Celebrity chatter builds bridges?

Alison Jackson's talk at the ICA on Monday, where we also had the chance to look back over many of the images of celebrities she has constructed in recent years (PDF), was a million miles away from last night's talk by William Davies at the Royal Society of Arts about how the important element in 'ICT' is really the 'C' or communication, not the 'I' or information, but I feel a connecting thread coming on.

Jackson is clear from her artistic experiences - such as taking the 'lookalike Beckhams' to Japan and seeing that people went crazy over them and didn't care whether they were seeing the real thing or not - that the cult of celebrity is a rising tide in our society, but sits on the fence regarding the question of whether this is a bad thing.

Davies, as someone who believes that social software can be harnessed to build social capital through the very act of communication, thinks what we communicate about - the information element - may be of secondary importance or no importance at all. Social capital - particularly of the bridging sort - is considered a 'good thing' that should be encouraged.

So my questions to William might be: Do we in fact build social capital through mindless and endless chatter about celebrities? And is this something we should encourage?

PS Alison's doing a Christmas special for the Beeb. Can't wait!