Who's poaching who?

From the Blue Man Group: "Right now, there is a virtually invisible network that links together millions of people who would be otherwise be completely isolated form each other. This exciting technology has grown to become an incredibly complex web of connections, that is so large and difficult to track that is would be practically impossible to estimate its total size. And even though most of us live alone in urban isolation, this system represents one of the few ways, all of our lives are intertwined. This system is... modern plumbing."

How about a parallel: Since World War II, American culture has survived multiple protests, the threat of nuclear annihilation from Soviet Russia, and a difficult transition into a new globalized economy. But now, a tide is turning, culture is shifting and attacks are mounted once again. This time, we cannot see the enemies as clearly for they are revolutionaries working from the bottom-up, bent on changing civilization as we know it; these radicals are... fans of the tv show, "Survivor."

Now that I've stolen a page from the blue men, let me proceed to comment on stealing in general. I suppose I am operating under the assumption of an author here, telling you want I want to tell you. I will find some quotes and pictures and "riff" on a few things... then "rip on" a few ideas...maybe rip off some too. However, I am concerned that this assumption is only that - a synthetic a-priori postulation that I in fact control some of the narrative directions of story lines, intentions and the antagonisms that make them go. Here is my question - am I, are you, are we really textual "poachers" in the free associative thinking context that seems to subsume this idea? I fear not (another story brought to you by the machine of late 20th century antihumanist thought). I raise this question for two reasons:

Superficially, with regard to Jenkins, there seems to be a problem squaring the social antagonism of participatory/fan culture with respect to its positive valence as contrasted to the centralized power of corporate media vs. the notion of "free" textual poaching. Antagonisms are structuring operations or conceptual matrixes of understnding, or that which or rather through which understanding is molded, maintained. If Jenkins is right, it seems he is more in line with Stuart Hall - as opposed to dominant readings there might be resistant readings (along with negotiated ones). However, resistance is resistance to something, not the creation of communal participation and the production of an internal aesthetic or logic ex nihilo. If this does in fact arise emergently, then and only then could Jenkins solve his own problem of accounting for a more productive notion of "collective" intelligence (I think Chad is on the right track in terms of calling this collective free labor or a set of skills; I'd say its collective resourcefulness or a mistaking of the immaterial product with the notion of immaterial knowledge).

Secondly then, it seems a fantasy that we are poachers. The lack of developing this idea of idea of intellection come selection and deflection more fully shows, I believe, that Jenkins lacks a nuanced discourse of post-Foucaultian ideology where superstructural elements of micro-resistance (fandom) are already accounted for and networked to produce a cultural episteme. Alas, I rob from a Michel to pay a Mark.