He has concluded that a star is an image and not a real person, somebody that has been constructed through the media (magazines, adverts etc.). Dyer explains that a star is a commodity dependent on their meanings presented through their brand image. Stars depend on the media and how they choose to exploit them. This also helps to publicize and promote their image to a target audience and particular market. A star reflects a range of meanings (youth, rebellion, sex appeal, originality, creativity etc.) which targets particular audiences.
A star must be simultaneously extroardinary and ordinary for their consumer. They must also be present and absent. The incoherence of a star ensures that an audience will strive to complete and understand their image which comes from consumption of products. Dyer recognises that within the music industry fans will continuously see tours and concerts to 'complete' the fanship for that artist. However the feeling is always unsatisfying as it isn't long lasting. This means that the fan will continue to consume products to maintain any remainding 'bond' betweent itself and the artist.
Here is a quote by Richard Dyer (Stars, BFI, 1981)
“In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions. On the one hand, our society stresses what makes them like others in the social group/class/gender to which they belong. This individualising stress involves a separation of the person's "self" from his/her social "roles", and hence poses the individual against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in such groups would now wish to contest (eg the struggles over representation of blacks, women and gays in recent years). Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated.”
