culture jamming essay

Culture Jamming Essay

Introduction, main discussion, the diesel clothing company, works cited.

Culture jamming is one of the marketing tactics that has been used for many years among anti-consumerist groups as one of the most successful tactics in the sphere of marketing. In this respect, Carducci defines culture jamming as an organized effort by social movements to counteract messages portrayed in advertisements (161). These social movements disrupt corporate advertising using myriad of tactics such as exposing political utterances on commercial culture.

In addition, culture jammers may also change the original configuration of a fashion statement, logo or product images of an advertisement made by a given company in order to challenge what is written in relation to freedom of consumption. It is imperative to note that the main rationale behind this form of culture jamming is reshaping social conformity to certain types of advertisements (Lambert-Beatty 99).

This issue has been carefully examined in media that specifically focuses on the development and transformation of the counterculture which, in its turn, has provoked the expansion of capitalism, has introduced innovation to mainstream culture, and continues to influence the current mainstream culture.

Regarding the above, culture jamming can be recognized as one of the most progressive, though not rebellious movements, introduced by anti-consumerist marketing strategies because many corporations, marketers and advertisers have managed to employ the policy of subvertisement while branding their product.

Development of Culture Jamming Movement: Use of Subvertisement and Its Relation to Capitalism

Culture jamming has been practiced for several decades and it is difficult to exactly pinpoint the actual time when it was incepted. The term dates back to 1984 despite the fact that corporate organizations, advertisers and marketers had been using the tactic for some time (Carducci 161).

Over the years culture jamming has been led by various groups from different quotas such as women movements, media theorists and art movements. Culture jammers advocate to be involved when decisions on creating adverts are made. For instance, feminist movements fight against the use of skinny female models and in general, using women in advertising.

According to these feminist groups, increased use of women in advertising makes them feel emotionally inadequate especially in sexist advertising. Hence, such groups are capable of airing their opinions against sexist advertising. Similarly, feminist groups have equally been able to raise against a number of magazines and publications that have portrayed sexist adverts in the pretext of attracting more male customers or those that are targeting women who strive to maintain a perfect body as shown in order to attract men.

Other human rights groups have also used culture jamming to fight exploitation of workers in factories – sweatshops. To affirm this, it is vital to note that our corporate culture is mainly driven by profitability whereby workers are lowly paid and compelled to work extra hours without proper compensation.

Interestingly, culture jammers often argue that individuals should be given opportunity to choose the nature of advertisement they are likely to be exposed so that they can make prior choices. They should also be exposed to hundreds of advertisements each day from various companies without corporate advertisers considering their consent.

According to culture jammers, corporate advertisers ought to consider the view of the public before exposing them to adverts (“Pranking Rhetorics”16).They view marketing as socially unacceptable due to the fact that it interferes with public space without the consent of the very public. Jammers look for every opportunity to alter messages that are given in various types of adverts.

They have used black marker and computer programs to change the message given in various adverts. They then insert their message which more often than not, expose anti-consumer, anti-corporation, anti-materialism and in general anti-advertising. The main aim of these groups is to recreate and transform commercial culture (Sandlin & Milam 323).

Subvertisement is a special type of culture jamming that involves production and distribution of anti-adverts with the aim of turning the attention of consumers in a certain direction (“Subcultures and Countercultures” 287). In subvertising, existing icons or images are altered whereas new images which are satirical may also be put to replace the original one.

In this regard, culture jammers promote behaviors that are more humane and an environment that is not dominated by corporate culture. What is more important, culture jamming movement are also directed against capitalism since they believe that capitalist culture promotes unequal race, class, and gender (Klein 30). This culture ought to be discouraged and resisted at all cost according to culture jammers.

Corporate, marketers and advertisers promote inhuman behaviors and corporate culture that is driven by profit motif (Skinner 140). The desire to increase profit has made corporate to go to the wrong extent when they are making their advertisements to the public. As such, exploitation of workers in the industries is also another form of capitalism where corporate would like to reap the maximum benefits from their employees at a lower cost.

Increased competition in the market has forced companies to look for survival tactics in order to withstand pressure from the rival companies. One of this survival strategies is the use of subvert where one company may look for ways to disrupt the adverts of a rival company. The latter is illegal practice where potential customers of a given product are mislead and misinformed on the truth of an advert.

As Harold expounds, pranking is one of the strategies used by anti-consumerist movements to reduce rhetoric of MNCs advertising (“Pranking Rhetorics”189). In this respect, subvertising aims to draw attention of the potential consumers to some information that may not be true about the products advertised by a certain company.

The practice aim is to reveal the weakness of the company in order to discourage consumers from buying a given product. At times one company may disrupt the adverts of the rival companies to make sure that consumers do not buy their products. This make the company that is orchestrating subverts to retain its customers who may be tempted to buy products from other companies that are offering similar products. This will increase the sales of the company and hence its profitability.

