Vidding: Remix as Affective Media Literacy

Abstract

This essay explores the relationship between contemporary remix culture and inherited traditions of fan authorship: more specifically, fan-created music videos or “vids” and the practice of vidding. Through the individual and collective process of vidding, fans showcase their own media literacy, educate their viewers about how to read media, and demonstrate how to engage with and speak back to media and culture. Vids model an affective transmedia literacy, a mode of reading that is simultaneously investigative, critical, and engaged.Cet article explore les rapports entre la culture contemporaine du remix et les pratiques de création de fans, et tout particulièrement les « vids », des montages vidéo musicaux créés par des fans. Au moyen de ces processus de création individuels et collectifs de « vids », des fans exposent leur propre « culture médiatique », transmettent aux spectateurs de leurs oeuvres des façons d’observer les médias de manière critique et démontrent comment interagir avec les discours culturels et médiatiques. Les « vids » constituent un modèle d’interaction affective avec les pratiques et la consommation médiatiques, un mode de lecture à la fois investigateur, critique et engagé

Remix in the age of ubiquitous remix

“…If the aesthetic remix is associated with professionals, then the communicative remix is associated with folk expression. We can see this in how, for example, fanvids are discussed -as part of a critical tradition where vidders juxtapose different aspects of source texts to say something about them (Coppa, 2008;Kuhn, 2012;Stein, 2014). They are commentary on the original texts, designed for fellow fans who recognize the context that the vidders are drawing on and can follow the points that they make.…”

Rethinking participatory video in the times of YouTube

“…The arrival of digital culture has therefore marked a shift from a relatively inaccessible niche culture, to the center of a visible and accessible digital hub: it means that what vids are, who they are for, and what they do has changed dramatically in the past decade, a change that continues today. (Stein, 2014)…”