Media Studies - Power and the Media (Theory of Stardom)

"The media Condition the way we think." To what extent do you agree with this statement?

The media provides a portrayal of many different events, people, and issues. Depending on how the media portrays these events, people, and issues, the manner in which audiences perceive these is also bound to change with it. Specifically, a scenario in which the media alters our perception is with our judgements of celebrities. A prime example of this in recent times would be the recent portrayal of American Singer-Songwriter Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift started her career off in the mid 2000's singing primarily country music, which saw her gain massive success with her debut album being certified Platinum in 2007 having sold over a million copies. Her next album “Fearless” found even greater success, and led to her first original “controversy”, which saw her in an altercation with rapper Kanye West, at the 2009 VMA Awards, where West stormed the stage and declared that singer Beyoncé deserved the award more than she did. This initially led to her being slammed by the cult-like fans of West, but didn’t lead to much backlash against her, as most of it was directed towards West. This event came back to the spotlight 7 years later however with West having released his new song “Famous” which included lines about Swift. Swift was later bashed by the media and tabloid magazines for protesting against West’s usage of her in the song, even though she had apparently cleared the usage of the line in the song. This saw her image being slandered in the eye of the media, and led to Swift having to reclude, which saw her even black out her social media accounts. This can be seen as an example of one aspect of Richard Dyer’s theory of Stardom, which would be the “Downfall” of a celebrity. The media portraying Swift’s personality as being hypocritical and sensitive saw millions of people clicking on articles to find out what’s going on with her, which overwhelmingly altered the public's perception of her. In most cases though, this would be the end of most star’s career; a massive controversy that sees the artist fall out of the public eye is a more common event than one may think. However, after coming back with her next album “Reputation”, the public came back to supporting her, especially after her hit song “Look what you made me do” which specifically called out West, hit number 1 on the billboard hot 100. In recent times, Taylor Swift is more popular than ever. Her love life has been the centre of attention of the media for as long as she’s been in the spotlight, however now has reached a new high with her newly found relationship with American NFL Star Travis Kelce. Her previous breakups and relationships were covered by the media heavily, with many describing her music and discography as a gallery of her past love’s, however with her latest flare, the media has covered her relationship more than ever, and has seen her expand her audience even further. This would be another aspect of Dyer’s Stardom theory, where he states how people are interested with celebrities due to their love lives, which rings quite true for the case of Taylor Swift. All in all, without the extensive media portrayal of all of Swift's relationship and love affairs, the way the public view her would most likely be incredibly different that how it is now, due to how important it’s become to her stardom.