One of the brightest displays of culture jamming is introduced by The Adbusters magazine that introduced a signature brand of subversive Black Spot Sneaker. This brand was designed to satirize Nike use of sweatshop factories, but, in fact, the introduced campaign has gradually been involved in the mainstream consumerism instead of promoting the culture jamming movement (Heath and Potter 56).

According to Heath and Potter, the consumers are looking for social distinction, individuality, and exclusivity while buying the product and, therefore, they have claimed that they pursue the same tendency that the magazine advertises (57). In this respect, the Adbusters are usually seen as supporters of capitalist values. Additionally, the case with Black Spot Sneakers has stirred the debates concerning its nature because the magazine editors admit that consumerist adherents are attached to using the same marketing strategies.

Indeed, Adbusters fight for mental environmentalism rather just for citizens rights in general. They use the notion of the environmentalist but instead of fighting external environmental pollution, Adbusters fights for internal pollution. They believe that the minds of the public are polluted by the info toxin arising from the information given to the public by the marketers, corporations and advertisers.

According to Harold, this can be termed as an ‘unruly corruption’ (“Pranking Rhetorics” 5). Adbusters argue that increased cases of mental illness maybe attributed to the thousands of adverts that are pumped to the members of the public each day. Information about oil spill of BP Company, increased extinction of animals, crony democracy emergence among others have continued to affect mental health of the public in a bigger way (“Our Space” 17).

According to them, mass media ought to be used to promote ideas rather than to promote products as it is done today. Good mental ethics should be at the centre stage of each and every advert rather than profit motif as it is evident today in majority of the adverts (“Identity and Community”195).

The case with Diesel company provides an example where rhetorical advertising is used to promote fashion. Specifically, the company uses a conundrum to differ with the modern social issues as well as disputing consumerism and fashion trends.

As such, being disguised by consumerist logos, the Company has successfully promoted its subversion policy through delivering symbolic messages that can be extracted from standard ideas and advertisements. According to Airing, “…Diesel does not seek to transmit messages of product quality so much as sell ideologies both procultural and countercultural…” because no any other brand evoked fake ideology more fiercely for the marketing purposes than Diesel did (3).

In other words, the company’s campaign consists in presenting a double coded message to communicate between two terrains – the cultural jamming and consumerist culture. Bearing a concealed meaning, Diesel treats its customers as intelligent individuals who appreciate simple ideas concealing more thought provoking messages (Arning 3).

In addition, such a sophisticated ideology also emphasizes the tight connection between the company’s postmodern brand excellent and cultural policy of late capitalism due to the fact that Diesel is meant to be unique in promoting the main consumerist virtues through symbolic sign and constant repeating “…of social mores and contemporary predictions while reflecting the paradoxes and scruples of the twenty-first century” (Arning 3). In whole, there strategies can be still considered as culturally jammed due to the intentions the company pursues while advertising its products.

Although the aim of these movements was to make popular culture less popular, mainstream cultures have gained more ground in the corporate world.

According to Heath and Potter, it is not possible for jam culture and all counter-culture movements to have failed (5). Thus, anti-consumerists movements have not succeeded in their effort to transform and recreate commercial culture. This implies that in reality culture jamming is not possible since mainstream cultures have already dominated corporate world and the efforts of anti-consumerist movements cannot transform the society (“The Consuming Life” 135).

Regarding the above, the Diesel clothing company case proves the inevitability of the prevalence of consumerist focus because the main task of the market is to attract more customers to buy products, but not to encourage the subversive messages and promote new forms and messages of consumerist culture.

In addition to this, the world is driven by capitalism forces which consciously or unconsciously determine the culture to be followed (“Identity And Community” 287). All the efforts in the society are directed towards materialism and those who do not support this course always find themselves in problems.

In conclusion, the concept of culture jamming can be considered as one of the most successful ones because it a great number of marketing strategies were based on the ideas presented by the adherent of this anti-consumerist movement. Though the phenomenon is not presented as a rebellion act recently, this issue has been carefully examined in media and marketing with particular reference on the development and transformation of subverstisement leading to the expansion of capitalism.

In addition, culture jamming has made a significant contribution to mainstream culture through a myriads of innovative tactics introduced to mainstream culture. The brightest examples of such interventions refer to the case with the Adbusters magazine and the Diesel clothing company’s strategies. For instance, Adbuster is a critical example of these movements that mainly focus on changing the message that is presented in the advertising posters.

The Diesel clothing company represents an example of how companies can use advertisements oriented on intelligent humans who can extract the messages concealed in simple logos and ideas. However, as many cultural theorists will argue, jamming culture is not possible bearing in mind that the desire by social activists to transform and recreate commercial culture has not materialized.

