The Real Housewives and Citizen Identity

In 2006, Bravo TV (owned by NBC) jump-started a franchise that would soon become its flagship programming. The show was to rip off the then extremely popular and controversial Desperate Housewives drama on ABC. Conceptually, this program was intended to create a low-budget version of the same program, following "real" housewives as opposed to the lives of directly scripted ones played by professional actors. The show was to be titled The Real Housewives of Orange County, and it soon became an expansive franchise spanning multiple cities and casts. As the show progressed, its level of articulation evolved, much due to network executive Andy Cohen's keen eye for irony, camp, and social commentary. This article will explore the Real Housewives phenomenon as it relates ideologically to governmentality.

Governmentality is defined here in accordance with Mitchell Dean's description as an inquisition into the "regimes of practices (or government)," the forces that conduct an agent's, or group of agents, conduct, along with its effect on agency (3). This study encompasses the various spheres in which subjects exist, and the way these regimes relate to each other and establish subjectivity. In terms of reality television, this exploration will seek to understand what The Real Housewives has to say about subjectivity in terms of its messages to an actively engaged audience. Given the fluid nature of media's readings due to temporal and cultural restraints, this essay will focus on what can be derived from the messages encoded by the producers for Bravo's target demographic: socio-economically privileged American viewers, reported to be primarily white women and gay men.

Aligned closely with other shows of its genre, The Real Housewives franchise makes one important distinction: camp. Satirizing every element that makes the genre successful, The Real Housewives carves out a niche for affluent audiences who require a more articulate and less safe embodiment of reality television. It does not differ from other shows such as Jersey Shore and The Real World in that it is a hyperbolic "neoliberal theater of suffering" (McCarthy 19). With a cheeky metanarrative, audiences watch various women (and their families) subconsciously divert their lives from any meaningful course in spite of the abundance of tools to carry out a productive existence. (It is worth mentioning that the cameras create narratives, my implication is not that the real life woman portrayed on this show do not have a productive existence.)

In "the age of scopophilia, voyeurism, and vicarious living" spurred on by a "surveillance culture," Bravo makes sure that we (the audience) are assured a sort of higher existence than these women (Andrejevic
The elements of citizenship examined by each city are varied. Orange County takes on the most obvious: economic class structure. "It's not about how much money you have, it's about how good you look spending it," Lynne dutifully informs us over the show's intro. And spend it they do, right into foreclosures and evictions. But this all takes place as a failure of the subjects to attain a proper level of self-governance required by the neoliberal construct of their own affluent identity (Ouellette and Hay 15). Other explanations ranging from level of education to national economic circumstance are given little credence, as the state (and most cultural institutions) are curiously absent from the equation.

The trials experienced by the privileged members of Orange County serve as a sort of intentional reflexive irony for viewers, as typically problematized issues become problematic only in their distance from the subjects. Season 5 saw Lynne's desire for cosmetic improvement become a running subplot, arguably on-par with the home mortgage crisis also depicted. Her younger daughter literally cries at the thought of her mother changing her appearance, with a confused Lynne wondering aloud why her daughter doesn't want her to be happy. One needn't dig deep to find the irony. Through the metanarrative's dismissal of the daughter, the intent from a production standpoint is to cause an even stronger viewer connection to her suffering while reassuring real "housewives" everywhere that their parenting skills are of Dr. Spock-ian proportions compared to this crazed display.

In a tragi-comedy almost too harsh to elicit a laugh, Lynne is later evicted from her home, and one of her biggest issues with her financially inept husband is why he allowed her to use their dwindling funds for cosmetic procedures, all while this entire family is uprooted with divorce lurking closely behind. This complex interplay between the bio-ethical, economic, and familial forces conflicting with normative behavior serves as a perverse in-joke for the audience. The realization of these complexities can be analyized through the work of Dean: "...Law is transformed from a juridicial system concerned with codifying and expressing a monarch's authority to an instrument of normative order, which is part of complex apparatuses of normalizing practices" (130). The audience becomes a sort of court jester to their own normative jury.

This brings into play an interesting non-character: the state. The construct of the franchise is so insular and neoliberally oriented that the state makes virtually no appearance at all. Extremely underage drunkenness during the fifth season's final episode leads one to wonder how absolutely no one impulsively contacted authorities, especially since their dismissal of the situation was being caught on film. But this is the irony: the cast may legitimately live in a construct as insular as the one mocking itself.

