Adopting a literacy perspective towards student interactions with digital media can extend and develop views of second language (L2) listening comprehension. In this case study, variations in "play" are grounded in a media literacy perspective as a way to frame student work with authentic videotext. Twenty-two Australian students of Japanese watched three digitized news clips as they talked aloud. Qualitative analysis of their immediately retrospective verbal reports showed that learners do indeed "play" and "replay" the media texts as they, for example, perform, fool around, and establish signposts. The article concludes with a discussion urging language teachers and researchers to adopt media literacy perspectives in their use of electronic media. (Contains 9 tables.)