Week 1--Barker, Chapter 2 (Productive Consumers)

We are moving from an era of pessimism and skepticism in politics and economics to one of optimism in the increasingly autonomous and democratic market of ideas and goods. This recent explosion of “texts” that has taken place (i.e. the internet) has served to demonstrate more clearly than ever before just how much the determination of meaning is performed by the consumer, as Hall suggests. The almost limitless raw cultural material we now have access to ensure an exponential number of meanings. The means of production are being found to not be in the hands of oppressive forces beyond ourselves, but within us. We are becoming convinced that if we are being oppressed as consumers, for the most part, it is because we choose to be so.