Making an appearance to highlight this insularity is Jeana, the retired housewife. Never having quite fit the cougar mold (to be discussed later), Jeana is fed the hell up. She's rich, and she quit. But there's a catch: Jeanna is (now) stable, happy, and economically savvy, with her most recent choice on her path to redemption being quitting the Housewives. But given she is a real-life neighbor, she drops by from time to time to dole out a bit of sardonic wisdom. Reminiscent of Wynonna Judd (because all wisdom in the World of Bravo comes from individuals pre-packaged for drag queens to honor), Jeana becomes a sort of surveilling agent, a previously involved member who's transcended her place in the hegemonic order to the level of guru. The message is clear, one's agency within the Housewives' parallel universe is static with only two options for escape: failure or transcendence. Either option requires a class shift supported by a neoliberal economic jump, as one is shackled so long as Bravo pays the bills. The freedom is thus in the market.

Echoing Foucault, Ropke points out that competition, while a principle part of the market, "morally and sociologically... dissolves more than it unifies" (Dean 71) As various housewives, specifically in Orange County, fade into oblivion over seasons, it becomes apparent that competition does in fact dissolve. Transcendence requires a subversion of the market, a willingness to live within one's means to a non-competitive level that produces stability. In other words, one must navigate the market without becoming owned by it, as the system in and of itself seems the most dangerous threat to the temporarily privileged "wives" of Orange County as they hang by the thread of the arc that is their celebrity.

This brings us to New York City, where the landscape becomes categorically more complex. For here, economic superiority isn't the goal, it's expected. The American Dream serves as the backdrop for New York's "wives," as their goal isn't mere wealth accumulation, rather success, notoriety, happiness, and all that goes with it. A more human set of individuals, Bravo shows off a higher level of articulation and acknowledges its audience's affluence with New York.

Alex sets the stage during the opening credits by stating flatly: "To a certain group of people in New York, status is everything." Viewers are left to articulate that statement as its incredibly loaded nature becomes apparent over the plot arc. Here, the wives are aware of the delicate state of their agency to a level that could be described as paranoid. They know that Big Brother is watching, and they thoroughly intend to take him on with an army of cougars and gay men if necessary. They embody a post-9/11 subjectivity informed by the information age of the millennials. In a sense, viewers are expected to gaze uncomfortably at a humorous state of affairs that all-too-well mirrors the legitimate one.

Dean continues in the tradition of Foucault to describe the recent trends of what he terms "advanced liberal government":

"We shall see that advanced liberal government endeavors not only... [to] work through the various forms of freedom and agency of individuals and collectives but also deploy indirect means for the surveillance and regulation of that agency" (175).

The Real Housewives of New York City speaks to this advanced liberal government through taking the aforementioned route of dismissing the state for an internal normative sensibility that replaces the judiciary with the populous. Only here, that process seems more representative of the subjectivity one would face under the state, it just happens to not officially be the state.

Possibly the most paranoid of the bunch is Jill Zarin, the boisterous and fiery housewife who's actually a wife and appears to be of credible socialite status without the help of Bravo. However, Jill craves the spotlight, and she also appears to possess a latent fear that her agency is threatened by the very existence of other individuals who posses a social status that is comparable to her own. Social faux paus by the other housewives, such as stopping by Jill's jeweler's place of business without her permission, proves to be a grave error.

For Jill Zarin, her subjectivity is informed by insular possession, be it of lavish clothing, jewlery, and to a startling degree people. Echoing Bush-era foreign policy, Jill sincerely believes that the mere existence of alternate mechanisms of subjectivity are a threat to her own place in the order. Only one housewife will be left standing, and she'll be damned if anyone even considers stepping on her Bravo-coated turf. Her cordiality with the other wives is insistent upon their deference to her. Any show of oppositional thought or action, no matter how minor, renders the speaker an insurgent, no matter how "gorgeous" or "fabulous" they may be (New York City, Seasons 2 and 3). Put simply: In Zarin's world, it's not about climbing the ladder, it's about claiming it.

