chill out, Fiske.

This was the first reading I've done for this class that almost completely failed to inspire any kind of response from me. As many others have pointed out, his writing style was very dry, and it was tedious to have to read through so many statistics and facts to reach his points, which sounded like common sense to me anyway. I also disagreed with the way he portrayed malls, as consumer fortresses full of tension and struggle between classes, full of intoxicated, rebellious teenagers trying to wreak havoc. In my experience, the teenagers that hang out at my local malls are simply bored and in need of a place to go to pass the time. If they didn't have malls to hang out at, they could be getting into much worse trouble elsewhere. And I don't think that there is tension between those who come to malls with the intention of purchasing something and those that don't-- malls are set up to encourage that sort of behavior, with large walkways and benches and plenty of places to go even if you're not buying anything. Window shopping and just hanging out aren't crimes, and I don't really understand what about it upset Fiske so much.