Research- Music video theory ideas by Richard Dyer

Richard dyer- star theory

Dyer’s star theory suggests that public figures and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain.  That celebrities are constructed to portray regular people who experience real emotions. 

Celebrities are manufactured by the media industry with the purpose to make money from their audience who responds to various elements of a star’s personality. This in turn leads to the audience becoming fans, buying records and merchandise.

His theory consists on a few components, 3 of them being : audience and institutions, ideology and hegemony.

Audience and institutions

People are made famous for the sole purpose of making money. By increasing the popularity of the brand, it benefits the institution greatly as being more well know would increase sales across all of their media platforms. The institution  models the artist/s around their target audience for example Ariana Grande wears “cute”, stereotypically feminine colours to appeal to her female teenage audience.

Ideology

Celebrities tend to represent and defend certain groups in society and therefore create certain ideologies. This results in the audience copying the view or supporting the celebrity because they have similar ideology. For example Lady Gaga who publically supports the LGBTQ+ community

Hegemony
Celebrities represent shared cultural morals and promote a certain ideology.
This is the idea that the audience relates to the star because they have a feature they share or admire a character trait with the star. Fans would therefore try and replicate their  behaviour. This however could lead to very negative consequences like the increase in the illegal sales of cannabis in the 60s and 70s due to the influence of The Beatles.