Star Image - Richard Dyer

Star image is the concept that artists create a certain 'image' through the way they are presented, both through their looks and behaviour. Nearly every artist presents themselves in a certain way, whether it is positive or negative, and this is what can attract or send away people depending on their taste. For example One Direction's image is very different from Linkin Park's and they both have very different fanbases:

Linkin Park's fans are older and both genders whereas the One Direction fans are all young, impressionable girls screaming out for them. Linkin Park's fans may also relate a lot to the band and identify themselves with the band and in some cases could project themselves. One Direction's fans mostly have a emotional connection to the band and will go many lengths to show that.

Having an image is important for any artist as it is the first thing fans will think of when the artist is mentioned and is what will attract new fans. Image is also what can gain the star some publicity. For example a negative image will likely gain a lot of press coverage and even thought it is negative it will turn people towards that artist. A big example is the change of Miley Cyrus from 2008 to 2015:

Miley gained a lot of publicity because of her new images and because of this attention she gained many new fans that liked this new image. However she did lose some fans because of this but overall that change has made more of a name for her and not many artists are willing to dramatically change their image like she did. People, particularly adults, saw the '2008 Miley' as a role-model and under Dyers theory this would have meant that parents would have liked their child to identify with her (self identification) and to have a emotional connection with her (emotional affinity) and in some cases imitation would have been a good thing, however since Miley has changed her image parents have decided that they no longer think she should be idolised and imitated.

In the alternative rock genre a band that has changed their music genre over time but kept their image the same is Green Day. There are many fans that are disappointed with their recent music which falls under the alternative rock rather than punk but I think they have still portrayed themselves well and are still the same band only with a different style, not image. Something that comes to mind when I think of Green Day is both performance, partying and emotional content which are both shown in nearly all of their videos. Green Day's songs touch on some very serious topics which are matched with the visuals shown and they are designed to make the viewer feel strong emotions and all of their videos display this kind of content. If the video does not contain emotional content it will contain a party scene or a wild scene at the least. My favourite example of emotional content is "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and wild scenes is "Holiday":

The actual band's image is the same with dark clothes and hair and they have kept this image up for a long time and that is what people think of when the band is mentioned to them. They still look exactly the same, in my opinion, and I think that for a 10 span of time they have developed and stuck with their style and image.