Pop (Culture) Remix: Amplifying Shadow Play(giarism) in Child Radio Productions

• In Event: Reconfiguring the Politics of Play(giarism): Examining Children's Intertextual Itineraries in Three Contexts

Abstract

Purpose
Many K-12 literacies researchers have reported on the complex ways children incorporate superheroes (Dyson, 2003), Disney princesses (Wohlwend, 2009), and Star Wars (Yoon, 2016) into their school-based writing. Likewise, scholars of post-secondary literacies have long highlighted remix as a rhetorical tool (Edwards, 2016). However, in both settings, there lingers a desire for authors to generate only “original” messages, despite decades of calls for a paradigmatic shift in how composing and its seemingly persistent nemesis–“plagiarism” are understood (​​Johnson-Eilola & Selber, 2007). Particularly in our contemporary era, wherein “writing is now no longer the central mode of representation” (Bezemer & Kress, 2008, p. 166), such changes are all the more critical (Syverson, 1999).

In this paper, I considered how a middle-grade child-DJ engaged in play(giarism) in radio segments produced for a local FM station. In doing so, I examined the techniques he used to make intertextual tracings (Prior, 2004; Wynhoff Olsen et al., 2018) across his compositions while invoking his own style. Further, I identified the ways digital radio production afforded him new opportunities to engage in play, even as he discussed serious social issues.

Framing
Bazerman (2004) defines intertextuality as “the explicit and implicit relations that a text or utterance has to prior, contemporary, and potential future texts” (p. 86). Building on this definition, I engaged intertextuality as a lens to consider how the focal child-DJ re-used previous compositions (in this case, songs from pop culture) in new communicative texts (a series of child-produced radio segments) towards new goals (to play and to call attention to pressing social concerns; Johnson-Eilola & Selber, 2007).

Methods
Zeroing in on the focal child-DJ, a 7th-grade queer Black boy whose DJ name–DJ Gossip–doubled as his pseudonym, I drew on data from January-May 2021, including his radio segments and my fieldnotes from Monday meetings (n = 16 hours) and small group “Studio Sessions” on Tuesdays (n = 12 hours). I supplemented this dataset with interviews I conducted with DJ Gossip (Miles et al., 2018). Adapting the work of Dalton et al. (2015) and Prior (2004), DJ Gossip thought aloud about his composing process. In my analysis, I identified how he tailored elements for his radio segments and engaged in play(giarism) (Brownell, 2018).

Findings & Significance
As Bazerman (2004) has suggested, analysis of intertextuality is crucial as it affords a glimpse into how authors are “negotiating the complex worlds of text” (p. 84). In my findings, I detailed how DJ Gossip intentionally used intertextuality in his digitally-produced radio segments. For instance, I describe DJ Gossip’s rhetorical use of an instrumental version of an Olivia Rodrigo song in his segment about #BlackLivesMatter before illustrating how DJ Gossip’s play(giarism) elevated his radio segment as he “address[ed] specific [social] issues, readers, and situations” (Johnson-Eilola & Selber, 2007 p. 380). Thus, this work extends understandings of children’s composing as it illuminates how children use intertextuality to play and forward more just social futures (New London Group, 1996).

Author

• Cassie J. Brownell, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author