Case study materials from ‘I Am … Sasha Fierce’ to Tom Daley’s ‘My Story’

I’ve recently submitted my strangest work-related Amazon order ever for research materials to support our case studies of twelve celebrities so I thought I’d share it via the blog. We’ve picked twelve celebrities who came up repeatedly in our group interviews and who seemed to have significance for the young people to whom we spoke. They are: Beyonce, Bill Gates, Emma Watson, Justin Bieber, Kate Middleton, Katie Price, Kim Kardashian, Mario Balotelli, Nicki Minaj, Prince Harry, Tom Daley and Will Smith. In addition to focusing on three sources of data across six months, we’re swotting up on our case study celebs’ back stories hence the Amazon order. So, what did we choose?

For Beyonce we’ve kept it simple and ordered her four solo albums since she left Destiny’s Child since her music seems to be central to how young people relate to her, I Am … Sasha Fierce, B’day, Beyonce, Dangerously in Love.

For Bill Gates, we’ve picked his autobiography The Road Ahead and Stephen Mane’s biography giving the story of how he reinvented the computing industry.

For Emma Watson, like Beyonce, we’ve focused on the source of her fame, acquiring a box set of the Harry Potter films and her second post-Potter big-screen outing The Perks of Being a Wallflower. (The trailer for her next, more grown-up film outing, Sophia Coppola’s The Bling Ring is now out.) We’ve also acquired a biography of the young star by David Nolan.

Justin Bieber can’t seem to stay out of the news, late to a concert one day and rushed to hospital the next – there’s also no shortage of Bieber product on Amazon. We’ve picked out two documentaries: This is My World  and Never Say Never. There’s also Bieber’s book Just Getting Started and his mum’s Nowhere But Up.

For our first pregnant Kate, the Princess, we’ve purchased the book Kate by Sean Smith and an ITV news book about her.

For our second pregnant Kate, Katie Price, we’ve picked out two of her autobiographies: You Only Live Once  and Jordan: Pushed to the Limit.

Also expecting is Kim Kardashian, for whom we’ll be working our way through Kardashian Konfidential, Brandon Hurst’s Keeping up with Kim Kardashian and Dollhouse a novel by Kim and her sisters Khloe and Kourtney.

Next on the list is Why Always Me?: The Biography of Mario Balotelli by Frank Worrall.

For Nicki Minaj we’ve ordered a biography, Lynette Holloway’s The Woman Who Stole the World, and the DVD The Nicki Minaj story.

To catch up with the third in line to the throne (for a while at least), Prince Harry, we’ve ordered Robert Jobson’s book Harry’s War: The True Story of the Soldier Prince and pre-ordered Chris Hutchins’ Harry: The People’s Prince which is out at the end of April.

This brings us to the diver (not swimmer) Tom Daley, where, as with Bill Gates, we’ve gone with the classic combination of autobiography, inventively titled My Story, and an unauthorised biography by Chas Newkey-Burden.

Finally we’re reading up on the Fresh Prince himself via Will Smith: A Biography.

As Gary Dear in my school’s Research and Finance Office said after placing the order ‘it’s really messed up the credibility of my Amazon account!!’

Anyway, stay tuned to the website for reviews of some of these books, films, videos and albums in the coming months and don’t tell the Daily Mail what government research funding’s being spent on!