Cultures are constantly being reinvented, and are “always the site for struggles for meaning.” (Sturken et al, 2009) In cultural arenas such as politics, consumer life, and art, dominant values are constantly questioned and counteracted. Culture jamming started as a revolt against the mass production of products, consumerism and capitalism and the environmental and social issues that go along with that (Liacas). It uses the forms, language and logos of the powerful production companies as a way to get across its message. Along with culture jamming in Western cultures, globalization has caused jammers to start up across the globe, in attempts to counter act the damages that have been done by production companies to include sweat shops, advertising, low paying jobs, and mass media focused on selling products (Liacas).
Culture jamming started early in our history, and has remerged due to the acceleration of new companies, products, media and internet spreading advertisements and messages. Some of the very first culture jams were done by activists with spray cans, they rewrote the messages of billboard advertisements, “changing the slogans in hopes of startling viewers into thinking about messages differently” (Sturken et al, 2009) Culture jammers began with using whatever they could to get their message across to an audience. With such a wide audience to target, using a spray can and billboard or poster was a rudimentary way to reach the most people. Today, activists have started producing the culture jams to fight against the fact that only a few companies owning and producing the majority of things we consume (Liacas). Remakes of ads and parodies “are deploying new tactics and creating ambiguous brand meanings through postmodern style… thus the distinction between ads and anti-ads is increasingly difficult to make.” (Struken et al, 2009) Culture jamming has changed from the basic need to express one’s self to a highly technological way for activists to get their message out. The remaking advertisements show the new found sophistication that culture jamming has adopted. As in the development of anything, culture jamming began from a need and grew in to something recognizable and popular.
The term cultural appropriation is the process of “borrowing and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion” (Sturken et al, 2009) and it has been used by culture jammers and artists to make statements that resist dominant ideologies. Cultural appropriation can create multiple meanings, building off the reversal of the original. Culture jammers use media and internet tools to get their messages across, using the same tools that advertising and production companies’ use. Many critics of culture jamming ask if something that uses the mainstream can also change it? (Liacas) Some research suggests that even though culture jams alone are not stopping mass consumption/production, they are changing the ways in which products are being made and sold (Carducci, 2006). Because of culture jamming and the activism against the issues surrounding mass production, many companies have "gone green", and taken anti sweat shop policies (Carducci, 2006). So even though, the problem is not completely solved, activism has made some impact. The area that culture jamming can make the most impact in is with the public. Informing and motivating the public is what culture jamming started out doing and it is what activists and protesters are still working for today. “In a commercial-dominated society in which 'culture' is often defined simply as a set of objects, images, and artifacts to be purchased and amassed, participating in individual and community-based forms of cultural production and resistance is seen by culture jammers as an essential component of responsible democratic engagement with the ideology of the everyday.” (Darts 2004)
Danger Powers, Abbey Road, BritFan
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