But Jill Zarin isn't the winner here. Because winning requires not only the aforementioned market transcendence, it also requires socio-cultural transcendence. Jill can economically insulate herself until she's in a padded room, but that's just where she'll end up, a padded room. This is where Bethenny Frankel steps up to the plate. Unlike the other wives, Bethenny is aware of the commodified nature of her existence within the Bravo realm, and she understands its mechanisms.

Currently, the real life Bethenny has achieved the following: a New York Times best-seller book, a successful line of Skinny Girl margaritas, a featured place in PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur Campaign," and most lucratively, her own upcoming television show. She also got married last week. An entrepreneur in every sense of the word, Bethenny navigates her subjectivity by pinpointing, to use the language of Arjun Appadurai, the convergence of mediascapes, technoscapes, and financescapes in such a way that she harnesses them on a microlevel to create her own motif of an ideoscape (Skinny Girl, anyone?) (25).

It is important to recognize these facts about the real-life Bethenny Frankel for the reason that Bravo expects you to. Given its multidiscursive nature, Bravo shows require their characters be read in such a way that viewers recognize their characters actual subjectivity to inform their narrative subjectivity to often humorous or ironic effect. By underhandedly shifting this subjectivity, Bravo is able to establish itself as the governing force, a faux state.

Bethenny's relation to this Bravo universe (within and outside the Housewives text) is an obviously symbiotic one, with her subjectivity bordering on transgressive, if not transcendent, of the given level of agency within the show's confines. She chooses to escape the microcosms of her media to become a sort of reflexively commodified world citizen. And to quote Anna McCarthy:

"Citizenship... is a structure that, like the commodity, normalizes, regularizes, and renders comprehensible or exchangeable a mercurial quality in a system of social relations" (20)

The Bethenny vs. Jill dichotomy informs viewers of their subjectivity, providing a sort of object lesson on how we may choose to interact with the world, either through insular implosion or commodified media-driven freedom. Taking it a step further, one could argue for the erasure of the middle class. There are only the subjects and those who hold the authority and means to rule them.

New housewife Kelly comes within inches of directly stating this during her running season two subplot in which she takes Bethenny to a bar and informs her: "We're not alike! I'm up here! (motion toward invisible roof) And you're down here! (motion toward invisible floor)" (New York City, Season 2). No matter how many times Kelly may attempt to reframe her social faux pas, audiences recall it as one of the most honest moments on reality television in terms of cast relations. And either way, so long as the camera's rolling, it's well established that they're both "down here," dignity only slightly hovering overhead attached to the hip of their transcendent subjectivity.

While Orange County and New York City speak to the realm of economic and social hierarchies informed by acting forces who wish to threaten the agency of the various members, the other cities have a jarringly different focus. These hierarchies are nearly dismissed in the interest of exploring race and ethnicity. But unlike past generations, the construct of race and its problematization takes on a different form in contemporary society. According to Dean:

"...Foucault locates the modern form of racism as a racism of the state in which the notion of race appears as a defence of the life and welfare of the population against internal and external enemies" (119).

But rather than having Bravo, as previously discussed, become that state who inscribes these values, it steps back to become a sort of well-meaning passive observer, a force even more racist than the state. This is done in a manner that could only be described as dismally aloof, to the point that unaccustomed viewers may wonder if it's even intentional. As demonstrated with most things Bravo, a safe assumption would be that it is.

Comedian Margaret Cho says it best: "I'm okay 'til things get racial" (Beautiful, 2010). This is where The Real Housewives of Atlanta step in. Audiences hear the whimsical orchestral score replaced by thumping hip-hop beats, as almost exclusively African-American divas point and bob their heads, offering zingers like, "I'm not keepin' up with the Joneses, I am the Joneses." The images would be less significant were every other set of "housewives" not glaringly white.

From here, audiences should expect that Bravo wants to say something about the way race informs objectivity, and they thoroughly intend to make audiences squirm while they do so. Because these women only really want to know one thing: "Who gonna check me, boo?!" (Season 2, Episode 1). The answer is the notoriously white metropolitan Bravo audience, who are forced to feel a ping of guilt with every chuckle, as these women (supposedly) aren't scripted. To laugh is to reinscribe.

The only white housewife on the show is Kim, and her presentation is significant. For her existence can only be seen as trivial as she lies, drinks, and confuses herself into a spiral that seems to require constant supervision from the other women.