On the contrary, mainstream culture has continued to dominate the society despite the efforts of anti-consumerist groups largely due to the fact that modern society is largely driven by capitalistic ideology. Apparently, this prevalence exists due to the blurred distinctions between the contemporary policies of culture jamming and the constantly changing purposes of consumerist movement.

Arning, Chris. “Kitsch, Irony, And Consumerism: A Semiotic Analysis Of Diesel Advertising 2000–2008.” Semiotica 2009 , 174 (2009): 21-48. Print.

Carducci, Vince. Culture Jamming: A Sociological Perspective. Journal of Consumer Culture, 6.1, (2006):116-138. Print.

Harold, Christine. OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture . Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota, 2007. Print.

Harold, Christine. Pranking Rhetoric: Culture Jamming As Media Activism. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 21.3 (2004): 189-211. Print.

Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter. The Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can’t Be Jammed. Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2005. Print.

Klein, Naomi. Culture jamming: Ads under attack. Brandweek 41.28 (2000): 28-38. Print.

Lambert-Beatty, Carrie. Fill in the blank: Culture jamming and the advertising of agency. New Directions for Youth Development, 2010 .125 (2010): 99-112. Print.

O’Brien, Susie and Imre, Szeman. Chapter 5: The Consuming Life . Popular Culture: A User’s Guide . Toronto: Nelson, (2010):135-168. Print.

O’Brien, Susie, and Imre Szeman. “Chapter 7 Identity And Community.” Popular Culture: A User’s Guide . Toronto: Nelson, 2010. Print.

O’Brien, Susie, and Imre Szeman. “Chapter 8 Subcultures And Countercultures.” Popular Culture: A User’s Guide . Toronto: Nelson, 2010. Print.

Sandlin, Jennifer, & Jennifer Milam. Mixing Pop (Culture) and Politics: Cultural Resistance, Culture Jamming, and Anti-Consumption Activism as Critical Public Pedagogy.” Curriculum Inquiry , 38.3 (2008):323-350. Print.

Skinner, David. Media Organization and Production/Representing Resistance: Media, Civil Disobedience and the Global Justice Movement. Canadian Journal of Communication, 32.1 (2007): 139-142. Print.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 20). Culture Jamming. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-jamming/

"Culture Jamming." IvyPanda , 20 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/culture-jamming/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Culture Jamming'. 20 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Culture Jamming." December 20, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-jamming/.

1. IvyPanda . "Culture Jamming." December 20, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-jamming/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Culture Jamming." December 20, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-jamming/.

• The Global Positioning System Jamming and Spoofing
• Value of Anti-Consumerist Movements
• Advancements in Computer Science and Their Effects on Wireless Networks
• Information Operations and Warfare
• Securing Wireless Networks
• Systems Integration perspective on Path dependence and information economy
• The Problem of Technological Gridlock
• Security Attacks on the Internet of Things
• Fight Club - Analysis of Consumerism
• The Birth of a Consumerist Society
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the Dependency
• Cultures Are Eroded by Foreign Cultural Influences Including Media
• My father's black pride
• Stoning in the Twenty-First Century: The Dangers of Cultural Relativism
• Social and Cultural Diversity and Stereotypes

Understanding Culture Jamming and How it Can Create Social Change

Why Shaking Up Everyday Life is a Useful Protest Tactic

• News & Issues
• Key Concepts
• Major Sociologists
• Research, Samples, and Statistics
• Recommended Reading
• Archaeology
• Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• M.A., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• B.A., Sociology, Pomona College

Culture jamming is the practice of disrupting the mundane nature of everyday life and the status quo with surprising, often comical or satirical acts or artworks. The practice was popularized by the anti-consumerist organization Adbusters, which often uses it to force those who encounter their work to question the presence and influence of advertising and consumerism in our lives. In particular, culture jamming often asks us to reflect on the pace and volume at which we consume and the unquestioned role that the consumption of goods plays in our lives, despite the many human and environmental costs of global mass production.

Key Takeaways: Culture Jamming

• Culture jamming refers to the creation of images or practices that force viewers to question the status quo.
• Culture jamming disrupts social norms and is often used as a tool for social change.
• Activists have used culture jamming to raise awareness of issues including sweatshop labor, sexual assault on college campuses, and police brutality.

The Critical Theory Behind Culture Jamming

Culture jamming often involves the use of a meme that revises or plays off of a commonly recognized symbol of a corporate brand (such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Nike, and Apple, to name just a few). The meme is typically designed to call into question the brand image and values attached to the corporate logo, to question the consumer relationship to the brand, and to illuminate harmful actions on the part of the corporation. For example, when Apple launched the iPhone 6 in 2014, the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) staged a protest at a Hong Kong Apple Store where they unfurled a large banner that featured the image of the new device sandwiched between the words, "iSlave. Harsher than harsher. Still made in sweatshops."

