Week One Reading Response: STARS, Dyer

Throughout this week’s reading of Richard Dyer’s STARS, I had to laugh at myself for having shamelessly fallen prey to the studio and star's tricks throughout my life. Proving Balasz's point, I am that girl that fell in love with James McAvoy, not because he’s cute (I didn’t originally think so), but because of the way his eyes welled up in a close up in Penelope.
Reading about all the power and manipulation of personas lead me to thinking about Dayan's article "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema." Pardon the incredible simplification, but Dayan wrote about the relationship between an audience and the set up of a movie theater (where the projector is, shot-reverse-shot, etc). In the proper set up, the system of suture could "tutor" audiences and subtly change their ideologies.
I thought about that reading because that theater set up explains a lot of attachment and influence (also carried on in Baudry's "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus"). But with Stars, a lot of the manipulation and power that this week's reading discussed (our identification with, how values are reafirrmed/deconstructed, etc) was happening outside of the theater. What is the psychological relationship between a reader and a fan magazine or gossip blog? Is there a proper "set up" to best manipulate?
One thing is clear, we are influenced by stars outside of the movie theater (fashion - Victoria Beckham, behavior - Lindsay Lohan, values - Angelina Jolie). Did the attachment have to start with that close-up in the theater or could reading about a person be enough identification to create a fan? How is that "read" identification different than what is achieved in a theater? Economically speaking, should studios take into account how big a star is via people reading about them vs people watching their films? Think about Lindsay Lohan...I read about her on a regular basis but I don't go see her movies.