Professional Documents
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Fan video editors and the strategic
remix of popular culture
Katharina Freund
University of Wollongong
Australia
What are vids?
• Fan-made remix videos
• They appropriate pre-existing film and television
texts and edit them to music
• Vids often convey meanings not intended in the
source material
My research...
• What vids and their (most female) communities
can tell us about how audiences interpret
the media they are presented with
• How new media forms are being utilized to
critique mainstream values in the media
• An exploration of the gendered reading and
creative practices of the vidders to discern the
implications for current concepts of audiences
and online community
Who are the vidders?
• Over 90% female
• Over 82% aged 18-35
• Most probably white, English-speaking, and
from the United States, United Kingdom, or
another Western/European country
Struggle Over Meaning
• Media-savvy female audience consuming media
products mostly created by men
• How the text does or does not provide pleasure /
conform to audience desires
• “Ongoing struggle for discursive dominance”
between fans and producers over control and
desires for the text (Johnson 2007; also Jenkins
1992)
• Fans adapt the text to suit their unique
interpretations and interests
Asserting Control
• “Open-source text” (Hellekson & Busse 2006)
• Taken up and reworked in a postmodern,
multivocal and intertextual fashion (Stasi 2006)
• Vidders use their tech savvy and extensive pop
culture literacy to:
▫ Highlight specific elements
▫ Shift the focus of the text
▫ Invent subtext
▫ Restructure the narrative
▫ Engage in critical commentary
How is this done?
• “The true art lies in the mix” – Manovich 2004