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Palin/Pathos/Peter Griffin: Political Video Remix and Composition Pedagogy
Computers and Composition (2010)
  • Abby Dubisar, Miami University
  • Jason Palmeri, Miami University
Abstract
Political video remix has emerged as an important form of civic action, especially during the recent 2008 election season. Seeking to explore the ways in which political video remix can be integrated into rhetorically-based writing classes, we present three qualitative case studies of students’ composing of video remixes in a fall 2008 course on “Political Rhetoric and New Media.” Drawing on interview data and analyses of student work, we argue that political video remix assignments can potentially 1) enable students to compose activist texts for wide public audiences, 2) heighten students’ understanding and application of key rhetorical concepts, 3) offer an opportunity for students and teachers to explore the delivery and circulation of digital texts, 4) highlight the important roles that parody and popular culture references can play in activist rhetoric, and 5) encourage students and teachers to question the conventional privileging of “originality” in composition classrooms. We also analyze how students’ composing of remixes is influenced by the activist, technological, and popular culture literacies they bring to the classroom.
Keywords
  • remix,
  • composition pedagogy,
  • political rhetoric,
  • multimodal composing,
  • digital video,
  • YouTube,
  • civic participation,
  • popular culture,
  • technological literacy,
  • delivery,
  • parody
Publication Date
April, 2010
Publisher Statement
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Computers and Composition. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Computers and Composition, [27, 2, (2010)] DOI:10.1016/j.compcom.2010.03.004.
Citation Information
Abby Dubisar and Jason Palmeri. "Palin/Pathos/Peter Griffin: Political Video Remix and Composition Pedagogy" Computers and Composition Vol. 27 Iss. 2 (2010)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/abby_dubisar/2/