Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 68
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Popular Culture Review
consumer-marketing manager for MSLO. “We’ve developed our site to supplement
each facet of our business and increase our overall revenue and not merely to
establish a presence... when Martha shows how to press flowers using a plant press
on television, we link the program guide for that segment with the actual product
sold in the Martha By Mail Web store” (Spence 27).
Implications for Communication Theory
Gumpert and Cathcart’s view of interpersonal mediated communication does
not encompass e-commerce. Today’s technology is forcing a change in the theory;
Gumpert and Cathcart could not have anticipated the pervasiveness of the personal
computer and messaging systems and the developments in Internet technology.
The multi-functional nature of today’s messaging systems provides organizations
like MSLO opportunities to not merely inform the public, but to engage in strategic
or persuasive communication, even direct sales.
Clearly, interpersonal and mass communication are still inextricably
intertwined, but our individual uses of media have expanded with the increasingly
richer channels available for interpersonal communication. Companies like MSLO
are learning to exploit the nature of personal communication technology. A new
form of communication, mediated interpersonal communication, has emerged. This
is a strategic or persuasive form of communication displaying messages intended
for personal consumption. Messages appear to be personal and individualized when,
in fact, they are merely aimed at a targeted market segment. In the case of MSLO,
the messages are designed to persuade consumers to purchase MSLO merchandise.
This particular company, trading on the personality of CEO, Martha Stewart, is
also able to design messages based on parasocial relationship strategies.
Gumpert and Cathcart posit that our social system is related to our media of
communication and our individual uses of media reflect our need for socialization.
In this critical examination of www.marthastewart.com on-line shopping, the
exploitation of the illusion of interpersonal mediated communication has been
explored. It becomes apparent that our use of media technology may provide us
with the illusion of being part of a community and interacting with friends. In
actuality, we may become isolated and engage in economic transaction rather than
communicative i