You have likely noticed that ads today appear in some highly unlikely places- scrolled across public benches, the side of buildings, or even stamped on packages at the supermarket. The fact is, the rise of corporate power have allowed corporations to proliferate advertising into near every aspect of life in this ubiquitous environment. Many have criticized the ways in which advertising has infiltrated public institutions such as the media, education, government and religious systems. One way protesters have responded is with “culture-jamming”. In Christine Harold’s article titled “Pranking Rhetoric: Culture-Jamming as Media Activism” she describes culture-jamming as “a movement that seeks to undermine the marketing rhetoric of multinational corporations, specifically through such practices as media hoaxing, corporate sabotage, billboard liberation and trademark infringement” (p. 190). While sometimes these ‘pranksters’ alter messages for entertainment purposes there can be funny and not meaningful the type of ‘jamming’ that is significant is those that attempt to challenge and redefine messages that corporations give to people.
Harold further describes culture-jamming as the “glutting of the system” (p. 192) and a type of “intervention and invention”. The point being culture-jamming serves to raise awareness and open the eyes of the audience in one way or another, whether stirring emotions or provoking new perspectives. In her article, Harold uses Adbusters which is an activist magazine, to exemplify culture-jamming when they launched an anti-branding campaign against Nike corporation. Adbuster created a “Blackspot” sneaker which is a plain black canvas shoe (Chuck Taylors) but on it is a blank white spot where a logo should be. This is a response to the brand obsessed consumer life-style that corporations have formulated into consumer culture. Adbusters successfully brought the attention of the public to the social ramifications of the Nike brand when its caused appeared on the New York Times.
Adbusters are not the only activists with brilliant culture-jamming today, there are other examples such as Cuban-American artist Rodriguez- Gerada. He believes that “advertising and marketing creates a hyper reality where happiness and success becomes external goals through consumption.” And with this belief, he first began with defacing billboard ads he felt had a negative impact on the community but now he creates thought-provoking work that challenges the sell values and concepts of success, worth, love, sexuality and normalcy. His attitude is portrayed through his artwork that include political thoughts. In his work titled Terrestrial Series he creates President Barack Obama’s face in a vast amount of sand and gravel in a poor rural area. He explains the meaning behind this art as comparing President Obama to the worship of Mandala, someone who people look to for change but alluding to how all hope can fade away like sand. This was during the presidential campaign in 2009 as a way of saying the outcome would soon change the world. (Meet The King of Street Art)
In a society industries create an ideology in society that people in the world are rarely poor, unattractive, overweight, living with difficulty or disabled, it is no wonder that activists have generated the culture-jamming movement. This form of activism is creative and rhetoric which helps to strength the goal of achieving awareness. Different forms of culture-jamming exists but the ultimate goal is to bring about change in consumer consciousness. Culture-jamming helps people to realize their identities from within and not from the products we consume.
Harold, Christine. “Pranking Rhetoric: “Culture Jamming” as Media Activism.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21.3 (2004): 189-211. Web.
“Meet The King Of Street Art: Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada.” The Huffington Post UK. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.
mvl5410 says
I think this post was really helpful for me to understand about culture jamming. In my post I explained briefly about culture jamming and more focused on genre parody that I think this post was really nice of how it defined culture jamming, not only by summarizing it but also explaining it in your own words. Also, I totally agree on your last quote about ‘it is no wonder that activists have generated the culture-jamming movement. This form of activism is creative and rhetoric which helps to strength the goal of achieving awareness.’ However, in one point, I also think that the culture jamming movement could be too harsh sometimes that I think genre parody and culture jamming are both needed. They both criticize media in their own ways and it is definitely required in today society where media is too much promoting on consumerism and looks. I think that not only this activism movement should exist, but also people should be aware of the media and should not think lightly about the messages that is delivered by the media.
Again, I really enjoyed reading your post!
hsp5042 says
I found this article to be very interesting and well written! First, I would like to mention that in the beginning of your post did very clearly explained what our readings were about while describing them in your owns words. I also really liked the example you chose about the cuban-american artist. It shows that culture jamming can make its way into any kind of community across the world regardless of where you are from. I also must agree with you when saying that culture jamming is a form of activism. I think it gives artists the freedom of expressing their opinions in a healthy and positive way. While doing that, culture jamming can also have the power to expose truth behind corporations and certain companies which is quite hard to do in todays society since they control mostly everything.
Yih-heng Wang says
I don’t know why there is a random youtube video link but I can’t get rid of it and it shows some pretty weird stuff so sorry about that
Yih-heng Wang says
I don’t know why there is a random youtube video link but I can’t get rid of it and it shows some pretty weird stuff so sorry about that