The practice of culture jamming is inspired by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School , which focused on the power of mass media and advertising to shape and direct our norms, values, expectations, and behavior  through unconscious and subconscious tactics. By subverting the image and values attached to a corporate brand, the memes deployed in culture jamming aim to produce feelings of shock, shame, fear, and ultimately anger in the viewer, because it is these emotions that lead to social change and political action.

Sometimes, culture jamming uses a meme or a public performance to critique the norms and practices of social institutions or to question political assumptions that lead to inequality or injustice. The artist Banksy produced a notable example of this type of culture jamming. Here, we'll examine some recent cases that do the same.

Emma Sulkowicz and Rape Culture

Emma Sulkowicz launched her performance piece and senior thesis project "Mattress Performance: Carry That Weight" at Columbia University in New York City in September 2014 as a way to draw critical attention to the university's mishandling of disciplinary proceedings for her alleged rapist, as well as its mishandling of sexual assault cases in general. Speaking about her performance and her experience of rape, Emma told the Columbia Spectator that the piece is designed to take her private experience of rape and shame in the aftermath of her attack into the public sphere and to physically evoke the psychological weight she has carried since the alleged attack. Emma vowed to "carry the weight" in public until her alleged rapist was expelled or left campus. This never happened, so Emma and supporters of the cause carried her mattress throughout her graduation ceremony.

Emma's daily performance not only brought her alleged assault into the public sphere, it also "jammed" the notion that sexual assault and its consequences are private matters and illuminated the reality that they are often hidden from view by the shame and fear that survivors experience. Refusing to suffer in silence and in private, Emma made her fellow students, faculty, administrators, and staff at Columbia face the reality of sexual assault on college campuses by making the matter visible with her performance. In sociological terms, Emma's performance served to diminish the taboo on acknowledging and discussing the widespread problem of sexual violence by disrupting the social norms of daily campus behavior. She brought rape culture into sharp focus on Columbia's campus, and in society in general.

Emma received a heap of media coverage for her culture jamming performance piece, and fellow students and alumni of Columbia joined her in "carrying the weight" on a daily basis. Of the social and political power of her work and the widespread media attention it received, Ben Davis of ArtNet , the leader in global news about the art world, wrote, "I can hardly think of an artwork in recent memory that justifies the belief that art can still help lead a conversation in quite the way  Mattress Performance  already has."

Black Lives Matter and Justice

At the same time that Emma was carrying "that weight" around Columbia's campus, halfway across the country in St. Louis, Missouri, protesters creatively demanded justice for 18-year-old Michael Brown , an unarmed Black man who was killed by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer named Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Wilson had at that point yet to be charged with a crime, and since the killing occurred, many protests had taken place in Ferguson, a predominantly Black city with a predominantly White police force and a history of police harassment and brutality.

"Which Side Are You On?" Protest

Just as intermission concluded during a performance of  Requiem  by Johannes Brahms by the St. Louis Symphony on October 4, a racially diverse group of singers stood from their seats, one by one, singing the classic Civil Rights anthem, "Which Side Are You On?" In a beautiful and haunting performance, protesters addressed the predominantly White audience with the song's titular question, and implored, "Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all."

In a recorded video of the event, some audience members look on disapprovingly while many clapped for the singers. Protesters dropped banners from the balcony commemorating Michael Brown's life during the performance and chanted "Black lives matter!" as they peacefully exited the symphony hall at the conclusion of the song.

The surprising, creative, and beautiful nature of this culture jamming protest made it particularly effective. The protesters capitalized on the presence of a quiet and attentive audience to disrupt the norm of audience silence and stillness and instead made the audience the site of a politically engaged performance. When social norms are disrupted in spaces in which they are usually strictly obeyed, we tend to quickly take notice and focus on the disruption, which makes this form of culture jamming successful. Further, this performance disrupts the privileged comfort that members of a symphony audience enjoy, given that they are primarily White and wealthy, or at least middle class. The performance was an effective way of reminding people who are not burdened by racism that the community in which they live is currently under assault by it in physical, institutional, and ideological ways and that, as members of that community, they have a responsibility to fight those forces.

Culture Jamming at Its Best

Both of these performances, by Emma Sulkowicz and the St. Louis protesters, are examples of culture jamming at its best. They surprise those who bear witness to them with their disruption of social norms, and in doing so, call those very norms, and the validity of the institutions that organize them into question. Each offers a timely and deeply important commentary on troubling social problems and forces us to confront that which is more conveniently swept aside. This matters because viscerally confronting the social problems of our day is an important step in the direction of meaningful social change.

