When investigating the term culture jamming i came across numerous terms which need to understood in order to properly engage and fully acknowledge the term "culture jam."
Here are some terms which I found useful in order to understand the experience of "culture jamming."
Culture Jamming: a form of political and social activism which, by means of fakeadverts, hoax news stories, pastiches of company logos andproduct labels, computer hacking, etc, draws attention to and atthe same time subverts the power of the media, governments,and large corporations to control and distort the information thatthey give to the public in order to promote consumerism,militarism, etc
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/culture+jamming
Mainstream: belonging to or characteristic of a principal, dominant, orwidely accepted group, movement, style, etc.: mainstreamRepublicans; a mainstream artist.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Mainstreams
Subvertising: refers to the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements. Subvertisements may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image, often in a satirical manner. A subvertisement can also be referred to as a meme hack and can be a part of social hacking or culture jamming.
Sore-Loserman: From political parody to charity's windfall. CNN. 4 Dec. 2000.
Radio Jamming: is the (usually deliberate) transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal to noise ratio. Unintentional jamming occurs when an operator transmits on a busy frequency without first checking whether it is in use, or without being able to hear stations using the frequency. Another form of unintentional jamming occurs when equipment accidentally radiates a signal, such as a cable TV plant that accidentally emits on an aircraft emergency frequency.
Audio sample of jamming (c1982) at start of BBC World service (Russian) programme
Guerrilla communication and communication guerrilla: refer to unconventional forms of communication and/or intervention in public events or discourse, for reasons ranging from political activism to marketing.
Memefest, international festival of radical communication
Examples of culture Jamming
Original Culture Jam:
Culture Jamming was originally coined by the San Fransisco band Negativland, when they released JamCon'84. However, evidence of modern culture jamming can date back as far as the 1950's when the European Situationists were active, being led by Guy Debord.
Their main argument was based on the idea that in the past humans dealt with life and the consumer market directly. They argued that this spontaneous way of life was slowly deteriorating as a direct result of the new "modern" way of life. Situationalists saw everything from television to radio as a threat. The situationist International (SI) also played a dominant role in promoting the idea of cultre jamming in the minds of society during the late 1960's. The SI first compared its own activities to radio jamming in 1968, when it proposed the use of guerrilla communication within mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture.
Dery, Mark (1993). Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs. Open Magazine Pamphlet Series: NJ."Shovelware". Markdery.com. Retrieved 2009-07-23
Kyoto Journal: Culture Jammer's Guide to Enlightenment
Most Influential Culture Jam:
"Culture jammers will often use common memes to such as the McDonald's golden arches or Nike swoop to engage people and force them to think about their eating habits or fashion sense[7] In one example, jammer Jonah Perreti used the Nike symbol to stir debate on sweatshop child labor and consumer freedom. Perreti made public exchanges between himself and Nike over a disagreement. Perreti had requested custom Nikes with the word "sweatshop" placed in the Nike symbol. Nike, of course, disagreed. Once this story was made public over Perreti's website it spread world wide and sparked the conversation and dialogue about Nike's use of sweatshops."
Tietchen, T. Language out of Language: Excavating the Roots of Culture Jamming and Postmodern Activism from William S. Burroughs' Nova Trilogy Discourse: Berkeley Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. 23, Part 3 (2001): 107-130.
I have attached the link of the emails to and from Perriti regarding His Nike "sweatshop shoes."
http://www.shey.net/niked.html
Most Damaging Culture Jam:
A culture Jam that i found most damaging was where Adbusters sought legal action where they were able to legalling jam Car advertisements regarding climate change. I think that considering that climate change is so sensationalised in the mass media and it is insesintly being discussed in politics, that in the 21st centruy it would be most damaging. It alsio highlights the corporate social responisbility that these big organisations should respond to and respect.
It was on "April 3, 2009, the British Columbia Court of Appeal unanimously overturned a BC Supreme Court ruling that previously dismissed the case in February 2008. The court granted Adbusters the ability to legally go after the major corporations that originally refused to air their anti-car ad “Autosaurus”, specifically the Canadian Broadcasting Company and CanWest Global. The ruling represents a big victory for Adbusters, but it is the first step of their intended goal, essentially opening the door for future legal action against the media conglomerates. Co-founder Lasn declared the ruling a success and said, “After 20 years of legal struggle, the courts have finally given us permission to take on the media corporations and hold them up to public scrutiny."
"About Adbusters
"Adbusters Wins Legal Victory in Ongoing Case Against the CBC and CanWest", www.marketwire.com, April 6, 2009
Here are some more examples of Culture Jamming:
