From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative

“Remediation” is a media theory which focuses on the incorporation or representation of one medium in another medium. According to the book Remediation: Understanding New Media by J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin, remediation is a defining characteristic of new digital media because digital media is constantly remediating its predecessors. This theory states that the media’s existence is related to other media forms; it is fundamentally comparative and assumes that media does not possess autonomous formal or technical specificity, but that it exists only in relation to other media forms and practices. Remediation may or may not present a connection to the original source. The theory also argues that new media does not present a historical break or rupture with the past, but rather it defines their newness through the refashioning of the present media forms. ^[1]

Remediation:Understanding New Media text by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin ^[2]

History

Media has always been ever changing, remediation only contributing to this idea. Remediation does not limit itself to digital technologies: it stems from changing an original work into an entirely new medium, even something like making a film based on a book. Historically, remediation has been present for generations, bringing itself into a new light in the digital world of today. For multimodal writers, remediation has always been essential. Writing for a newspaper, for example, in the 1940’s, would require remediation, just as being a journalist today does, just on a different scale, and in a very different way. The development of technology itself also stems from remediation; touch-screen tablets, hypertext citations and video recording smart phones have all been developed to continue to accommodate society’s pace in the consumption of media. ^[3]

Bolter and Grusin argue that the history of media in general stems from the attempt to create technologies which are more and more lifelike, removing the technology itself from the presence of the media. This idea dates back to even painters during the Renaissance: their concepts of linear perspective and light shading made their works much more realistic, and used oil paint in order to mask the brush strokes from the painting. Bolter and Grusin also mention other forms of media, such as photography, film, 3D digital animation, and virtual reality which continue the idea behind remediation: ultimately eliminating the interface which lends to a distorted perception of the thing. ^[4] Each new technology comments on the shortcomings of its predecessors: photos are more accurate than a painting, film’s dynamic aspects offer more than a still photo, etc. Because of remediation, creators and users of media have accepted the duality of transparency and opacity; rather than find a way to completely erase itself, media continues to capitalize on these two clashing ideas. ^[5]

Ideas Behind Remediation

Hypermedia and Immediacy

Hypermediacy is the notion that one can experience a form of media while being aware of not only the media being presented, but also the interface on which the media is seen. It incorporates these two layers, and is usually how all digital media is presented: the author and the user both understand and accept this concept. Immediacy, on the other hand, is full immersion into the medium; it is defined as a "style of visual representation whose goal is to make the viewer forget the presence of the medium (canvas, photographic film, cinema, and so on) and believe that he is in the presence of the objects of representation" ^[6] There is a co-dependent relationship between hypermedia and immediacy. In the Bolter and Grusin article, "Remediation", one of the ideas is that “the desire for immediacy leads to a process of appropriation and critique by which digital media reshape or ‘remediate’ one another and their analog predecessors such as film, television, and photography.” ^[7] Immediacy is the catalyst for the reshaping of digital media, but the desire for immediacy comes from the current form of medium. Immediacy is remediated when people crave for immersion into the medium. The closer the medium is to generating reality, the more content users are.

Inventing the Medium

Janet Murray, author of “Inventing the Medium,” defines remediation as the phenomenon of reproducing the conventions or content or both of one medium in another. ^[8] New media relies on old media, and they influence each other in many ways. Murray discusses the issues with remediation in our society. For example, authors and creators are not satisfied with remediating by simply repeating the old format in a new digital form, as this is a weak way to remediate: “We cannot be satisfied with just reproducing older information formats in digital form, settling for mere remediation of the textbook, the lecture, the broadcast TV show, the paper newspaper.” Designers create new media by thinking about the user. They think about what they would want to change with the current forms of media and what they want to bring over into the next form of media. The second issue is about boundaries of technology and of the projects themselves, and this leads to taking smaller steps in order to develop a future and more drastically different version. ^[9] A designer might have good ideas for ways to remediate information, but they can only design within the limits of technology, so they make multiple goals and plans in case technology moves in a different direction. Murray also says that the theory of remediation, advanced by Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin, defines a “new media” which always reconfigure older media, and emphasizes that digital forms both borrow from and seek to suppress earlier forms.

The Medium is the Message

"The Medium is the Message" is the first chapter of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. ^[10] In his discussion of the electric light, McLuhan says the “content” of the medium is the activities that electric light allowed: “This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology." ^[11]The electric light has no decision in what its content is. The content can be anything that someone is creative enough to imagine. This is how the web is. The web is just what holds and delivers the content. This analog simplifies what the web as a medium affects people. The content being so vast means that there is always something that a user has not read or interacted with. There is always new content being remediated from old content, because the desire for more interaction motivates remediation. The medium changes through this process.

External Links

Remediation text- [1] MIT Press Endorsement- [2] Remediation Wikia- [3]

Examples

Fashion Blogs

Just as the web itself is a remediation of print, fashion blogs remediate the traditional fashion magazine by borrowing images from print to include in blog posts. Bloggers are paying homage to these magazines- an integral part of remediation, according to Bolter and Grusin- through this simultaneous use in concept and content. ^[12] Fashion bloggers have adopted “model poses”, such as taking long strides when walking. Additionally, they are often photographed in city streets or against urban walls, therefore positioning the street as a space of fashionable display. The blogosphere is an unmediated space that allows flexibility and consumer interpretation of the elite fashion world. In turn, print magazines have remediated the blog by including sections that feature women in “Show Me Your Wardrobe” in the British Elle'' publication or publish interviews up-and-coming fashion bloggers. Essentially, magazine editors and bloggers are collaborating, therefore reinforcing the idea of remediation across platforms.

The Blonde Salad: Chiara Ferragni's popular blog is an example of the remediation of fashion magazines ^[13]

Community Mediation

The idea of community mediation takes shape in the Cherokee Nation’s alternative history presentation for Oklahoma’s centennial celebration of statehood. ^[14] The project was brought to Cherokee Webmaster Tonia Williams, Cultural Resources Director Dr. Gloria Sly, Policy Analyst for the Cherokee Nation Dr. Richard Allen, and MSU professional writing students. Ellen, a Cherokee citizen, was also called upon to build and contribute to the project. Using research papers as well as first and secondary sources, the team collected and developed content that pointed towards a longstanding relationship between the Cherokee government and the United States’. They put together audio and images that pointed towards a unified early-twentieth century Cherokee nation, therefore building rhetorical proof of the tribes struggled to achieve statehood and were ousted to Indian Territory. The first installment of this project was launched in 2005 under the title The Allotment in Cherokee History, 1887-1915. The digitization of these documents remediated a previously vacant space of social and political statehood amongst two people groups. The collaborative effects of scholars, students, and the Cherokee people alike is an excellent example of the power selecting media to make social and political implications. The unwritten intimacy of Indian classical dances is at risk of being lost amongst research and digital reproductions a two thousand year old cultural practice. This reproduction is an example of negative effects of remediation, as people feel that the loss of the central authority figure of the dance, the Guru, destabilizes the dance. A viewer can mimic the steps and moves but does not have anyone to direct the dancer in the sense they should simultaneously be engaging. While adding personal flair or preferences to the dance is of less concern to the seasoned dancers, the infrastructure cannot be communicated through remediated practices such as DVDs, 3D virtual worlds, or drawings.

People

Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan was a philosopher of communication theory, and his work was the foundation for theories like remediation. He lived from July 21, 1911 to December 31, 1980. He was born in Canada, and he studied English at the University of Manitoba and Cambridge. He created a lot of terms for media theory, including the Medium is the Message. His work influenced the media in his lifetime, but he has influenced modern day ideas. McLuhan created a foundation for theories like remediation.

Bolter and Grusin

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin created the remediation theory. They wrote Remediation: Understanding New Media which is regarded as a founding text of the field of new media studies. They wrote it while working together at the Georgia Institute of Technology. They are both in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. Bolter and Grusin discuss a range of ways that designers can remediate mediums. ^[15] On one end of the spectrum, a creator borrows everything from the first medium and transfers it to the second. For example, a movie about a Jane Austen novel that is faithful to the novel are adaptations that are trying to recreate the feelings that a reader has while reading the novel. A movie based on a novel transfers from one medium to the next, and the differences are caused by remediation. Another type of remediation is when the new media is trying to get away from the old media but still has evidence of past media, because it is impossible to completely eliminate the ideas of old media. It is like trying to build a house without the foundation. An example of this is how some movies are made to be in 3-D, so they have the characters interact with the audience or have moments where things go toward the camera to make it look like it is being thrown into the audience. These new forms of film are from the beginning of film, because the reality of the experience motivates the progression of film. A third type of remediation on this scale is when the new media tries to absorb the old, but the new relies so much on the impressions of the old. For example, animated movies use computer graphics to make the animations look life-like.

Jody Shipka

A pioneer in redefining the theory of remediation for writers, Shipka’s Toward a Composition Made Whole addresses the pedagogy surrounding multimodal texts in the classroom. In the book, she encourages compositionists to consider the significance of their writing in the context of design, corresponding thesis, and the “complex and highly distributed processes associated with the production of texts” (pg 13). ^[16] Therefore, teachers should expect a “rhetorical-decision making process” more than a traditional final product in order to enforce the social and individual aspects that go into the consideration of various technologies and composing text. By challenging this traditional framework of communication and studies, Shipka pushes composition’s boundaries in university environments.

