Richard Dyer's Theory - Album Covers

Does the promotional material construct an image rather than reveal a ‘real’ person whereby you know about their likes/dislikes, family, background, education, problems etc.?

I believe that the promotional material helps to construct Britney Spears’s image however I do believe that some of her promotional material give an insight to the audience of what goes on in her personal life, such as being featured in a magazine with her children and by interacting with the world through social networks like twitter. With this being said the term to best describe Britney Spears is semi-mythological. This is because her image never really tells factual truths about her or lets the audience know what happens when she is not in the limelight. An example of this is her endorsement deal with Pepsi, we as an audience don’t actually know if she likes to drink Pepsi, she has been paid to perceive to the audience that she likes Pepsi in order for it to sell. Throughout the majority of Britney Spears’s work signify that she is an entertainer, we see this through her various albums. Even though we don’t know her personally it builds a relationship between her and the audience for them to get to know her more. We see Britney get morphed into a more rebellious person as she gets older, dressing in more revealing and seductive clothing which shows her youthfulness but likewise sexual magnetism which draws attention to her and makes the audience aspire to know more about the image.   

Britney Spears is known to the rest of the world as a star because of her fame, music, products and endorsement deals all which are within the media. An example of this is her feature in cosmopolitan magazine, the headline states “How a broken Britney bounced back”. It tells the readers how she regained her fame after her down fall but doesn’t inform the readers of what she went through during her ordeal. This is the main characteristic that shows stars are commodities advertising nothing but their power that lead to the audience consuming more of their products.

Stars need the media to build up their image and to appeal to their target audience through promotions, films, music and so on. Making the image a semi-mythological individual.

I plan to use some of the same techniques Britney Spears has used to form my artist’s image as this would help my artist be more aspiring to their audience and generate more sales.