Culture jamming Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Culture Jamming, or sniggling, is the act of using existing mass media to comment on those very media themselves, using the original medium's communication method. It is based on the idea that advertising is little more than propaganda for established interests, and that there is little escape from this propaganda in industrialized nations. Culture jamming differs from artistic appropriation (which is done for art's sake), and from vandalism where destruction or defacement is the primary goal.

The word, "culture jamming" comes from the idea of radio jamming: that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies. The Situationist International first made the comparison to radio jamming in 1968, when it proposed the use of guerrilla communication within mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture. (Kalle Lasn, the founder of AdBusters magazine, wrote a book entitled Culture Jam, but the term predates his title.)

Culture jamming is a form of activism and a resistance movement to the hegemony of popular culture, based on the ideas of "guerrilla communication" and the "detournement" of popular icons and ideas. It has roots in the German concept of spass guerilla, and the Situationist International. Forms of culture jamming include adbusting, performance art, graffiti art and hacktivism (notably cybersquatting).

Table of contents

1 Examples of culture jamming 2 External links 3 Culture jammers

Examples of culture jamming

• Billboard modifications, done in the style of the original billboard.
• The appropriation of corporate logos for evangelical purposes. Christian groups have appropriated the 'Cover The Earth' logo of the Sherwin-Williams paint company, and modified the Coca-Cola trademark to read, 'Jesus, he's the real thing.'
• Modifying slogans to create political statements. For example "Just do it... or else!" was used as a modified slogan to comment on Nike's alleged sweat shop practices.
• Google bombing, a widespread effort to purposely influence the automated association of specific keywords with results produced by internet search engines, especially Google. One practice of this has been associate the names of public figures and public institutions with humiliating and denigrating keywords, such as the phrase, 'miserable failure,' which, when typed into Google, yields the White House biography of U.S. President George W. Bush. The title of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 was later also connected to the term in the same way. Technically, google bombing works because the hyperlink has the address of the target with the text being the keyword that the googlebomber wants to have associated with the target.
• The Who's classic 1967 album The Who Sell Out, featuring satirical faux commercials on the cover and between between the tracks.
• The band Negativland's Dispepsi album, in which recordings related in some way to soft drinks are used to comment (in a negative way) on the beverage industry and its marketing practices.
• The Church of Satan's ad featuring founder Anton Szandor LaVey holding a snake in the style of Apple Computer's "Think Different" campaign.

See also: Culture, Guerrilla communication, Meme, Situationism, KLF, Subvertising, AdBusters, the Publixtheatre Caravan, Graffiti Art, Sousveillance

External links

• Sniggle.Net, The Culture Jammers' Encyclopedia
• Happyclown Inc.

Culture jammers

• Brainsnap
• Billionaires for Bush
• ACTivist Magazine
• Adbusters
• Subvertisers
• People Like Us
• Deportation Alliance
• The Yes Men
• Mao Dada
• Chumbawamba
• D.SEC
• Negativland
• Idiosyntactix
• Billboard Liberation Front
• "I Chuj" action
• 0100101110101101.org
• Church of Stop Shopping

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