Youth Identities as Remixers in an Online Community of Storytellers: Attitudes, Strategies, and Values

In today’s media-rich world, youths are not merely consumers, but also active creators of information. Digital tools allow authors to more easily remix and copy previous works. These new media practices have brought issues of appropriation, copyright, privacy, information behavior, and information literacy to the forefront. In this paper, we present a case study of a hybrid online and offline community of middle school students designed to help them develop identities as scientists through storytelling. The case illuminates the complex issues of appropriation and remix that arise when youths create, share, copy, and adapt their peers’ media artifacts. Our analysis then highlights how youths, who are evolving as information literate individuals, identify with (a) attitudes towards information appropriation, (b) strategies of remix, and (c) the underlying values that motivate their ideas about remix practices.