Thinking About Culture

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In the short period of researching for ideas and examples of pop culture jams and messages, we as a group found that while these culture jams had great messages and could potentially make a difference on a personal level. The overall, idea of culture jams were, in a macroscopic view, not making a large difference in the way it protests and blocks the overall societal view. It is largely an underground “rebellion” that is overlooked and lost because of unawareness by many due to some of the forms it is presented in. We felt that there is not enough public awareness and education on the culture jamming available to the public and therefore, they are ignorant to the fact that it is available to them.

The overall intentions of culture jamming are definitely in the right place, however, the overall effect is narrow on the effected populace. This is because it is somewhat elitist in subject matter in which it demands a certain level of education and awareness to understand it. Such as the “buying nothing for one day” (https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd) jam. While this idea is great concept, it proves unrealistic in the way it could not be achieved at a macroscopic level. This would only be effective at a local level which inevitably would have negative consequences on privately owned businesses. Culture jams seem to live between that of civic art, in the subject matter covered and guerrilla art by the forms in which it’s presented. We found that the overall effect of civic art is too elitist in intention and represents the upper-middle class rather than including the lower socioeconomic masses as well. The guerrilla, more primitive, underground art form is viewed as a lower form of artistic expression, which receives less merit as a form of art because of this and therefore receives less attention from the upper or upper middle class. Guerrilla art such as the sticker that was attached to a skin care ad (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mixthemessage-com_fansite/4019881544/in/pool-adbusters) in our blog is a part of an underground movement and exemplifies the simplistic effective forms it can take. Although both civic art and guerrilla art, in culture jams, are speaking to the same cause of disruption they are viewed on two different levels which clash.

While Culture jamming is a somewhat effective rally against westernized, patriarchal conformity, such as the “Thank you Corporate America” (http://webct.lakeheadu.ca/SCRIPT/57264/scripts/serve_home) post;
It has its limitations as an effective feminist tool depending on how the message is presented and where. Culture jamming is a great tool for the public to get their message across to the masses; however, it is a hidden form of protest that is a disruption to the popular ideologies that rule our societies. For this reason, it is silenced by the dominating ideologies of society and the disrupting messages brought from culture jamming are therefore taken underground because of its defying nature.