“Media audiences must not simply buy an isolated product or experience but rather must buy into a prolonged relationship with a particular narrative universe, which is rich enough and complex enough to sustain their interest over time and thus motivate a succession of consumer choices” (Jenkins 553).

This quote struck me because I am one of the many audience members that does buy into this prolonged relationship. I will my love of the “Harry Potter” story as an example. I read the first book shortly after it came out due to hearing through word of mouth etc how good it was. After I read the first page of the first book I was hooked. I could not put the book down and could not wait until the following ones in the series came out. Now I didn’t stand in line at midnight the day of a new book’s coming to stands, but I did buy it within the first day or two of its premiere. Then the Harry Potter movies started to come out and so of course I had to go and see them. Same thing happened with the movies; I was hooked after the first five minutes and needed to see the next one immediately. The media did a great job of having a cycle going with the advertisement of the books and the movies. The timing worked out well because the books usually came out in the beginning of the summer and the movies came out right around Christmas time. People were not having to wait too long to get what they wanted, but they had to wait long enough that they would get a little antzy and the media’s solution to this was to sell little souvenirs in this time gap.

The media wants their audience to always be thinking about what’s coming next and to want to hold onto that through buying things to “tide them over” until the big show comes on. Pointless items such as t-shirts with characters from the movie on it, or boardgames that are still the same except they have these character’s pictures on them. They always need you thinking about what you’re going to buy next and make you believe that even though it may be overpriced, or a waste of money it’s okay because it’s part of the experience.