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By Any Media Necessary: Mapping Youth and Participatory Politics

Conversation Starter Topic: Remix in the Digital Age

How can appropriating and remixing content from popular culture lead to new kinds of political consciousness? And, how do activists who appropriate and remix existing media in their campaigns resolve issues around copyright? These are the sorts of topics that prompted the Remix conversation starter video collaboration with Hit Record.

We are seeing examples of the merging of the identities of fans and citizens across a range of political movements -- most spectacularly in our work through the Harry Potter Alliance and the Nerdfighters, but also in the use of remix for political expression via the Occupy Wall Street movement (like the Pepper Spray Cop memes), the protests against Gov. Walker in Wisconsin, “Binders Full of Women” during the 2012 Presidential Campaign, and the use of the Guy Fawkes mask, most closely associated in the United States with V for Vendetta, by a range of activist groups, including Anonymous.

Remix promotes a mode of political speech that can be easy to understand, funny and powerful. It contrasts with the policy wonk language that often excludes youth from meaningful participation. Within this context, copyright can be seen as “private censorship” that silences a particular kind of expression. Creative activists need to understand the basic criteria of Fair Use and make informed choices as they quote and circulate pre-existing media. Diving into these complex issues with your organization, community or students can open up many opportunities for meaningful learning. This video is meant to be a starting place and jumping off point. More context, resources and topics to consider are provided below.

Questions you can ask to get a conversation about remix started in your community

Have you ever remixed anything when you didn't technically have the right to do it?
Describe the project and explain why you embarked on this remix project.
Did you consider making an income from this remixed work? Why or why not?
Did you try to contact the author of the work that you remixed? Why or why not?
Has something that you made ever been remixed when you didn't give permission for that to happen?Describe what happened. What were the consequences?
How can remixing make a civic/political statement? When does remix become political or civic?

Suggested key points to include

Understand the concepts and legal doctrines around copyright and fair use and be able to recognize work that is transformative and/or offers a unique critique or perspective not present in the original source
Understand the historical context of ‘remix’ as it relates to cultural and creative evolution
Emphasize the importance of participatory culture and recognize your own rights and abilities to join the larger media conversations
Identify key examples in the realms of music, visual art and video
Understand the links between remix and fan activism

Key term definitions

Remix

Remix is a maker practice used by many individuals and groups featured here. At its most basic level, remix means taking existing content (images, videos, songs, etc.) and transforming that content in some way to create your own work. Many powerful remix works comment on the original work, critiquing it or boosting particular elements, but this is not necessary for a work to be a remix.

Fair Use

A doctrine of copyright law in the United States that protects certain kinds of use and re-use of copyrighted works without permission or consent of the copyright holder. In general, a work will be considered to fall within the guidelines of fair use by assessing several qualities such as: whether it constitutes a significant transformation from the original source material: if it offers a critical commentary not contained by the original work; by how much of the source it uses; what the intent of the new work is and whether it is of a commercial or noncommercial nature; and whether the new work will impede on the value of the original.

Participatory Culture

Participatory culture describes shared activities and social engagements, ranging from fan fiction writing and crafting to gaming guilds, through which people collectively carve out a space for cultural expression and learning. Such groups are characterized by “relatively low” barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong social support for creating and sharing and for the development of “voice,” informal practices which provide mentorship and training for would-be participants, and where contributors feel that what they share with each other matters. (Jenkins et. al. 2006)

Fan Activism

Fan activism harnesses fan enthusiasm toward real world change. Jenkins (2012) defines it as “Forms of civic engagement and political participation that emerge from within fan culture itself, often in response to the shared interests of fans, often conducted through the infrastructure of existing fan practices and relationships, and often framed through metaphors drawn from popular and participatory culture.”

Included resources on remix

American University’s Center for Media and Social Impact

Center for Internet and Society

Critical Commons

Jenkins, Henry, and Wyn Kelley. 2013 Reading In a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Jenkins, Henry, Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robison, and Margaret Weigel. 2006. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge: MacArthur Foundation.

Kuhn, Virginia. 2012. "The Rhetoric of Remix." In "Fan/Remix Video," edited by Francesca Coppa and Julie Levin Russo, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 9.

Take It to the Next Level.

If the HitRecord Remix video and information contained here inspired you to action, you may want reach to the original call for submissions that inspired this video to be made in the first place. While the deadline for submissions has expired, you are always free to create your own responses to it!