sawsaw Jenkins

The quote I found most interesting in Jenkin’s essay was on page 554, “Media consumers want to become media producers, while media producers want to maintain their traditional dominance over media content.” I found this quote to be powerful because it discusses the power struggle between media consumers and media producers. The consumer wants to become the producer but the producer wants to maintain their dominance. A perfect example of this is you-tube. The reason you-tube is so successful is because it allows the consumer to produce anything they want. People are able to produce whatever they find appealing or interesting. Even though you-tube allows the consumer to become the producer, it still maintains the dominance over the content. It can filter any video that is produced and has the power to cut anything it doesn’t like.

This quote reminded me of Poster’s idea of the shift to a decentralized network of communications. He writes on page 540 “The question of the mass media is seen not simply as that of sender/receiver, producer/consumer, ruler/ruled. The shift to a decentralized network of communications makes senders receivers, producers consumers, rulers, ruled, upsetting the logic of understanding of the first media age.” These two quotes are very similar in the idea of mass media changing the roles of producers and consumers.