Media is part of our everyday experience; the Institute for the Future points out, "The millions of users generating and viewing this multimedia content from their laptops and mobile devices are exerting enormous influence on culture". Incidentally, remix can become a powerful tool that allows users to engage simultaneously as consumers and creators. Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear define remix as taking "cultural artifacts and combing and manipulating them into new kinds of creative blends." Inherent in the conversation of remix is the conversation of copyright and all it's legal implications. Larry Lessig, as cited in Knobel & Lankshear, "argues that digital remix constitutes a contemporary form of writing on the scale of a mass cultural practice and raises issues demanding serious reform of current copyright law." For instance, when 10-year-olds are being sued, (as opposed to being encouraged to create and remix culture) there is a serious problem.
Kirby Fergusson, in his TED talk, very eloquently illustrated the idea that everything is a remix. He references a compelling quote from Henry Ford, who once said, "I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable." Fergusson argues that copyright and patent laws are running counter to Ford's notion that we build on the work of others. These laws tend to ignite debate and cultivate standpoints that ideas and works are property to be owned and secured. This is extremely problematic, as it neglects to view ideas as entities that evolve from the minds of many. Fergusson encourages society to embrace remix as a form of creative expression, as "our creativity comes from without, not from within. We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another, and admitting this to ourselves isn't an embrace of mediocrity and derivativeness. It's a liberation from our misconceptions" and an exciting realization that we can be readers AND writers, consumers AND producers.
It is imperative that society comes to understand that remix is not piracy. Remix is not stealing content from others and disseminating it without the permission of the creator. Remix is not claiming ownership over someone's ideas (whose ideas really only exist from the evolution of other ideas). As Lessig says, remix is about "people taking and recreating using other people's content, using digital technologies to say things differently." In fact, remix has become a means of creative expression among youth of today. Remix has empowered voice and has, in essence, become, as Lessig says, "a literacy for this generation… [for people to] participate in the creation and recreation of the culture around us." Furthermore, Michele Knobel & Colin effectively illustrate that remix is inherently endless "in the sense that each new mix becomes a meaning-making resource for subsequent remixes… [and, therefore] expands the possibilities for future remixes."
To me, remixing necessitates the application of both knowledge and the 7 C's of 21st Century Learning that Jenn and I are researching for our class project. How?
- Curate: the collection of various media
- Collaborate: build upon the ideas of others
- Communicate: their message to others
- Connect: their thinking with the thinking of others and discover meaningful connections between different media
- Citizenship: ethical use of media and the ideas of others
- Critically think: inquiry, analysis and synthesis of information, examining how pieces fit together, problem-solving, examining one's consumption and creativity
- Create: blending everything together to create a remix (not a clone)
I would like to feature a couple remixes in this blog post to illustrate the 7 C's in motion. Jonathan McIntosh created a very popular remix entitled “Buffy vs. Edward”. He used the power of remix to expose gender representation in media. He mashed together scenes from Twilight, featuring a creepy, possessive, and domineering Edward, that tends to perpetuate gender stereotypes of women in passive, dependent roles; in contrast, he mashes scenes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, featuring Buffy in an independent, powerful female role. In essence, McIntosh was able to challenge culture through the powerfully contrasting remix. If you are interested in reading more about McIntosh's purpose and his reflections for this digital remix, you can read more here. You can also check out the video below:
McIntosh's video got me to thinking about a remix I did for an undergrad Social 9 lesson plan in 2005. I didn't realize at the time that I was, in fact, "remixing", but my purpose was to (like McIntosh) draw attention to gender stereotypes in mainstream media by using scenes from popular movies and television shows that sharply contrasted with one another. I did this through the structured inquiry process of concept attainment, wherein students compare and contrast examples that contain the attributes of the concept with examples that do not contain those attributes. In the video below, I provided examples of traditional/biased gender roles (labelled "Yes") and non-examples of gender roles (labelled "No"). The students were to then guess what the topic of the lesson was, followed by a discussion and activity. When watching, keep in mind this was me playing with my video-editing skills over 10 years ago. #myskillshaveimprovedsincethen
If you have the time, I strongly recommend that you watch Brett Gaylor's RiP! A Remix Manifesto, which explores the "war of ideas" and the Internet as the battleground. It examines the creative process over the product and the divide between those who view their ideas as personal property and those who want to share their ideas to contribute to, and enhance, the creative process. You can check it out below:
Questions:
Does copyright limit creativity?
Can you still be creative when integrating the ideas of others?
How can we, as educators, support remix as a literacy?
Does copyright limit creativity?
Can you still be creative when integrating the ideas of others?
How can we, as educators, support remix as a literacy?
Below are a couple more neat examples of remixes:
A critique of the way Arabs are negatively portrayed in the media.
A Disney princess remix that explores what happens after ever after.
And a couple funny examples: