Richard Dyers Star Theory

In 1979, Richard Dyer published a book simply names 'Stars' within this book he argued that the understanding of media was massively influenced by stars that are well known by everyone. This is one of the reasons that a majority of music magazines feature a star or artist on their front cover. This is an attempt to attract a customer to buy a copy of that magazine as a result of them liking said artist.This therefore increases sales if it is a very famous artist, more people will like their work resulting in more people being likely to buy a copy of the magazine.
     It was suggested by dyer that artists and stars are created for merely profitable purposes, rather than their talent. In addition he believed that record companies create controversial and 'different' artists, by means of clothing and activities. This is in the hope that the artist will be inclined to be repeatedly in the public eye as a result of what they get up to. Therefore more people are likely to buy into different forms of media that feature the artist. When an artist expresses his/her beliefs, it tends to attract a crowd of fans that too share the beliefs of that star. Stars tend to focus on ideas suck as sexuality, youth and materialism, this is seen as a way to attract young fans in their teens or young adults. It is this age bracket that by in large buy the most music magazines.

An example of this would be of Marilyn Munroe, it is claimed that many people simply just went to see her films because she was in them rather than how good the film was. In addition it is said that critics claimed that her films were good simply because she was in them rather than because the film was actually impressive.