Culture jamming

Satirical billboard graffiti in Shoreditch, London
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Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication)[1][2] is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements[3] to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It attempts to "expose the methods of domination" of mass society.[4]

Culture jamming employs techniques originally associated with Letterist International, and later Situationist International known as détournement. It uses the language and rhetoric of mainstream culture to subversively critique the social institutions that produce that culture. Tactics include editing company logos to critique the respective companies, products, or concepts they represent, or wearing fashion statements that criticize the current fashion trends by deliberately clashing with them.[5] Culture jamming often entails using mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, commonly using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is also a form of subvertising.[6][7]

Culture jamming is intended to expose questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture, and can be considered a reaction against politically imposed social conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the Billboard Liberation Front and contemporary artists such as Ron English. Culture jamming may involve street parties and protests. While culture jamming usually focuses on subverting or critiquing political and advertising messages, some proponents focus on a different form which brings together artists, designers, scholars, and activists[8] to create works that transcend the status quo rather than merely criticize it.[9][10]

  1. ^ Fyfe, Nicholas R. Images of the street: planning, identity, and control in public space. p. 274 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Grindon, Gavin (2008). Aesthetics and Radical Politics. Cambridge Scholars. ISBN 9781847189790 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Binay, Ayse (2005). Investigating the Anti-consumerism Movement in North America: The Case of Adbusters (Thesis). University of Texas.
  4. ^ Nomai, Afsheen Joseph (2008). Culture Jamming: Ideological Struggle and the Possibilities for Social Change (Thesis). The University of Texas at Austin. p. 5 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Boden, Sharon and Williams, Simon J. (2002) "Consumption and Emotion: The Romantic Ethic Revisited", Sociology 36(3):493–512
  6. ^ Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul (2008). Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-7425-5539-6. Retrieved 3 December 2012.
  7. ^ Raoul, Vyvian; Bonner, Matt (2022-11-28). "Subvertising: Sharing a Different Set of Messages". The Commons Social Change Library. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  8. ^ Bieling, Tom (Ed.) (2019): Design (&) Activism – Perspectives on Design as Activism and Activism as Design. Mimesis, Milano; ISBN 978-8869772412
  9. ^ LeVine, Mark (2005). Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
  10. ^ Milstein, Tema; Pulos, Alexis (2015-09-01). "Culture Jam Pedagogy and Practice: Relocating Culture by Staying on One's Toes". Communication, Culture & Critique. 8 (3): 395–413. doi:10.1111/cccr.12090. ISSN 1753-9137.