Media and Remediation in the Classroom

E-Learning

Distance learning began before computers or the internet existed. This later became known as E-Learning[4], the concept of learning in a more independent and real world way without a textbook or constant guidance of an educator. ^[17] The idea is to absorb the information and then remediate that absorption rather than the exact words from the textbook. Distance learning and the use of multiple media for education allows for more possibilities and ways to experience learning.^[18]

Key Concepts For Creators

Nothing is isolated in media from previous works or cultural events or economic or social pressures. What is unique has more to do with how older works are repackaged and how older, more established media respond to this repackaging. All media engage this process, and once it is acknowledged that immediacy requires media to be repackaged and repositioned in for better accessibility, we are able to identify this same process in the evolution of media, and trace its progression through history.^[19]

While any interactive interface is advanced, the most advanced allows users to navigate it without realizing that they are actively searching for something. Rather, the experience is immediate and organic. This is called an “interfaceless interface”, a more transparent model which “erases itself”, eliminating the concept of a medium.^[20] While the older medium is absorbed, it is also retained and employed. All remediation fills some void left by another mediation.

William Irvin’s "On the Rationalization of Sight" discusses the importance of “mathematizing space”. This is defined as using a linear perspective to provide for easier use and modification, while maintaining a transparent medium. The eyes naturally respond to this plain. It can be seen in photography, painting and digital art.^[21]

Criticism

Strange Days

Katherine Bigelow[5], directed a film called Strange Days[6]in 1995, based on using a wire which allows the user to close his or her eyes and when the user closes his or her eyes and experience the world with a “subjective camera”. The film describes a "wire" which allows users to be transported visually to an all encompassing reality. The film discusses the double logic of remediation. Bolter and Grusin explain, “Our culture wants to both multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation: ideally, it wants to erase its media in the very act of multiplying them.”^[22] In the film, the wire is a revolutionary piece which is different and more advanced than any creation. Yet, we know that the concept of immediacy and remediation is one that has been around for decades. Whether by film, painting or photography, earlier media forms focused their efforts on more of an aesthetic effect rather than an all encompassing space.

Not Like Television Only Better

Immediacy, hypermediacy, and striving to create a spontaneous and “live” experience requires a great deal of planning. Even the most hypermediate forms of media require their own form of immediacy. Bolter and Grusin explain, “Whenever one medium seems to have convinced viewers of its immediacy, other media try to appropriate that conviction.”^[23] EXAMPLE: CNN website demonstrates hypermediacy by surrounding viewers with various stories, links and hyperlinks, while the television show represents immediacy, making people feel that they are a part of this reality. Immediacy and hypermediacy depend on the user being completely blind to the mediation of the experience, and rather focus solely on the experience. The difference between television and the immediacy provided by a tool like the wire, is that where a television is a clear medium for experiencing media, the wire completely removes the barrier between the user and the media by removing the presence of a medium. If actual immediacy were possible, then participants could be left alone without any direction related to the objects of mediation. This full definition of immediacy, of course, does not exist.^[24]

Reverse Remediation

Reverse remediation is the opposite of remediation. Where remediation is suppose to seamlessly blend, reverse remediation intentionally makes media visible by displaying its characteristics in order to raise awareness of how remediation and media is changed and how that change creates meaning.^[25] Instead of promoting a transparent relationship, reverse remediation advocates that we look back at past relationships with the original interface in order to improve performance, and this type of cooperation is what causes the immersion into an interface.^[26] When this immersiveness is broken, we see that a medium is actually being used. This means that media can be used by deconstructing existing pieces to create something new rather than hiding the original inspiration.

Hypermediacy transitions to reverse remediation when there is a disruption in the “immersion factor”.^[27]This shakes the viewer out of his former state and forces him to critique the media that was previously manipulated, thus causing the reverse remediation. Maria Korsten argues that it is in this way that hypermediacy alternates between mediation and reverse remediation.^[28]

Remediation as Narcism

A metaphor presented by Maria Korsten describes McLuhan’s anxiety over the a reader’s complete blindness to medium, and relates it to the tale of Narcissus[[7]]. The inability to see where the content is coming from results in the assumption that the user is looking into their own experience rather than participating in its own creation. ^[29]

References

Bolter, J. David, and Richard A Grusin. 1996. "Remediation." Configurations no. 3: 311.Project MUSE, EBSCOhost (accessed November 28, 2015).

Bolter, J. David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation : Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Nov. 2015.

Getto, Guiseppe, Ellen Cushman, and Shreelina Ghosh. "Community Mediation: Writing In Communities And Enabling Connections Through New Media." Computers And Composition 28.(2011): 160-174. ScienceDirect. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Heeyoung, Han. "Mediation And Remediation In Online Learning." International Journal Of Learning 14.2 (2007): 225-230. Education Research Complete. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.

