Dyer's Star Theory

Richard Dyer's Star Theory is the idea that celebrities can be manufactured by the media for financial gain. Stars are manufactured by the media and the music industry to represent 'real people' and to make money out of the audience who respond to the stars personality by buying the artists merchandise. Stars can be manufactured through different forms of media such as; articles, interviews and magazines as well as TV shows such as the 'X Factor' where the shows main premise is to make a star out of 'ordinary' people.

Dyer suggests that stars are manufactured to represent certain target audiences and are therefore not real people themselves but just a product that is marketed by the industry to make profit with audiences consuming what they believe is true.

The idea of a star image is paradoxical as the artist has to be both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time with the star being left incomplete with the audience wanting to complete the fabricated image of the star in the form of buying merchandise and going to live concerts.

The star often represents a set of shared cultural values that the audience are interested in therefore increasing the artists star value and creating their 'star persona'. An example of this is the fashion trends of the artists where an artist may wear a particular style of outfit and audiences will copy this to try and replicate the star.
Star images are fragile as they can fade due to lack of new content or a new album not being as good or not being able to maintain their image compared to previous albums. Star images can also be sustained for decades with artists such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones being popular to this day.

My artist will not be a 'star' as they will not be manufactured by the media into having a fake persona for fans to idolise. My artist will not be constructed to represent one specific target audience or a set of shared cultural values.