identify the features of (self) representation of Elon Musk in the media, forming his perception as an icon of business and innovation. In order to investigate how Elon Musk is presented on the news agenda and to trace the connotations of the influence of representations of his person on his business and the sphere of scientific and technological discoveries in general, it is necessary to use a number of methods. This study used a quantitative analysis of publications about Elon Musk using the services of Factiva and Medialogy, as well as a qualitative frame analysis of selected publications in order to identify the types of frames that are attributed to Elon Musk in mass media. In addition, content analysis will include tweaking content to analyze the self-branding of Elon Musk. The study is limited to American and Russian media, communities and social networks (in particular Twitter), publications for 2019 are analyzed. The work consists of two parts: in the first part, terms such as celebrity and CEO-celebrity are examined, classifications and analysis of the effects of celebrities on society are considered, and a brief biographical note about Elon Musk is given; in the second part, the quantitative characteristics of Musk’s presence in the media will be proceed, types of frames attributed to the Musk by the media will be observed, as well as the principles of self-presentation in social networks will be analyzed. The results anticipated will help to identify the features of the self-presentation of Elon Musk, identify the types of frames through which his image is constructed, as well as understand the differences in the trends in the representation of the Musk in American and Russian media. The results can be useful for determining the nature of the influence of celebrity CEOs on their own business, the perception of their business community and, in general, the inhabitants. The prospects of the work are to study the influence of a celebrity entrepreneur on popularizing the sphere of his activity and drawing attention to current problems of today's youth.