Dean states:

"The real innovation of the study of liberalism as a rationality of government, however, is not the emphasis on the respect for the rights and freedoms of subjects. Rather, it is that the liberties and capacities of the governed are the mechanisms through which an art of government as a comprehensive management of civil society will come to operate" (63).

While Dean is referring the state in a literal sense, the concept transfers remarkably well conceptually to the realm of reality television, where new forms of governance collide with confused subjects forced to navigate a subjective identity with which they are unacquainted. In the case of Kim, the racial relations and understandings are complicated. For the show, while problematizing the stereotypes asserted toward African-American women, gives its white viewers a mirror image. This image not only portrays the audience to itself, but it highlights the supposed frame through which the audience is viewing Atlanta's African-American cast with a sort of "Gotcha!" satisfaction.

Through Kim, some of our most ridiculous stereotypes are brought into full-view. For example, Kim made a foray into music in season one to no avail. Housewife Nene mocked her pitiful vocal performance and the song failed to even garner a release. But not so fast! Season two sees the emergence of a new housewife, Kandi, who just happens to be a superstar producer (writing credits include the TLC mega-hit "No Scrubs"). It is up to this African-American woman to save Kim from her socially detrimental lack of rhythm.

Needless to say, the new song ("Tardy for the Party") under Kandi's supervision becomes an unprecedented success. Funky urban dance production mixed with Kandi's background vocals, propels the song onto the real-life Billboard Charts, transcending the Bravo-universe and entering the consciousness of a public who may not of even heard of these women. All of this while white America watches uncomfortably as some of its deepest stereotypes about African-American subjectivity come to fruition with a wink and smile from a network ready to rub their faces in their own idiocy.

But the discomfort does not end here, for a much more sinister force is lurking nearby, about to peak its head outside of its own network. Because, with Atlanta, Bravo intends to experiment with expansion, taking its subjects to the farthest regions of the media to practice their commentary on cameras across America. Aside from the cross-promotional brilliance of such a system of commodified characters that can exist intermedially, this mechanism allows the franchise to direct the commentary and discourse in any circumstance.

The discussion began on The Ellen Degeneres Show during an interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. During the course of discussion Anderson mentioned his love of Atlanta as Ellen chided him for watching. "Oh, honey," he responded, insisting she just had to watch it. He then got personal, commenting on the drama with Nene, and expressing his borderline condescending love for her.

There was the mistake, as Anderson was obviously clueless as to the actual metanarrative Bravo was intent to articulate, and he played right into the hand, all while Ellen smiled knowingly. Soon after, Nene began making the rounds on television, laughing while innocently dropping little nuggets on various daytime news shows about how she didn't care if he played for "the other team," she still wanted him to call her.

She then took the charade right to CNN's headline line-up under the guise of book promotion (as there is always a commodity excuse for the Housewives permeation of other media fields), recording a segment in which she put on her best racially charged show. "I loveee Anderson Coop-er, he's muh bay-be!" Given his on-screen vilifying of anything and anyone perceived as promoting racial stereotype, she further highlighted the narrative hypocrisy of racial inscription in television news as the segment was broadcast on his own without his pre-approval. (He was on vacation, and his producers handled the segment.) It ended with a somewhat sinister appeal for him to call, lest she "come ov-ah to [his] office" (Anderson Cooper 360, August 12, 2009)

This bare-knuckled approach to multidiscursive satire quickly caught on, because audiences love the spectacle of Nene, while savvy viewers can't help but admire the no-holds-barred performance. And that well describes Nene's subjectivity: empowerment through the satirized performance of racial stereotype for inverse effect. More directly, she is prepared to embarrass the media into equality, while taking on its most respected forms (including news media) to overtly display its racial insulation. Although she prefers a less verbose articulation: "Bam!"

Slightly less overt is the presentation of ethnicity in The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Here, the show reaches an even more complex level of articulation as it appears the cast isn't in on the joke, even complaining on air of their perception as a "mafia family." They're certainly not aided by the show lead-in: "If you're gonna mess with my family, you're messin' with me!"

Here, this stereotype of the Italian-American family is used as a platform for a discussion of self-governance. Anna McCarthy writes:

"As liberal rule increasingly centers on "the conduct of conduct," it resolves problems of despotic governance by transferring the pastoral responsibilities of the state to the self-managing activities of individuals" (25).