• Black History from 1950–1959
• Feminism in the United States
• All About Marxist Sociology
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Understanding Socialization in Sociology
• Female Infanticide in Asia
• 'A Streetcar Named Desire' — Scene 11
• Definition and Examples of Syntax
• Black History and Women's Timeline: 1920-1929
• Why Are Some Memes Funny While Others Fall Flat?
• Sprezzatura
• How to Tell If You've Been Unintentionally Racist
• Full Transcript of Emma Watson's 2016 U.N. Speech on Gender Equality
• Top 20 Influential Modern Feminist Theorists
• Black History and Women Timeline 1860-1869
• Black History Timeline: 1920–1929

The tactics of culture jamming

• Marianne Brown

The Resurgence Trust

The successes of the campaign against oil sponsorship of the arts show too that it works.

A dancer in a black tutu emblazoned with the yellow and green burning sun of BP’s logo poses with her arms stretched above her head.

This article first appeared in the  Resurgence & Ecologist  magazine.  Find out more .

At her feet, bodies in colourful waterproofs and eye masks saying ‘Earth’ lie collapsed on the cold grey pavement of a Glasgow street.

They sing “Extinction” softly and in tight harmony. A banner attached to the advertising board outside the theatre presents the message in the starkest terms: ‘Get oil out of the arts.'

In the finale, the dancer is gradually 'persuaded' to remove the BP logo, to much celebration from the choir.

The performance was part of a musical protest outside the Theatre Royal by BP or not BP? and Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir in the final days of COP26.

A few months later, life imitated art as the Scottish Ballet announced in February that it was cutting ties with its oil sponsor.

The news came on the same day that the National Portrait Gallery in London was also ending its partnership with BP.  

The news was hailed as a “major win” for the campaign group BP or not BP? “One by one cultural organisations are finally making the right ethical decisions,” Zoe Lafferty, a member of the group, said.

The creative tactics wielded by BP or not BP? are epic – not least an action in 2019 that involved the construction of a giant Trojan horse, which they smuggled into the British Museum to protest a BP-sponsored exhibition about the ancient city of Troy.

In an interview shortly before the event, co-founder Jess Worth told Resurgence & Ecologist that the group’s use of humour was a powerful tool “to cut through the PR spin”, as long as the jokes are not disrespectful or flippant.

This taps into what Naomi Klein says in her book No Logo : “Something not far from the surface of the public psyche is delighted to see the icons of corporate power subverted and mocked.”

Cutting through the spin is no easy task within capitalist societies, where it is difficult to escape the coercions of consumerism, the language of advertising permeating and directing so much of our lives.

In the words of critical theorist Herbert Marcuse, in his book One-Dimensional Man , published in 1964: “The people recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment.”

Illuminators

But the use of art and humour can be a very powerful counterforce to this. In a form of protest known as ‘culture jamming’, groups as diverse as the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters , Russia’s musicians Pussy Riot, graffiti artist Banksy in the UK, and international artist collective Brandalism work to subvert the messages of consumerist society through tweaking the wording on billboards and through street art and music.

If culture jamming is anything, writes Mark Dery in the foreword to Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance , it is “the dream of reclaiming our sense of ourselves as citizens in a culture that insists on reducing us to consumers – wallets with mouths, in advertising parlance”.

The term can be defined as negative, as in the blocking of commercial messages, or it can be likened to a musical jam session, an experiment in cultural forms, and becomes something more creative and constructive, “seeking artfully to invent new visions of the future”, according to Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink in their introduction to the same book.

Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping see their role as illuminators in helping people to reclaim a sense of themselves.

They have been doing this for over 20 years, under the direction of Savitri D, through Billy Talen’s sermons and the passionate performance of the choir.

As part of their actions against Bayer/Monsanto, they filled a hearing by the Environmental Protection Agency with gospel-style music, singing “Monsanto is the devil, no glyphosates,” and they marched into a glyphosate chemical plant.

They have ‘exorcised’ a Starbucks and danced through the streets of New York City with Mickey Mouse on a cross. “A lot of our work is just making things visible. Running with a giant neon arrow and pointing at something, that’s a vanguard position. It’s here, the crisis is right here,” Savitri D told Resurgence & Ecologist .

While the work of groups like BP or not BP? focuses a lot on press coverage and social media to disrupt the one-way flow of corporate messaging, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir have a different goal.

“Our mission is to introduce wildness into public space and open up public space into a different kind of behaviour,” Savitri D says. This can be seen in the way they interact with people in the street, singing and dancing. Many bystanders turn and watch: some look shocked or turn away, some laugh, and others even join in.

“The street is a charged space because there are players that you can’t control, pressures that you can’t foresee,” Savitri D says. “The police, casting them in the play, for example. The street has the unknown in it in a very powerful way.”

Advertisements

This ‘wildness’ has to come from inside, Billy continues. “Wildness must come from an invitation to wildness, dancing with wildness, becoming wildness. And let the attacks on wildness, by Bayer/Monsanto for instance, let them be the outsiders and meet them from wildness so you have that strength.”

At a time when it’s all too easy to find yourself sucked into doomscrolling the latest global news, an injection of humour is very welcome.

