Discipline—It's a “Good Thing”: Rhetorical Constitution and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

Abstract

This essay argues that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) taps into existing postfeminist cultural trends to produce a powerful “constitutive rhetoric” which contributes to the development of subjects who: (1) are domesticated and exercise self-discipline, (2) valorize the home and understand it as a therapy center, and (3) are accustomed to self-expression through consumer purchases. The essay explores the rhetorical techniques MSLO employs to constitute its audience and suggests the implications for women of accepting the subject positions offered by MSLO.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 14 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.