There is arguably no better way within media to present the flaws of unrestrained neoliberal identity than through the workings of family structure and ethnic stereotype that aids in the self-governance of familial structure. By satirizing one or the other, both become interlocked in a sort of meta-satire that serves to expose the interacting elements for their groundlessness.

In its debut season, the Real Housewives of New Jersey develops a highly singular focus on the mechanisms of family under threat as housewife Danielle Staub is revealed to be a fraud. An alleged kidnapping extortionist possibly involved in prostitution, Danielle changed her name from Beverly Ann Merrill prior to the show's filming, hence her clean record (The Smoking Gun). All of these facts are "discovered" through the families "investigatin'" into an appropriately titled book: Cop Without a Badge.

The housewives, with only the protection of Bravo, NBC, countless cameramen, producers, and handlers at their side, realize the incredibly unsafe position thrust upon their families by this woman. And they decide something needs to be done. Danielle is considered dangerous, and we know this because the family matriarch found out from the hair salon.

Given the humorous nature intoned to the secret pacts, "investigatin'," and a family that's "thick as thieves," deducing the narrative's opinion of stateless governance isn't a daunting task. The imminent perception of danger highlights the fact that "the transformation of sovereignty provides the condition for the emergence of the liberal problematic of security" (Dean 129). No matter how hard they try, these badge-less cops are ultimately unable to secure their own environments from the sinister Danielle, as the series closes on her smoking a cigarette while uttering threatening words about the housewives to her children.

The limited power exercised by the woman draws to an implosive close as Teresa, at the dinner table with Danielle, has a nervous breakdown. She begins screaming, and hitting the the table, before letting out a final: "PROSTITUTION WHORRRRRRREEEEEEE!" And with that, she throws the table, along with the other woman's buff nineteen-year-old son who attempts to restrain her. Her only question afterward for her husband (whom she calls "Juicy"): "Did I look hot?"

This brings out an interesting point also about the patriarchal structure illuminated by the show, as the women's disempowerment stems as much from their gender construct as it does from their lack of state authority, as attempts to subvert Danielle's dastardly deeds fail miserably.

Kathy Griffin articulates it well:

"I thought it was going to be a sweet and innocent series about a nice mafia family... Turns out the whole show is about a dude named Danielle." (from Suckin' It for the Holidays)

Granted, Danielle's empowerment is shown to be the product of a particularly unchecked liberation. She invites men over to pleasure her, makes her own money, and raises children without a father figure. But her liberation is of a twisted sort, for she uses it only to the detriment of society at large, akin to Basic Instict's Katherine Trammel. One could draw comparisons of her liberty to the unchecked nature of the American financial markets and their eventual implosion.

But each of these housewives are connected by a strong thread: Bravo network VP and "bravolebrity" Andy Cohen, the gay "Professor of Pop." Akin to Ryan Seacrest, Andy Cohen exists outside of the narratives in which he participates to lend them a level of coherency they may otherwise lack.

In Orwellian terms, Andy is the Big Brother that no one is watching. The Housewives seemingly take no notice of his authoritarian role within the construct. And why should they? He's a sweet-natured, smiling, well-dressed gay chat host always there to lend a tissue to the weeping, and quickly enough the weeping will fail to notice he's simultaneously recording them with every digital media device at his disposal. As the host of all the Housewives reunion shows, Andy is presented as the force that brings the Bravo family together. If it just happens to disintegrate on live television to the amusement of millions of viewers, well, that's just a convenient by-product of human social interaction.

To the audience, Andy is the magician, the narrator, the guru. Unlike hosts such as Ryan Seacrest, he posses an ideological base that makes him accessible and interesting. He makes the innerworkings of his own network and personal life just transparent enough to realize that in the end, his commentary is in good fun, mere tongue-in-cheek reflexivity. Without this transparency, the network decisions made could possess qualities of cynicism and danger that may make audiences uncomfortable.

But as Andy dutifully hops on the web and answers viewer mail with his winning grin, good-naturedly jabbing at himself every so often in a seemingly self-depreciating manner, audiences can take comfort that he's their (eerily corporate) friend. It is impossible not to draw a mental comparison to the current administration's handling of national affairs, along with its Chief Executive's manner of image management and PR.

