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Recombinant, usually used in a biology/science context, means a new thing that is made by combining elements of preexisting things (also known as mashup).

I first became familiar with the concept through Henry Jenkins and Faris Yakob, who has been a champion of this concept in a new media marketing context. Faris describes it as an essential ingredient of Transmedia Marketing in this essential paper.

This year we are seeing recombinant behavior emerge as an influential aspect of the presidential election. One of the first mashup hits was will.i.am's "Yes We Can" which transformed Barack Obama's concession speech following the New Hampshire primary into a heartfelt pop-song featuring a bevvy of celebrities and music superstars.



Then, during the summer, we saw the Barack Roll, which re-cut pieces of Obama's speeches to match the lyrics of Rick Astley's infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up."



Following the Republican National Convention, this video was combined again with McCain's speech, as if he and the GOP delegates had all been Barack Rolled.



And yesterday, we were given another recombinant classic. As you may have noticed from my post yesterday, I thought that this photo taken of McCain after the last debate was hiiiiilarious.



And I wasn't the only one. The creator of Fun With McCain broke up the photo into its essential elements, McCain and Obama's bodies, McCain's arms, and McCain's head, and made a Photoshop file freely available for other users to download and use to create new interpretations of the photo, like this one:



And these are only a few of the most popular examples; there are many more. When this election is over, it will be interesting to see how these independent pieces of messaging and various interpretations of the candidates, their words and actions, especially on Youtube, may have influenced voters' opinions.

If you've got other examples, please link them up in the comments.