Download Culture Jamming: Using Mass Media to Protest Against

Chapter 11 – Current Events
‘Culture Jamming: Using Mass Media to Protest Against Mass Media’
LEAD STORY-DATELINE: The Weekend Australian, January 20 - 21, 2001
Have you every seen a billboard you think is offensive - maybe you think the language is sexist
like the Chivas Regal billboards in Sydney that proclaimed 'Yes, God is a man!'? Or an
advertisement that you think encourages excessive consumption - like the slogans extolling you to
buy, buy, buy and buy some more hanging from the rafters in malls around Australia every
Christmas season? If you discuss it with friends and family, you are an informed consumer who is
critically evaluating advertising. If you write a letter of complaint to the company or the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission [ACCC], you are a concerned citizen asserting your right
to be heard. If you grab a can of spray paint and use it to obliterate or change the billboard
message or if you create spoof ads portraying camels in coffins under the title 'Joe Chemo' then
you are ........ a culture jammer.
If, in 1993, your Barbie doll demanded 'Vengeance is mine' while your GI Joe asked you to go
shopping or plan your dream wedding, you were the victim of the Barbie Liberation Organization,
a group of culture jammers.
'Jamming is old citizen band slang for the illegal practice of electronically interrupting radio shows'
according to an article called 'Culture on the skids' in the Weekend Australian. You may have
heard of the band Negativland, not so much for their music but their coining of the term 'culture
jamming' to describe forms of media sabotage. The message on their 1985 album cover stated the
basic principles of culture jamming: 'As awareness of how the media environment we occupy
affects and directs our inner life grows, some resist. The studio for the culture jammer is the world
at large'.
According to Kalle Lasn, the editor of Adbusters, the international magazine devoted to culture
jamming, 'culture jammers are people that don't like consumer culture and they try every which
way they can to get that culture to bite it's own tail'. Lasn sees culture jamming as a form of
media resistance where mass media is used against itself, whether by defacing offending
billboards, placing spoof ads in magazines or using television to get their message to the masses.
Jamming has been increasing in popularity according to Lasn because 'people are slowly becoming
more detached from popular culture'. He sees culture as a top down process now, controlled and
shaped by the 3000 marketing messages that most consumers are exposed to daily, with
advertisers and corporations 'spoon-feeding our culture to us'. Jamming allows individuals to
reclaim their cultures, returning it to the bottom-up process of yesteryear.
It may surprise you that Australia is one of the most active jamming countries in the world. 2000
of Adbusters magazine's 100,000 subscribers are Australian. From 1979 - 1989, a group called
BUGA UP [Billboards Utilising Grafitists Against Unhealthy Promotions] annoyed Australia's alcohol
and cigarette companies, creatively changing billboard messages - you may have seen some of
their work. 7U? in Sydney, Marcsta in Melbourne and the Blind Authority Manipulation Corporation
in Adelaide continue Australia's 'proud tradition of billboard banditry'. So too FUGG, the Feminist
Underground Guerilla Group, who launch monthly spray attacks against billboards they believe
negatively portray or objectify women. Some of their recent targets have included a company that
used a half-naked woman to sell shoes and Chivas Regal's 'God' ad. According to Florette [not her
real name] of FUGG, freedom of speech has become a farcical concept where it can now be
bought. She believes that is what companies are doing when they buy billboards and other forms
of advertising that 'objectify women or display racist or homophobic images'. She sees culture
jamming as empowering - returning the power to consumers.
Adbusters, besides its magazine and website, tries to take things one step further. Besides
creating spoof ads, they also create television campaigns attacking the media. According to Lasn
'Advertising - commercial culture - preys upon people's insecurities ....telling you that you'd better
go out and consume .... that you can solve the problem by buying a cool pair of jeans or investing
in a really cool car'. As would be expected, getting the media to place these ads has not been
easy. Most North American television stations refuse to place the ads, with the notable exception
of CNN.
One of Adbusters' most successful social marketing campaigns has been Buy Nothing Day,
launched in 1991 and held on November 24th in 2000 with over 45 countries such as Israel and
Japan participating.
Lasn believes that the backlash against traditional mass media and the 'commercialisation of our
mental environment' will continue. He sees culture jamming as revamping and reinventing 'every
nook and cranny of our culture' much as movements like feminism and environmental protection
have in the past.
TALKING IT OVER AND THINKING IT THROUGH
1.
Do you believe that culture jammers such as FUGG are effective in getting their messages
across to the broader community? If so, why; if not, why not?
2.
Do you believe that the broader community is interested in the messages sent by culture
jammers? If so, why; if not, why not?
3.
Do you believe that is it acceptable for culture jammers to break the law [for example,
defacing billboards] in the interest of free speech?
4.
Visit Adbusters' web site at http://www.adbusters.org. Do you think that Adbusters has
been effective in using the Internet to criticise mass media? If so, why; if not, why not?
You might also find it interesting to review some of their spoof ads [including Joe Chemo]
at http://www.adbusters.org/spoofads/index.html
5.
Do you believe that advertising creates its own 'commercial culture'? If so, why; if not,
why not?
6.
Do you believe that a 'commercial culture' can exist alongside 'popular culture'? If so,
why; if not, why not?
THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE!
Popular culture is by definition the culture of the day. Select three popular press magazines, one
targeting primarily males, one targeting primarily females and one specifically targeting teens.
Monitor the advertising contained in each magazine over time. Do you notice changes? If so, do
you believe these changes mirror changes in popular culture? Do you observe any changes that
you believe are contrary to popular culture?
DIGGING DEEPER!
Critics of advertising contend that it shapes society, that it not only provides information but
transmits its own self-serving values, norms and ethical/moral standards to members of the
society. Defenders of advertising contend that it reflects the society within which it operates, that
it 'speaks the language' of the values, norms and ethical/moral standards that already exist in that
culture.
What role do you see advertising playing in modern Australian society? Do you believe that
governments need to take a more proactive role in monitoring and controlling advertising efforts?
SOURCE: 'Culture on the skids', The Weekend Australian, January 20 - 21, 2001, pp. 2 and
3.
Jan Charbonneau