Jenkins (2002) writes on p. 1
"If the current media environment makes visible the once invisible work of media spectatorship, it is wrong to assume that we are somehow being liberated through improved media technologies." What is your opinion about this statement? Please use a maximum of 250 words.

I think that spectators are indeed becoming more and more visible, but it’s a little farfetched to say that audiences are being liberated. I for one do not feel that I am ‘liberated’, even though I have been a spectator for let’s say twenty years. When I was younger, I was really active as a viewer/user/spectator, writing fan fiction for films and TV, making websites for TV shows and more of that. But now I’m older I don’t have the time anymore to be that active with texts. So I for one have become more passive as an audience. But I don’t know if that goes for the lion’s share of the audience. Of course it’s true that audiences today have a greater influence in what is shown on TV or in the cinema than people used to have in the beginning of film and TV. Media technologies certainly played a big part in making audiences become active and aware of the new possibilities. But I wouldn’t go as far as to say that we are being liberated. I would rather say we’re being acknowledged and more respected than we used to.

The assigned post for me to respond to:

“Well, without elaborating (because this is a post to check the system) I would argue that this is not the case. The improved media technologies are responsable for the co-producing audience we discussed during the previous class. They allow better manipulation, duplication, distribution, connectivity etc. that have helped form our "Participatory Culture". I think there is some liberation in that...”

I think there is some truth in this post. It basically says that it is liberating to participate. So by being creative with offered texts, you can develop your own ideas and be constructive with something that someone else started. I think ‘liberating’ or ‘being liberated’ is a difficult term to use in this context. I points to suppression and I think that in the days of the hypodermic needle theory that was partly true, as it was believed that everyone took the message of the text for granted. You could say that you were being suppressed by the dominant ideology of the text. Nowadays, in participatory culture, you can give your own meaning to texts and do with it what you want. So in that way you have been liberated. But that all depends on if you believe that there ever was such a thing as the hypodermic needle theory...