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31 Langer (1997: 167) advances that TV and cinema have different personality systems,
with the star system of cinema maintaining spectacle-at-a-distance and television
providing an idiom of intimacy.
32 Or the reporting of celebrity assassinations. ‘Following John Lennon’s murder, a
teenage girl in Florida and a 30-year-old man in Utah killed themselves. Their suicide
notes spoke of depression over Lennon’s death’ (Meyrowitz, 1994: 64).
33 As Meyrowitz notes, for Mark David Chapman, the murderer of John Lennon, the
killing unravelled a tragic negotiation with his alter ego. Chapman believed he was
Lennon, and emulated him in every way. ‘John Lennon Killed by Stranger’ was the
headline in December 1980, but Meyrowitz points out he was a close media ‘friend’.
‘In a sense, John Lennon was killed by the sinister side of the same force that makes
millions still mourn him and other dead media heroes, a new sense of connection to
selected strangers created by those modern media that simulate the sights and sounds
of real-life interactions’ (Meyrowitz, 1994: 63).
34 When exploring talk shows, it is necessary to acknowledge the variety of formats, includ-
ing therapeutic, confessional, the studio debate between lay people or a panel of experts,
and programmes that draw out conflict between friends and lovers. As Couldry (2003:
120) observes, however, whatever their content, all talk shows have an underlying ritual
form, which is about legitimately entering a television space, to engage in a form of inti-
macy with a broad public which is not possible in any other forum.
35 Certainly this is true of some Net groups, as Willson (1997) narrates. It is worth noting
that virtual community participants often feel the need to reinforce/complement their
disembodied relations by simulating, at the level of ritual, more embodied or sensorial
contacts. For example, participants on the WELL, a virtual community on the Internet,
have regular face-to-face picnics and social gatherings. The participants develop a more
complete understanding of each other at such gatherings (Rheingold, 1994: 21).
36 ‘The emerging info-sphere will make possible interactive electronic contact with others
who share similar interest ... such relationships can provide a far better antidote to lone-
liness than television as we know it today, in which the messages all flow one way and
the passive receiver is powerless to interact with the flickering image on the screen’ (383).