The first word that comes to my mind when I hear “remediation” is the Spanish word remedio, which means remedy -- a medicine, usually an herb, used to heal or repair. The word, remix, on the other hand, is not a word I heard or used growing up. When I was older, remix meant to alter a musical recording by changing the tracks or creating a different version of a musical recording. Hmmm. So in multimodal writing, I wonder, what does remediation mean, and what does remix mean? Are they one and the same?
As we think and rethink our philosophy statements, we have to come to terms with this terminology: remediate and/or remix. This is a scholars’ debate, it seems to me. In my own world, remixing and remediation, which both mean reshaping or recasting are essentially the same thing.
In the article/chapter, “Teaching with Technology: Remediating the Teaching Philosophy
Statement”, Phill Alexander et al, write: “[Teaching Philosophy Statements] are also a genre, and thus bring with them particular moves, conventions, and expectations” (24) … We also discovered that remediation is not remix. This was an important distinction for us to consider as we approached our composing and remediating work. Remix is an act that calls upon composers to mash, mix, and merge separate pieces, often to create new meaning. Remediation, however, is an act that calls upon composers to reflect, resituate, and reshape a piece while moving it to another medium, and often to enhance or expand upon its existing meaning. In this sense, the act of remediation provided a richer space to rethink, revise, and re-media-te our teaching statements” (30).
Hmmm … Re-media-ate … when put this way, does make some sense to me. When placed in a genre category (is this redundant?), as is postulated in this chapter, a reference is made to Peter Seldin and his colleagues, who in an earlier study, Innovative Higher Education, argue that “effective teachers are masters of their subject, can organize and emphasize, can clarify ideas and point out relationships, can motivate students, and are reasonable, open, concerned and imaginative human beings” (p. 1).
So what does all this mean? As I take it, the ubiquitous nature of Teaching Philosophy Statements, makes sense in the alphabetic world. However, as technology alters the way we write, this article/chapter, in my mind, suggests that philosophy statements can be re-media-ated as a multimedia presentations.
