Digital art-making tends to foreground the inclusion of ready-made images in children's art. While some lament children's use of such images, suggesting that they constrain creativity and expression, others have argued that ready-made digital materials offer children the opportunity to create innovative and potentially iconoclastic artefacts through processes of ‘remix’ and ‘mash-up’. In order to further this debate, observations are needed to explore the different ways that children use ready-made images in their digital art and the various purposes that these images can serve. Adopting a social semiotic perspective, this article offers an in-depth examination of five episodes of 4–5 year-olds’ digital art-making that collectively demonstrate the diversity of approaches that young children take towards the inclusion of ready-made images in their digital art-making. The article discusses these findings in relation to suggestions for what adults can do to support children to adopt a playful and critically aware approach to the use of ready-made images in digital art-making.
Sakr, MonaConnelly, VincentWild, Mary
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\School of EducationFaculty of Health and Life Sciences\Department of Psychology, Social Work and Public Health
Year of publication: 2016Date of RADAR deposit: 2017-06-22