Culture Jamming

Culture jamming is a form of art used to disrupt and upset the mainstream institutions or advertising. It uses existing advertisements or logos, alters their intended usage or meaning and creates them into a parody. Many times the statement the creator is trying to make opposes what the existing advertisement believes or supports. Culture jammers use this to show the strong contrast between what moral values they uphold compared to what certain companies, or even the government may want you to believe.

Culture jamming functions like any other form of advertising, “It can help outreach by functioning as normal advertising does, influencing viewers to change their ideas and behaviors, or reinforce the attitudes of those who already agree. (As a result, it can even be somewhat useful for making change directly for issues the public has scant awareness of)” (1). These advertisements and art pieces make people think about the true messages corporations are trying to send out. The only reason why culture jamming is not as successful as commercial scale advertising is because they do not have the funds to thrust repetitious advertisements on society.

Culture jammers thrive on pushing the boundaries and creating powerful statements opposing conformity. “We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we live in the 21^st century” (2). Adbusters defines themselves as pranksters, which is not seeing in a very positive light, yet they do this to show that ever action they perform is in hopes of changing our society for the better.

The example I choose was a photo of a baby with all the different popular logos and symbols seemingly tattooed on his body. The message that is trying to by emitted is that from birth we are bombarded with ads and companies trying to capture our attention from the youngest age possible. Once they get your attention these companies try and push their lifestyle choices on you. This has a great effect on your life, almost as if you were tattooed with logo.

Work Cited

1. Faludi, Jeremy. “What is Culture Jamming Good For?” Worldchanging. 8 Aug. 2005. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. .

2. “About Adbusters.: Adbusters. Web. 20 Nov 2009. .