Whether it is through ‘subvertising’ advertisements on billboards and spreading the word on social media, or via flashmobs and creative actions on the street, the jamming of this consumer messaging is a huge relief.

It gives us the space to step outside our commodified reality and see it for what it really is. The successes of the campaign against oil sponsorship of the arts show too that it works.

Savitri D and Billy Talen take this peaceful protest one step further by inviting us to look away from advertisements and see each other.

This Author

Marianne Brown is editor of Resurgence & Ecologist . This article first appeared in the Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, out now .

Donate to The Ecologist and support high impact environmental journalism and analysis.

'I'd protest again despite prison'

Within the climate emergency

Power in a union

More from this author.

Putting power in the right hands

Thinking differently

Rewilding Britain's waterways

• Editors’ Picks
• Ecologist Writers' Fund
• Biodiversity
• Climate Breakdown
• Economics and policy
• Food and Farming
• Brendan Montague
• Yasmin Dahnoun
• Catherine Early
• Simon Pirani
• Gareth Dale
• Resurgence & Ecologist
• Ecologist recycled
• Megamorphosis

• Architecture and Design
• Asian and Pacific Studies
• Business and Economics
• Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Computer Sciences
• Cultural Studies
• Engineering
• General Interest
• Geosciences
• Industrial Chemistry
• Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Library and Information Science, Book Studies
• Life Sciences
• Linguistics and Semiotics
• Literary Studies
• Materials Sciences
• Mathematics
• Social Sciences
• Sports and Recreation
• Theology and Religion
• Publish your article
• The role of authors
• Promoting your article
• Abstracting & indexing
• Publishing Ethics
• Why publish with De Gruyter
• How to publish with De Gruyter
• Our book series
• Our subject areas
• Your digital product at De Gruyter
• Contribute to our reference works
• Product information
• Tools & resources
• Product Information
• Promotional Materials
• Orders and Inquiries
• FAQ for Library Suppliers and Book Sellers
• Repository Policy
• Free access policy
• Open Access agreements
• Database portals
• For Authors
• Customer service
• People + Culture
• Journal Management
• How to join us
• Working at De Gruyter
• Mission & Vision
• De Gruyter Foundation
• De Gruyter Ebound
• Our Responsibility
• Partner publishers

Your purchase has been completed. Your documents are now available to view.

Culture Jamming

Activism and the art of cultural resistance.

• Edited by: Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink
• Preface by: Mark Dery
• X / Twitter

Please login or register with De Gruyter to order this product.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Copyright year: 2017
• Audience: Professional and scholarly;
• Other: 9 Illustrations, color, 51 black and white illustrations
• Published: February 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781479850815

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Culture Jamming: Perspectives by Incongruity and Polemical Intertextuality

Related Papers

Design & Activism

Pierre Smolarski

Rhetoric can be seen as an art of identification (K. Burke) and that is – first of all – an art of affirmation. Nonetheless there are both subversive means (for example in guerrilla marketing) and also subversive motives (ends) as in forms of culture jamming, and the success of both is bound to their ways to offer cues of identification. A rhetoric of subversion will show which strategies are successfully possible. In the heart of this rhetorical enquiry stands one of the master tropes of the present days (in entertainment, commercials, forms of protest and also in design) and its counterpart: irony and authority.

in Navas E., Gallagher O. and Burrough X., (eds.) Routledge Companion to Remix Studies

Paolo Peverini

Even though remix practices are a very complex phenomenon and their impact on media genres and audiences is undeniable, it is only recently that scholars tried to legitimate transformative works as a serious area of study. In this essay we focus on remixes intended as texts, privileging a semiotic approach. In particular we argue that the analysis of sign processes and systems of communication is very useful, both on a theoretical and on a methodological level, to deepen comprehension of this kind of hybrid texts. The essay concentrates on audiovisual remixes, precisely on tactics and strategies planned by activists to involve public opinion with respect to issues like environmental protection or freedom of expression. The hypothesis is that the effectiveness of some of the most radical and innovative creative protests is based on the ability to recognize and manage remixes intended as techno-political tools, even though in the digital media milieu the most original campaigns are rapidly assimilated by unconventional marketing strategies, triggering a process of progressive standardization. Through the analysis of some exemplary campaigns planned by GreenPeace and Wikileaks we try to demonstrate that an emerging trend consists in a gradual stratification of texts used to address the receivers. The aim is to provoke a reaction while at the same time entertaining the audience, remixing in an ironic way various intertextual and interdiscurisive references. The first part of the article delves into the matter of a semiotics of remix, the second section focuses on its use in subversive advertisement, typical of culture jamming, the final paragraph examines how activists combine remix with camouflage tactics concealing at a first sight the very objective of their discourse and renegotiating the fiduciary contract with their audiences.

