WEEK 5 - TUTESPARK

CULTURE JAMMING

A form of political and social activism which, by means of fake adverts, hoax news stories, pastiches of company logos and product labels, computer hacking, etc., draws attention to and at the same time subverts the power of the media, governments, and large corporations to control and distort the information that they give to the public in order to promote consumerism, militarism, etc.

THE FIRST CULTURE JAM

The term culture jamming was coined by the college band Negativland back in 1994. The phrase comes from the idea of radio jamming, that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independant communication, or to dusrupt dominant frequencies. Even though Negativland coined the term culture jamming can be traced back a long way. One particular influential European group called the Situationists and was 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. But other historians point to the Dada movement or even the Orson Welle's "War of the World's" broadcast in the 30's as possible earlier examples of cultural jamming.

MOST INFLUENTIAL CULTURE JAM

The most influential culture jam is open to interpretation because what may have been influential to one person may not be to another. But in saying that one influential culture jam provided to us in the tutorial for that week was the music video made on Wall street by Rage Against the Machine and Micheal Moore. They promoted a free concert to be held in the middle of America's and possible the worlds economic heart, Wall street. This concert closed down the stock market for one of the few times in history and cost alot of people alot of money. But since this was deemed a cop-out if used I will state another. It may not necessarily be the most influential but it is one of the most famous, the Orson Welle's "War of the World's" broadcast which aired in 1938. The airing of this broadcast caused widespread panic among listener's who really thought their was an alien invasion going on outside.

Orson Welle's War of the World's Broadcast (Part 1)

MOST DAMAGING CULTURE JAM

If a culture jam is to be truly successful it must be damaging to the target and undamaging to everything else. After much searching I couldn't find a culture jam of sinificant impact to be labelled damaging. The only thing I could think of was the tutorial culture jam we were talking about and how to some that would have definitely been seen as damaging as the concert held be Rage Against the Machine shut down the stock market and cost some people alot of money.

REFERENCE LIST

• Good. (2006). A Brief History of Culture Jamming. Retrieved August 27, 2010, from http://www.good.is/post/a-brief-history/
• Guidomedia. (n.d). Culture Jammers. Retrieved August 27, 2010, from http://www.guidomedia.com/culturejammers.html
• Nome, D. (n.d). Culture Jamming. Retrieved August 27, 2010, from http://www.anthrobase.com/Txt/N/Nome_D_01.htm
• The Free Online Dictionary. (2010). Culture Jamming. Retrieved August 27, 2010, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/culture+jamming