Supplemental Post #1-Tiana Williams

**Disclaimer: Below is a somewhat random string of thoughts that are somewhat undeveloped but also correlated in my brain***

Oulette/Hay’s reading for this week provided an interesting framework for us to think about audience participation; with the transition from on-demand watching that provided networks the ability to track viewer habits to the current landscape in which we find ourselves with streaming platforms that are never-ending. But most notably, I found it interesting that Oulette/Hay’s construction/formulation of what entails audience participation focuses on less (while also more) interactive forms than what was covered in our week on audience, (particularly with the discussion of fan sites and TWop), as well as its specific look at the close ties between public and private enactments of “democracy.” Specifically, Oulette/Hay’s approach to situate audience participation/interaction within the workings of a neoliberal ideology was extremely illuminating for me, especially in chronicling the role of reality TV in replicating political processes that produce social inequities. Along with other string of thoughts that this reading brought to mind, Oulette/Hay’s discussion of television and its role in the political process made me think of the “advent” of technology's influence on electoral politics—for instance the impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats (via radio) and the first televised presidential debate in 1960 (which is historically credited to have been a strong deciding factor in JFK’s victory). 

 Strings/Bui argued in their text on gender and racial realness in Ru Paul’s Drag Race that authenticity and “realness” equate a sense of familiarity with specific racial representations that need not be contested within drag culture (while gender as a social construction is demystified), and this reading in relation to Oulette/Hay's text brought up this question of authenticity within the political arena —for the individuals in the Oulette/Hay reading that stated that their American Idol vote had more weight than their presidential vote in the election, I started to wonder how TV

“democratic processes” foster the "illusion" of impact as a result of the voting process. As stated in the

Oulette/Hay reading: “by enacting democracy through private associations only certain citizens/members get

to operate these technologies and to vote on who is included and who is excluded” (216), as seen most notably

with mishaps in American Idol call-in voting processes. Outlette/Hay draw connections between TV networks'

voting processes and the often racist, classist, and sexist disenfranchisement processes of U.S. national/local

governments that are still ongoing today, but perhaps in more obscure ways.