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The following thesis explores the conditions of possibility for remix culture through the work of Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid. Beginning with the impact and vertigo of Dj Spooky's language and practice, it explores the reciprocal relation of media to language in the construction of the proper (property) and the author (authority). The context of Dj Spooky as a conceptual artist and the material of his book, Rhythm Science , provides the setting and scenario for extended readings of the paradoxes and cultural effects of remix culture, including the relation of writing to djing, practices of incorporative media, tactics of digital email, combat over copyright, and the sampling of the archive. The formalization of these effects is outlined by writing in-between the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. This formalization signals the advent of the network over the territory, the form over the content, the formal over the expressive (while nonetheless recognising the distinction, persistence and difference of these terms). It argues that remix culture regenerates and redefines the parameters of the author and the proper through technological and political forces that nonetheless retain their structures of power. The conduit and context of this formal, paradoxical transformation are the cultural forces of global and digital networks, which is here defined as the "oceanic network."

As Scratch has become one of the most popular educational programming languages, understanding its common programming idioms can benefit both computing educators and learners. This understanding can fine-tune the curricular development to help learners master the fundamentals of writing idiomatic code in their programming pursuits. Unfortunately, the research community's understanding of what constitutes idiomatic Scratch code has been limited. To help bridge this knowledge gap, we systematically identified idioms as based on canonical source code, presented in widely available educational materials. We implemented a tool that automatically detects these idioms to assess their prevalence within a large dataset of over 70K Scratch projects in different demographic and project categories. Since communal learning and the practice of remixing are one of the cornerstones of the Scratch programming community, we studied the relationship between common programming idioms and remixes. Having analyzed the original projects and their remixes, we observed that different idioms may associate with dissimilar types of code changes. Code changes in remixes are desirable, as they require a meaningful programming effort that spurs the learning process. The ability to substantially change a project in its remixes hinges on the project's code being easy to understand and modify. Our findings suggest that the presence of certain common idioms can indeed positively impact the degree of code changes in remixes. Our findings can help form a foundation of what comprises common Scratch programming idioms, thus benefiting both introductory computing education and Scratch programming tools. / Master of Science / With over 68 million users and growing, Scratch has become one of the most popular programming languages for introductory computing learners. As with learning any programming language, understanding common programming idioms used in the language's application domain is important for both computing educators and learners. Educators need this understanding in order to fine-tune their curricular development, while learners can leverage this knowledge to effectively master the fundamentals by writing idiomatic code. Unfortunately, our understanding of what constitutes idiomatic Scratch code thus far has been limited. To address this knowledge gap, we systematically identified idioms based on source code with good code quality, as presented in widely available educational materials. We implemented a tool that automatically detects these idioms to assess their prevalence within a large, diverse dataset of over 70K Scratch projects. Since communal learning and the practice of remixing are one of the cornerstones of the Scratch programming community, we studied the relationship between common programming idioms and remixes. Having analyzed the original projects and their remixes, we found that different idioms may associate with dissimilar types of code changes. The ability to change a project in its remixes hinges on the project's code being easy to understand and modify. Our findings suggest that the presence of certain common idioms can positively impact the degree of code changes in remixes. Our findings can help form a foundation of what comprises common Scratch programming idioms, thus benefiting both introductory computing education and Scratch programming tools.

One of the greatest achievements of Scratch as an educational tool is the eager willingness of programmers to use existing projects as the starting point for their own projects, a practice known as remixing. Despite the importance of remixing as a foundation of collaborative and communal learning, the practice remains poorly understood. Without a clear picture of how and why Scratch programmers remix a project as a starting point of their own projects, this programming community would remain in the dark about which programming practices encourage and facilitate remixing. The designers of programming environments for blocks lack feedback on how the remixing facility is used in the wild. To gain a deeper insight into remixing, this thesis presents the results of a comprehensive study of this practice in Scratch that investigates the following heretofore unexplored dimensions of remixing: (1) the prevailing modifications that remixes perform on existing projects, (2) the impact of the original project's code quality on the granularity, extent, and development time of the modifications in the remixes, and (3) the propensity of the dominant programming practices in the original project to remain so in the remixes. Our findings can be used to promote those programming practices in the Scratch community that encourage remixing while also improving this practice's effectiveness, thus benefiting the educational and end-user programming communities. / Master of Science / The Scratch programming language has become an intrinsically important tool in introductory CS education. A visual, block-based language, Scratch is web-based, featuring an enormous online programming community, through which projects are eagerly shared. One of the unique learning provisions of Scratch is the ability to easily start a project by modifying someone else’s project, a practice referred to as remixing. Despite the central role that remixing plays in enabling the communal and collaborative learning styles in the Scratch community, the practice of remixing remains inadequately understood. This knowledge gap leaves the Scratch community in the dark about which programming practices encourage and facilitate remixing, as well as deprives Scratch environment designers from actionable feedback on how the remixing facility is used in the wild. To address this problem, this thesis reports on the results of an exploratory study of remixing in Scratch that investigates three heretofore unexplored dimensions of this practice. First, we study the general remixing trends in terms of how remixes modify the original projects. Second, we infer the impact of a project’s code quality on the modifications in its remixes and the development time. Finally, we investigate whether programmers adopt the techniques and practices of the remixed projects. Computing educators can apply our findings to enhance the educational effectiveness of Scratch by encouraging the practice and magnitude of remixing.

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