Kays, Trent M. "Toward A Composition Made Whole." Composition Studies 40.2 (2012): 149-151. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Maria Korsten, Saskia Isabella. "Reversed Remediation: A Critical Display Of The Workings Of Media In Art." Maska 28.159/160 (2013): 29-38. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.

Rocamora, Agnès. "Hypertextuality And Remediation In The Fashion Media." Journalism Practice 6.1 (2012): 92-106. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

1. ↑ Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999).
2. ↑ https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Flitinawiredworld.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FRemediation&ei=MRQ3VZTCEYPLsAWAtYD4Cg&bvm=bv.91071109,d.b2w&psig=AFQjCNHuxZ7440kP1VTSb0DffWoS7GjQmA&ust=1429759154620276
3. ↑ Wuebben, Dan. "Text-Video-Text: Multimodal Remediation With An Eye On Viral Literacy." Kairos: A Journal Of Rhetoric, Technology, And Pedagogy 18.2 (2014): MLA International Bibliography. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
4. ↑ Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999): 236.
5. ↑ Bonnet, John. "Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's Remediation: Understanding New Media." Journal of the Association for History and Computing 5.1 (2002). The University of Michigan Digital Library Texts. Ann Arbor, MI: MPublishing, University of Michigan Library. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
6. ↑ Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999): 272-73.
7. ↑ http://lmc.gatech.edu/~objork3/1101/fall07/remediation.pdf
8. ↑ Janet H. Murray. Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice (Kindle Locations 4870-4872). Kindle Edition.
9. ↑ Janet H. Murray. Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice (Kindle Locations 617-622). Kindle Edition.
10. ↑ http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf
11. ↑ http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf
12. ↑ http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=70230586&S=R&D=ufh&EbscoContent=dGJyMNLr40Sepq84wtvhOLCmr02epq5Ssaa4SLSWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPPd30m549%2BB7LHjfPEA
13. ↑ https://outlookuga-my.sharepoint.com/personal/eschoone_uga_edu/_layouts/15/guestaccess.aspx?guestaccesstoken=eip%2fj511oDWQ46ZOGXfL%2fDBKNHqVyB624%2bSinlmAgRk%3d&docid=2_130111c71a7654d65a7fe654d70f4ee4c
14. ↑ http://ac.els-cdn.com/S8755461511000272/1-s2.0-S8755461511000272-main.pdf?_tid=f02bb302-97e6-11e5-957d-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1448945563_10f222ebde6eaa30fc252304467b344c
15. ↑ http://lmc.gatech.edu/~objork3/1101/fall07/remediation.pdf
16. ↑ http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=89673890&S=R&D=a9h&EbscoContent=dGJyMNLr40Sepq84wtvhOLCmr02epq5Ssaa4TbOWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPPd30m549%2BB7LHjfPEA
17. ↑ Heeyoung, Han. "Mediation And Remediation In Online Learning." International Journal Of Learning 14.2 (2007): 225-230. Education Research Complete. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
18. ↑ Heeyoung, Han. "Mediation And Remediation In Online Learning." International Journal Of Learning 14.2 (2007): 225-230. Education Research Complete. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
19. ↑ Bolter, J. David, and Richard A Grusin. 1996. "Remediation." Configurations no. 3: 311.Project MUSE, EBSCOhost (accessed November 28, 2015).
20. ↑ Bolter, J. David, and Richard A Grusin. 1996. "Remediation." Configurations no. 3: 311.Project MUSE, EBSCOhost (accessed November 28, 2015).
21. ↑ Bolter, J. David, and Richard A Grusin. 1996. "Remediation." Configurations no. 3: 311.Project MUSE, EBSCOhost (accessed November 28, 2015).
22. ↑ Bolter, J. David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation : Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Nov. 2015.
23. ↑ Bolter, J. David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation : Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Nov. 2015.
24. ↑ Bolter, J. David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation : Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Nov. 2015.
25. ↑ Maria Korsten, Saskia Isabella. "Reversed Remediation: A Critical Display Of The Workings Of Media In Art." Maska 28.159/160 (2013): 29-38. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
26. ↑ Maria Korsten, Saskia Isabella. "Reversed Remediation: A Critical Display Of The Workings Of Media In Art." Maska 28.159/160 (2013): 29-38. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
27. ↑ Maria Korsten, Saskia Isabella. "Reversed Remediation: A Critical Display Of The Workings Of Media In Art." Maska 28.159/160 (2013): 29-38. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
28. ↑ Maria Korsten, Saskia Isabella. "Reversed Remediation: A Critical Display Of The Workings Of Media In Art." Maska 28.159/160 (2013): 29-38. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
29. ↑ Maria Korsten, Saskia Isabella. "Reversed Remediation: A Critical Display Of The Workings Of Media In Art." Maska 28.159/160 (2013): 29-38. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 29 Nov. 2015