1. To what extent does a pop stars image influence their audience?
Pop stars are able to influence many people
however they are able to heavily influence their
audience for a variety of reasons, however their
image is not a reality and this is something
Richard dyer looked into. Richard Dyer is an
English academic specialising in cinema and wrote a book called
“stars” in 1979. From this he was able to develop the star theory.
In the star theory he states that there are two types of Pop artist, a pop
performer who is someone that just performs the music for example Katy b
and a Pop star. A pop star an image and attention associated with the artist
for example Beyonce. All pop stars are originally pop performers however
management are able to take the raw artist promote them in specific ways
through purposely placed stories or promoting a particular aspect of the
artist. A pop star is able to have lasting significance and brand awareness,
they have sufficient social and cultural impacted and the feature that makes
them a star is their constructed artificial image which is their unique selling
point. Dyer a star in his book as “a star is an image not a real person that is
constructed (as any aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g
advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music])”. He holds the opinion
that as an audience we don‟t see a star, because what we see is not reality
and everything about a star is constructed. We see this construction process
in programs such as the x factor where pop performers are taken from their
original talent and turned into Pop stars. A performer is manufactured by the
industry using an artificial image to generate the publicity around the artist as
this attracts audiences.
For example Jessie J used to be a pop performer and released
her song „Do it like a dude‟, however her managers realised
that she needed to capture the attention of the public in order
to gain fans. They did this by publicising her sexuality dilemma
as to whether she was lesbian or bisexual, they took a piece of
reality and exaggerated it so that the public would notice her
and this is what helped her to become a pop star. Now Jessie J
has a series of motifs associated with her and her image, such as the curled
lip.
However with many of the artist management like to give off the perception
as them being „real‟. For example Britney Spears and Justin Beiber are well
known artist for being real people. But this perception is used to make the

2. audience feel more relatable with the artist and therefore better received by
audiences. In these cases their constructed image is based on something
real about them however it is manipulated and emphasised so much that we
are able to understand that this can‟t always be their personality. An example
of an artist like this is Flavour Flave, he was well known among his audience
for being an over dramatised over excited character, and his audience
would perceive him to be this way all the time, however we are able to
understand this in an aspect of his personality that has been emphasised on
by his management in order to popular. There are also artists who are able to
be pop stars because of their character roles. For example Marylin Manson
who appears to wear a lot of makeup and his clothes are always black yet
outlandish, this is the character he has created and what he is known as.
However is unable to maintain that persona all of the time creating a very
constructed and hyperbolised image of himself.
These images created by the management are what
are able to influence the audiences so heavily.
Audiences view stars idealistically; therefore whatever
the image is presented by the star is how their
audiences want to be. For example Lady Gaga presents
an image of being different and individual therefore her
audience are likely to be very different from audiences
of artist such like Taylor Swift who conform to social
ideas and advertise social trends of being
stereotypically slim and pretty and her audience would
try and recreate that image for themselves. Another reason as to why pop
stars image is so influential is because of the reception they get from other
people. In life people wish to be well liked whether they are conscious or
unconscious of it, and because an artist is well like an audience will see this
and believe that there is something about them that is making them so
popular and will begin to imitate certain aspects of that artist. A Pop stars
image can not only influence the way a person looks but also the way person
acts, simply because the audience of each artist believes in their message
which is a part of their image. For example Rihanna‟s message is about
confidence and her fans will continuously make reference and become
confident in their behaviour and will take this message on because they are
so heavily influenced and manipulated by their favourite artists.