"... the essential uselessness if the word. Better to use a word the meaning of which is clear, like 'editing', 'notating',..." I agree, but, on the first day of this discussion I asked "why not use the words like 'collecting' and 'editing' and if we have something to say about how they were done then say it" and I thought Jack Campin's answer beginning "Because the word draws attention to something systematic that can be examined ..." had some merit. If we are interested in a particular collector and a particular body of collected material then informed comment on the individual components is important. However, in Fakesong Harker was addressing the cumulative representation (miss-representation in his view) of song over 250 or so years, so 'mediation' was for him a useful term for him. Other authors doing similar things (e.g. Georgina Boyes) manage with just the occassional use of the word.
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