It is easy and cheap to capitalize on America’s obsession with celebrities, said two professors at the Searchlight Symposium Wednesday night.Richard Allen, radio-TV-film professor, and Adam Schiffer, political science assistant professor, shared their distinct views on celebrities in a media-crazed society and answered questions from several students among the nearly 50 in attendance.

The symposium, entitled “Why is America Obsessed with Celebrities,” follows two previous symposiums, “What is a Just War? Are we in One?,” and “What does it Mean to be an Ethical Leader?,” said John Wood, host and founder of the biannual event.

Americans are obsessed with celebrities partly because it is human instinct to know the “going ons” of people we know something about, Allen said. The media is able to capitalize on this instinct to the point that individuals feel an urgent necessity to know more, he said.

As former head writer for soap operas, such as “Days of our Lives” and “As the World Turns,” Allen recalled his boss’s consistent demand to “come up with something people are going to be talking about over the back fence.”

“I think the media has created (celebrities) as characters, who have life stories we’re invested in,” Allen said. “When something is happening to Britney Spears, it’s like it’s happening to our bad cousin in the back woods of Louisiana.”

Schiffer said it is much cheaper to produce reality TV shows and celebrity gossip shows than traditional sitcoms, investigative news shows and dramas.

“If two shows have identical ratings, but one is cheaper to produce, it will persist while the more expensive one disappears,” Schiffer said.

Schiffer talked specifically about an “overlap between celebrity obsession and politics,” and the damage it causes during presidential elections. When political parties moved to a direct primary system in 1968 under the notion that it would give more power to the people, it instead gave more power to the press, Schiffer said.

“The press will continue to winnow the primary election field by rewarding the wrong qualities, a fact that has consequences for government,” Schiffer said.

The purpose of all Searchlight Symposiums is to provoke intellectual thought on issues rarely discussed in classrooms but essential to ethical leadership, Wood said.

“It is a blessing to be able to ignore false values and to maintain focus on the good life,” Wood said. “The good life is, in my view, one dedicated to ethical principles, one that cares about others, loves others, fosters true friendships and takes responsibility for something greater than his or her own self interest.”

The symposium, which took place from 5 to 7 p.m. in Smith 104, attracted fewer students than in the past because, Wood said, school administrators failed to send out an e-mail to all students.