Monday 16 September 2013

CJ- Digipak Analysis


  • Digipak’s are the main feature of a stars publicity, not only containing and protecting the CD within, but also promoting the artist and persuading consumers that the artist is like no other. They are all designed around the theory of stars being commodities, and contain codes in which are related with the subject of fame and extraordinary individuals.
  • Richard Dyer (1979) wrote about the theory of ‘stars’. He put forward the idea that famous actors/musicians etc. where constructed as an image using a range of materials (e.g advertising, magazines etc.).
  • The recently released Aluna George album shows the many features in which Richard Dyer believed where artificially created in order to increase the publics interest and awe. Richard Dyer’s theory was split into two paradox’s, the first stating that the star must be both ordinary and extraordinary. The cover of the album shows the artist posing in a position in which brings all the attention onto her, whilst the location too confines the consumers attention to the artist. However the artist is shown to be wearing ordinary clothing, thus allowing the audience to relate to her.
  • Projecting the star as both ordinary and extraordinary it allows the consumer to look up to the artist without feeling as if they are disconnected and cannot relate.
  • The second paradox states that the star must be both present and absent for the consumer. This will allow the audience to understand the artist however not gain enough information in which will lead to boredom. The cover shows an image of the artist striking a pose, however the positioning of her hair and body is used to hide some of the artists identity, causing the audience to strive to see more, and therefore complete the image.
  • Structuralist Roland Barthes also came up with his own theory, putting forth the idea that audiences where active and therefore had their own individual ideas on certain texts. This meant that although a scene in a film would have a specific intended meaning and image, each individual that watched it would come up with a different idea on that scene and would have different views. This led to him coming up with the idea of semiotics, the process of reading symbols and signs within a text.
  • All media texts are now designed around the idea that audiences will read them in different ways and therefore they can take advantage of that in persuading audiences into thinking certain things about that artist, film etc.
  • The images shown on the Aluna George digipak involve the artists body being shown using minimalistic clothing, this is known as a semic code as it is used to connote a simple meaning to the audience. The name of the album is body music, therefore the artist relates the images to the album name.

1 comment:

  1. Connor, this looks like good analysis, you need to amend the layout however and put in an image of the digipak. I will mark it then

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