Curriculum Inquiry

Jennifer Sandlin

Davi A Thornton

Memetics, the emerging and contested ''science'' of the meme, has much to offer critical communication studies. The meme, a replicator that functions as the basic unit of cultural change, is a valuable practical tool for rhetorical critics, and it is particularly useful for critical/cultural analysts interested in the seemingly superficial and trivial elements of popular culture. In addition to its functional utility, memetics issues a productive theoretical challenge to that trajectory of communication scholarship that seeks to further the materialist rhetorical project by developing and deploying the ideograph, the only significant methodological tool developed for the purposes of materialist criticism. Through a contrast between the ''geographical'' meme and the ''historical'' ideograph, I explore the utility of the meme as a productive concept for the analysis of contemporary culture. Memetics, the emerging and contested ''science'' of the meme, has much to offer critical communication studies. The meme, a replicator that functions as the basic unit of cultural change, is a valuable practical tool for rhetorical critics, and it is particularly useful for critical/cultural analysts interested in the seemingly superficial and trivial elements of popular culture. In addition to its functional utility, memetics issues a productive theoretical challenge to that trajectory of communication scholarship that seeks to further the materialist rhetorical project by developing

MATERIAL, http://www.materialpress.org

Nate Harrison

Lillian Boxman-Shabtai

The ubiquity of intertextuality in internet culture has ignited long-standing debates about the cultural significance of parody as a device of commentary and as civic speech. It also raises concerns about the legal implications of unprecedented uses of copyrighted material. This paper examines how YouTube videos, self-labeled by their creators as " parody " , reframe the meaning structures of copyrighted material. Focusing on representations of gender in the music industry, it probes 100 music video parodies through a qualitative textual analysis. The paper offers a typology of five interpretive configurations underscoring the relationships between originals and their renditions. While the majority of parodies did not convey the critical commentary that their label promised, most of them did aspire to transform the meaning of the music videos. The typology, which presents a discrepancy between textual and societal forms of critique, is discussed in relation to its contribution to broader evaluations of media audiences and user-generated-content.

Heidi E. Huntington

Moritz Fink , Marilyn DeLaure

Introduction to the edited volume published by New York University Press

International Journal of Communication

This article investigates the deployment of Internet memes in a 2018 boycott campaign that targeted three major corporate brands tightly associated with the dominant sphere of power in Morocco. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, the study analyzes discursive choices made in the production of memes circulated during the boycott, and the intersections between satirical humor and online participatory culture. We argue that these memes are “tactics” resorted to by the subaltern in their struggle for social justice. Although these tactics lack a “proper” locus where they can keep their “wins,” they allow the weak to carve out a space from where to effectively challenge the dominant power structures. The article contributes to the still limited body of research exploring Internet memes as multimodal political discourse and to the study of humor as a fundamental discursive aspect of Internet memes.

RELATED PAPERS

npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Medical Journal Armed Forces India

Sheila Mathai

Atas do ...

carolina soares

Jurnal Hortikultura Indonesia

sandra aziz

Enfermería Comunitaria

Alfonso Miguel García Hernández

Nura Hassan

Pfarelo Manavhela

International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation

Phalisteen Sultan

Biology of the Cell

Robert Bellé

IRJET Journal

Advances in Materials Science and Engineering

Dr Nandini Robin Nadar

Alex Coelho

Plant Physiology

Cityadvertising

Nitin Kumar Srivastav

Food and Chemical Toxicology

Eduardo Masat

Åshild Kristine Andreassen

IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging

Erick Samit Rodriguez

Physical Review D

KHIN RUPAR MAUNG

Jolita Vveinhardt

Bulletin De La Societe Entomologique De France

jean gey etienne

Hidaya Izza

Quarterly of Applied Psychology

فصلنامه روان‌شناسی کاربردی Applied Psychology , A. Aghaziarati

Raffaella Regina

Ulrico Agnati

SDE Akademi Dergisi

Muhammed Sezgin

See More Documents Like This

Culture Jamming - Essay Example

• Subject: Visual Arts & Film Studies
• Type: Essay
• Level: Masters
• Pages: 1 (250 words)
• Downloads: 3
• Author: torey54

Extract of sample "Culture Jamming"

Culture Jamming Culture Jamming Cultural Jamming is an idea supporting anti-consumerism that aims to disrupt and undermine the media culture and the areas where it is being utilized including corporate advertising. Culture jamming is often used as a means to “subvertising”, i.e. making parodies of the existing corporate advertisements by either altering their existing logos and ads or creating new images that target the best-known brands among the many. Culture jammers, intends to emphasize the personal freedom of consumers and the domination of society instead of the domination of corporations and brand names.

One of the culture jammers depicted in the short clip from Jill Sharpe’s video Culture Jam rightly defines the idea of culture jamming as "The way to protect yourselves in insidious corporate culture is to take the classic expressions of that corporate culture and add a little twist that redefines their meaning in a revolutionary direction and send it back in their faces." Culture jamming techniques include transforming logos, remaking advertisements, and altering the fashion statements in an ironic and humorous way, using the same communication medium, which attempts to take out the hype and restore the human mind to its original unbiased state.

