Remediation

In his book ‘Remediation’, Bolter discusses this term as the entertainment industry borrowing content from other mediums, he states that “The contemporary entertainment industry calls such borrowing “repurposing”: to take a “property” from one medium and reuse it in another.” This can be demonstrated with the making of popular films which originated from novels, however in order for viewers to consume this in a seamless way in which they desire, there is never any direct reference to the novel or the original medium in which the content was ‘borrowed’ from. (Bolter. 2000, P45.)

Repurposing content from other mediums is exceedingly common within today’s popular culture, as due to continuous consumer demands and popularity of ‘remakes’ and ‘sequels’ etc. and the constant demand for new and better media forms, content is constantly being reused and refashioned from older mediums into newer mediums, it almost appears to be no longer acceptable to have media content on solely one platform.

A well-established example of this would be the Harry Potter Saga which swept the world through various media platforms. Firstly originating from a purpose to tell a story within books, then came the blockbuster movies which allowed viewers to bring the story to life, and lastly video games were created allowing viewers to interact and feel a part of the experience within the story. Remediation is present here due to every one of these media platforms keeping the same purpose of telling the same story only reusing the content and adhering to the demands for new media platforms.

“Repurposing as remediation is both what is “unique to digital worlds” and what denies the possibility of that uniqueness.” (Bolter. 2000, P50.)

Below shows an example of repurposed or refashioned old features within Disney animations. Although this is not directly exact scenes being duplicated and reused, it still gives the example of how the entertainment industry recycles old media in order to create new media.
 

Overall, remediation is present within all aspects of media platforms, depending on the reuse and refashion of content to create new media, giving it a new purpose within our popular culture.

Bibliography

Bolter, J.D, (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media, New Ed. MIT Press. (p20-50)

Recycled movements in Disney's movies - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjmaOj3_sKk