Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 60

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Popular Culture Review

communication. In fact, the MSLO is using mediated interpersonal communication.
Mediated interpersonal communication describes the use of personal computers
and messaging systems to mimic interpersonal mediated communication. Mediated
interpersonal communication is, in fact, a sophisticated form of narrowcasting and
employs the strategies of parasocial communication to heighten the illusion of
interpersonal mediated communication. The Web site user does not e-mail Martha
Stewart, the person, but e-mails MSLO. Martha Stewart, the person, does not email individuals; MSLO uses a global messaging protocol to e-mail Web site users.
The parasocial relationship can be described as follows. The Web site visitor
“knows” Martha Stewart through her magazine, books, radio and television shows.
Over the years, she has offered consumers a continuing relationship with herself
(Horton and Wohl 187). The MSLO expansion to electronic media, paired with the
syndicated newspaper column, means that Martha Stewart’s “appearance is a regular
and dependable event, to be counted on, planned for, and integrated into the routines
of daily life” (Horton and Wohl 187). This regularity of appearance, paired with “a
general propaganda” (192) on behalf of Martha Stewart, has been generated by
MSLO and the mass communication industry. Over time, Martha Stewart has also
shared with her audience her public and private life by shooting her television
show and specials in her own home. Horton and Wohl claim that this type of
continued association with a media personality “acquires a history, and the
accumulation of shared past experiences gives additional meaning to the present
performance” (187). Therefore, we trust the “advice” Martha Stewart dispenses
about cooking and decorating and gardening.
Martha Stewart, in turn, “knows” her visitors by tracking their visits to her
Web site. The first time Web site visitor is asked to provide a demographic profile.
On each subsequent “visit” to the site, the visitor is urged to enter the sweepstakes.
Each time the sweepstakes entry is registered, a nugget of demographic information
is added to the user’s profile.
This information, consequently, can be used to generate and refine e-mail
invitations to shop with Martha Stewart. In the parasocial relationship, the audience
must be “coached” to form a bond of intimacy with the media personality and to
exhibit correct responses to the media personality (Horton and Wohl 191-192).
The expected responses include assuming a deferential, reciprocal relation toward
the media persona. MSLO appears to follow Horton and Wohl’s description of
parasocial interaction as they strive to create “an appropriate tone and patter” (189)
in both electronic and print media. This helps to “eradicate, or at least to blur, the
line which divides” (189) Martha Stewart from her target audience.
The appropriate tone and patter of parasocial relationships can be easily
observed by examining the MSLO Web site. Initially MSLO invited users to “visit
us on-line—you’ll learn something new every day.” MSLO welcomed the user