Citation is perhaps one of the thorniest issues when it comes to this type of pedagogy. The exact method for adhering to the tenets of fair use remain somewhat nebulous. Because filmic texts have heretofore been governed by the broadcast television and entertainment industries, the approach has not been consonant with academic practices of intellectual inquiry. Indeed a recent report by the Center for Social Media claims that media literacy education is suffering due to faculty confusion about copyright and fair use.

Having students apply the same principles for citing text-based sources to digital sources works well. Therefore I have students view Remix Culture: Fair Use is Your Friend, a short video put out by the Center for Social Media at American University. We then discuss the practice that meets the four tenets of fair use; for our purposes, this means using only as much of the media as is necessary to make the point, and citing all sources, whether image, text, sound, film, email et cetera.