By using Canva to create an online concept board we got an idea of the star image of Jorja Smith. We looked into the different articles, interviews, music video, albums, tour posters and social sites that she uses to get a better insight into how she presents herself and her interests. By doing this we established that she is a very trendy, fashionable and is always up-to-date with the latest. She also has achieved many successes from the brit awards and is a very busy person with radio interviews and spending time with her friends. Furthermore, she seemed down-to-earth and an easy-going, confident character which could be very relatable and interesting for us as audiences as we can relate to her. Her confidence is clearly presented through her Instagram photos and other social media sites through the body-language and her frequent posts. Her album covers are also very trendy, modern and in-fashion with chic, contemporary text over the top.

Linking to this Richard Dyer came up with a concept about star image.
The concept includes:

  • The star as a construction – the star is not a real person. Although the performer highlights themselves in ways through magazines and music videos, they would not generally perform the activities in their own life. It is like the star and performer are two different people.
  • The star as a commodity – stars are produced to create profit off of related merchandise. Therefore record labels will create similar stars as they know the certain trends and patterns used will work.
  • The star as an ideology – stars represent certain social groups and views. Often as a result fans will copy and try recreate their  style .

Reflecting on our mood board, we could see that the star is constructed to construct a set of desires to their target audience to be and think like them, love what they love and be involved in their lives. This is crucial for raising audience awareness. Through the metanarrative of the star, we could tell how important it is to sell to fans as if the star is a walking and talking brand. This shows synergies between the marketing and the star image and how they put themselves out there and stand out from the crowd.

Focusing forward this research will help us as we can see how our performer’s star image can be represented and that it’s not just the target audience buying into the product, they also buy into values of the star image and in purchasing their product emulates them. As stars have to remain constantly interesting to keep the fans intrigued.