According to culture jammers, this can bring a major change in this age of globalization as viewers realize that they have been fooled by the insidious corporate culture. The issue focused on culture jamming is definitely important, as corporate culture and advertising certainly do try to capture the hearts and minds of the masses by evoking their emotions. Culture jamming hence attempts to negate the effect by subverting those effects and hoping for a major change in culture and society.

Culture jamming is often seen as an act of vandalism which has certainly blemished their image and primary objective. But the intentions of culture jammers are far different from the people causing destruction. It must also be noted that along with criticizing the existing media culture, there is also the need to offer an alternative social culture by the culture jammers. References Nomai, A. J. (2008). Culture jamming: Ideological struggle and the possibilities for social change.

• Cited: 0 times
• Copy Citation Citation is copied Copy Citation Citation is copied Copy Citation Citation is copied

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Culture Jamming

Cultural studies, naomi kleins work no logo, third world feminism/pop culture and media, strategy recommendation, consumer behavior, critical issues in marketing, interventionist artists, graffiti - art or crime in the us.

• TERMS & CONDITIONS
• PRIVACY POLICY
• COOKIES POLICY

Advertisement

Israel’s Military Cancels Leave for Combat Units and Jams GPS Signals

Though no reason was given for the moves, Israeli newspapers said they came amid fears of an increased threat from Iran after an Israeli strike in Syria.

• Share full article

By Cassandra Vinograd

Reporting from Jerusalem

• April 4, 2024

Israel’s military said on Thursday that it was canceling leave for combat units, calling up more reservists and blocking GPS signals.

The Israeli military did not explicitly cite the reason behind the moves. Israeli newspapers said they came amid fears of an increased threat from Iran , a prospect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to in remarks to his Security Cabinet on Thursday night.

“For years, Iran has been acting against us both directly and via its proxies; therefore, Israel is acting against Iran and its proxies, defensively and offensively,” he said, without directly referring to the military’s moves. “We will know how to defend ourselves, and we will act according to the simple principle of whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm them.”

President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran has vowed to punish Israel for killing top Iranian commanders this week in an airstrike in Syria. The attack was one of the deadliest in a decades-long shadow war between the two enemies, and American officials have voiced concerns that it could prompt retaliatory strikes against Israel or its ally, the United States.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday night that it had decided to draft reserve soldiers for its aerial defense unit. It did not provide further details.

An announcement about pausing leave for all combat units came in another brief statement, issued on Thursday morning. The military said the decision — which it described as temporary — was taken given “the latest situational assessment,” adding that Israel is “at war and the deployment of forces is under continuous assessment.”

A military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said later on Thursday that Israel also had been disrupting GPS signals over the past day to intercept any threats. He did not attribute those threats to Iran or any group or country in particular.

“During the war, we dealt with a large number of threats launched toward Israel — missiles, UAVs and cruise missiles,” he told a news briefing, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, like drones, and adding that “most of them were manufactured in Iran.”

The moves come as Israel’s military is under strain from months of fighting against Hamas in Gaza. Reservists have been called to serve longer or additional tours of duty, and a fierce national debate over whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should be required to join the army has been reignited.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to press on in Gaza with a ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge. His promise to invade Rafah comes despite mounting calls for a cease-fire and international criticism over Israel’s conduct in the war.

U.S. officials have expressed alarm over the scale of civilian deaths in Gaza and warned that Israel’s plans to invade Rafah could lead to catastrophe. Israel’s deadly strikes on a convoy of aid workers this week amplified those concerns, prompting sharp critiques from President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

President Biden threatened to add a condition on future support for Israel on how it addresses concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza , prompting Israel to commit to letting more food and supplies  into the besieged enclave.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is facing challenges on multiple fronts:   domestic support is eroding, there is  international fury over the death toll in Gaza, and the fallout from the killing of seven aid workers has heightened global anger.

A series of Israeli failures , including a breakdown in communication and violations of the rules of engagement, led to the deadly airstrikes that killed seven humanitarian aid workers  in Gaza.

Internal Roil at TikTok: TikTok has been dogged for months by accusations that its app has shown a disproportionate amount of pro-Palestinian and antisemitic content to users. Some of the same tensions  have also played out inside the company.

Palestinian Detainees: Israel has imprisoned more than 9,000 Palestinians suspected of militant activity . Rights groups say that some have been abused or held without charges.

A Hostage’s Account: Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, is the first former hostage to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted  during captivity in Gaza.

A Power Vacuum: Since the start of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has done little to address the power vacuum that would appear after Israeli forces leave Gaza. The risks of inaction are already apparent in Gaza City .