Palin/Pathos/Peter Griffin: Political Video Remix and Composition Pedagogy

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.