Though they define assemblage and remix differently, they use the terms more or less synonymously. However, they make the following claims about assemblage and remix:
- “remixed artifacts are everywhere, all around us, and not just in popular culture. We want teachers to start seeing assemblages as a valid and valued form of student writing—and of writing in general” (380)
- “we must recognize that previous discourse always-already shapes and constrains the activities of writers, that there is no neutral, non-regulated space from which to begin a writing activity” (381)
- “As rhetorical objects, assemblages—a powerful form of rhetorical invention—are themselves open to association and remixing into other assemblages in other contexts by other writers and readers” (388)
- There are “skills called on by remixing: decisions about how to frame, re-frame, modify, and hide various aspects of pre-existing scenes…[C]reating assemblages requires the same rhetorical sophistication as any text: One must do much more as a designer than download templates and replace their placeholder items with real content” (391).
- “the designs on which assemblages are based introduce another element into the rhetorical situation, making that situation all the more complex and challenging” (391)
- “those designs themselves often derive from conventional practices that cannot be attributed to a single person or project—practices that, in a very real sense, reside in the public domain, the commons” (391).
- “many assemblages make their borrowings explicit or obvious, even trading on their connections to other work” (391).
- “the communities that support assemblage practices encourage exchange and re-appropriation” (391).
- “An important premise of our argument is that an assemblage can only be assessed in context. Comparing an ‘original’ text to its ‘remixed’ counterpart is less important than understanding how the remixed artifact was redesigned for the new context or how the redesigned artifact is performing in that context. This perspective locates value in what works for people in problem solving situations” (387)
Genre: “one function of genre is to illuminate the domesticated nature of social interactions, to organize the predictable and recognizable aspects of routine communication” (387)
Key Terms
- Assemblages: “texts built primarily and explicitly from existing texts in order to solve a writing or communication problem in a new context” (381)
- Remix: “assemblages of variously sourced media into new texts” (392)