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Articles Conference Reviews |
I.35 Political Video RemixI.35 Palin/Pathos/Peter Griffin: Political Video Remix and Rhetorical Pedagogy Palmeri, Dubisar, and Kostyo’s integrated panel provided three different perspectives on a video remix assignment in Palmeri’s political rhetoric and new media course, which is also the subject of Palmeri and Dubisar’s forthcoming article in Computers and Composition. Jason Palmeri, “Video Remix and Civic Engagement: Reaching Audiences beyond the Classroom” Palmeri began by discussing how his class picked up on video remix during the fall of 2008, when it became a popular means of political expression during the presidential election. The students in the class kept their own political blogs, where they connected rhetorical ideas from their readings with contemporary events. They also discussed fair use standards and best practices for using others’ material in their videos. Palmeri then described the assignment in his class, which asked each student to “create a remix of a political speech or other form of political discourse” and to write a reflective paper on their video projects. Abby Dubisar, “Re-seeing Ancient Rhetoric: Video Remix and/as Rhetorical Analysis” Dubisar conducted research on Palmeri’s class, interviewed students and looked at their writing over the course of the semester. She discussed two student videos in detail, reflecting on their invention process, composition choices, and the online reception of their videos. One student video reflected on the Republican National Convention and energy policy, and the other considered commonplaces about America used by a number of different politicians. Dubisar argued that as writing instructors we should recognize and value the role that parody and pop culture references can play in digital activist rhetoric. We should craft flexible assignments and activities that account for the diverse technological literacies that students bring to the class, and we should imagine remix a research, where students pair video remix activities with rhetorical analysis and reflective writing. Stephen Kostyo, “The Politics of Entertainment: Perspectives of a Student Activist” The final speaker on this panel, Kostyo, a political science and economics major in Palmeri’s class, discussed his remix video. He noted how the themes of the class influenced his video project, which used Seth MacFarlane’s voice of Peter Griffin from Family Guy to read Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. Kostyo took the MacFarlane audio and combined it with clips from the original interview and footage of Peter Griffin from the televisions show to make it look as if Couric had interviewed Griffin. Kostyo described his creation of an enthymeme to link Palin to Peter Griffin. Kostyo was also an expert at circulating his video in online spaces, and he placed links to his video on blogs, Facebook political groups, Family Guy fan club groups, and chose keywords for tagging the video to draw users to his page. Palmeri ended the panel by arguing that video remix has the potential to teach students about rhetoric and to reach audiences outside of the classroom. He suggested instead of privileging originality in new media compositions, we should instead focus on the creation of effective messages. The video remix assignment demonstrated how the strategic use of popular culture content can be more effective for certain audiences. |