...the remixing ethos...
Remixing of content—the creative process of reappropriating previous physical and digital media—has been one of the major driving forces behind the rise of internet culture and content. User-created memes, fan fiction, mashups, and the like have been shaping the way students view their world, but more importantly they have been shaping a new definition of what it means to be creative. Whether they know it or not, students are creating complex products that have layers of information that build into something greater than just reappropriation.
Instead of discouraging an action that is often seen as unethical, schools should embrace remixing as a method of creation. Narrative connections and patterns appear when movies are specifically cut together to illustrate a theme, and seemingly disparate pictures can tell one story, even if taken by different photographers. Students should be practicing this skill—the intellectual challenge of trying to make something new out of an existing property is in many ways harder than creating something from scratch, and this can lead to substantive thinking that transcends the original material. And what exactly is original anymore? Students are creating fascinating things on their own time; it is time that schools take that enthusiasm and gear it towards the greater (intellectual) good.