This construct of the Housewives, Andy Cohen, and the Bravo network speaks largely to this generations conceptualizations and understandings of reality in terms of the special, as "imagined worlds have become a vital part of the global economy," while the soft power exerted by shows could be said to embody an underhanded governance, possibly embodying "Foucault's understanding of governing at a distance" (Appadurai, 25; McCarthy, 25).

As each series of Housewives takes on a different element of citizenship, we are given a three-month long case study on the inverse of the course of action we should take when confronted with the same problematic identity crises. While we root for the Housewives eventual redemption, in the end it is more political than their individual narratives. It's a case for survival, a sort of commodified behavioral guide to the technologically inclined generation, reverse etiquette guide, lifestyle guide, health guide, etc.

While the Housewives serve as our reflexive identity lesson in civic behavior, Andy Cohen acts as our normative force, a completely non-state normative force who takes us through the steps of digesting the on-screen information in a way that reads clearly to the audience but possibly not so clearly to the gaggles of "wives" paraded through his "Bravo Clubhouse."

Part of this exercise relies on our economical disparity from the Housewives, as the wealth on constant display in the show proves to be a debilitating force with which viewers do not have to suffer. One has to imagine that Andy Cohen is richer than all of these women, but that doesn't matter, because his chosen identity aligns itself with ours. He broadcasts from a "clubhouse," gives out prizes on his show no more expensive than a t-shirt (often the item is a "Mazel" t-shirt, and lives to assure us that the world is full of rich "jackholes" unworthy of his coveted "Mazel!").

All of these events are framed in a temporal was as what is happening. Cohen's talk-show title invites us to Watch What Happens: Live!, and viewers can be assured a reduction in their pop-culture agency if they should choose to ignore its professor. And unlike every other late night talk-show, Cohen has perfected the mode of commodification in such a way that viewers could easily watch a full episode without noticing that the entire half-hour has been an advertisement for something larger than a mere product.

But the reason for the disjuncture is that unlike shows advertising to us, fetishizing the consumer, Bravo invites a sort of joint investment in which the principle currency is time devoted, for "neoliberalism does not offer an efficient platform for capital accumulation" (Saad-Filho and Johnston 5). Instead of encouraging us to buy products directly, Bravo merely advertises itself, allowing the advertisers who advertise on the show to commodify the consumer, for Bravo respects the consumer too much to commodify her/him. Effective on a micro-level, such a system would surely result in an erasure of capitalism if practiced universally.

But Bravo has plenty to sell us, just not as "Bravo." For the "housewives" may as well bear seals reading "Property of NBC Universal," as they serve as the personal means of production. Never Make the Same Mistake Twice by Nene Leaks, Class with the Countess by LuAnn DeLesseps, "Tardy for the Party" by Kim Zolciak, "Fly Above" by Kandi Buress, Skinny Girl margaritas by Bethenny Frankel, She by Sheree clothing line, Closet Freak clothing by Lisa Wu Hartwell. Through a complex cycle of advertisement, our subjectivity in relation to the world of Bravo relies on our connectedness to it, and how can we be connected if we do not engage the products that inform the Bravo existence?

The most important facet is that we are not sold these products by Andy Cohen, as his consumer status is somehow relative to ours in the grand scheme of narrative framing exercised within the Bravo universe. The network exercises through its Housewives "strategic games between liberties" in "politically oriented action" that seeks to redefine our subjective experiences as consumers and viewers (Dean 250).

At the risk of making this process read negatively, it is important to note that the complicated dance between Bravo and consumers with the Housewives at its crux is (probably) not a bad thing. It rather speaks to the democracy within media constructs when viewers choose to exercise their subjective liberties on the media. By problematizing and complicating the relationship between the means of production and the consumer, Bravo has recognized that its viewing audience possesses a heightened savvy that requires the attention of advertisers should they wish to retain this set of buyers.

What individuals like Andy Cohen tell us through The Real Housewives is that the days of Donald Trump-ian boardroom antics that result in mind-numbingly stupid programming, along with executive underhandedness in media, is slowly disintegrating, as Big Brother now represents a complex relationship in which the previously governed are now capable of surveilling the previous governing, causing a level of symbioses in the consumer/producer relationship that should prove beneficial to the entire democratic process. And through the Real Housewives phenomenon, one can recognize the progresses made in this viewer arc in a new age of media and information technologies as consumers of media finally begin to recognize and harness their own agency.

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