Saturday, September 26, 2009

Sotomayor Video Story: How many media can YOU count?

Gosh, this sounds familiar.

Mark Bowden's Atlantic piece about the Sotomayor video strikes again!

So this story began in the medium of lecture (the original Sotomayor appearances at Duke and Berkeley Law School, really intended for the people in the hall), went to video when someone recorded the lecture, went to online video when it was posted, then went to blogs and online discussions when it was posted on conservative sites, then went to television (and just about any other media that has news at that point).  Now it has new life in a magazine and web site for the Atlantic, and has jumped back to the audio/radio medium on NPR, which is itself both broadcast and online.

And finally, it is being blogged about by little old me, right here.

I wonder how much more time, and intellectual capital has been spent parsing the Wise Latina comment (and parsing the parsing of this comment) than was originally spent by the justice making this remark?

It is amazing that one little piece of videotape can be universally applied to so many different media.  Even some that are kind of socially awkward and creepy.  But maybe the fact that it is one brief snippet that allows it to be used so many different ways:  Each new author who encounters it can create their own context for it, mashing or remixing it, allowing it to fit into almost any media.

And I do mean ANY media.

So I guess THIS is a meme.

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