From today's Washington Post comes this piece on mash ups. I have three perspectives on the mash up:

1.) As a writer, I'm eager to use mash ups to create new messages. My Yomamma Mash was great fun to make, but also helped me see through the issues circulating around the controversy over Stephen Colbert's speech at the correspondent's dinner. Yomamma offers strong virtual slaps to the face, and blending Colbert's words with the video clips from the M-TV show made me realize the serious criticism and angry challenges beneath the humor of the speech.

2.) As a writing teacher who favors new media, I'm encouraged by the trend to remix video content because it results in sentiments like

Top-down marketing, when the company creates a message for consumers to absorb, is an antiquated approach, said Tim Hanlon, senior vice president at Denuo, a division of the advertising firm Publicis Groupe. Consumers are savvy about the messages companies send and are now empowered to offer feedback about those products. "They don't need marketers," he said. "It's the new landscape."

I'm curious to see how the concept of the mash up makes its way into the landscape of education. So far the phenomenon exists outside the boundaries of the classroom for the most part. I wonder why, and when it might be brought into teaching. Why not now?

3.) As someone who studies writing and media, I wonder similarly if and when mash ups will make it into the conversations of scholars. I don't mean, when will scholars talk about mash ups, like now in this blog posting. I mean when will they talk through mash ups. Jeff recently posted a video trailer for an academic article. My Mission Improbable mash up was done mostly for fun and does not work as well as the Yomamma clip, I think. What can scholars make of with these alternative forms of expression?

The Washington Post includes with its article a mash up challenge. I'm going to try to use the raw materials to create a response to something academic, probably to follow up on the recent discussions composition teachers have had about writing outcomes. Anyone care to join me?